THE HORSESHOE VIRUS

A political work examines anti-immigrant ideas and policies in America from the 19th century to the present.

As an Arizona state senator, Worsley (who also founded the company SkyMall) broke ranks with his fellow Republicans in his vocal opposition to a bill that would allow law enforcement to racially profile and arrest undocumented immigrants. A descendant of Europeans who joined the mass migration movement of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Utah, the author sees the immigration issue as personal. He also spent years as a missionary in South America and helped start multiple Latino Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregations in Mesa, Arizona. The book’s metaphor of describing anti-immigration ideas as a “horseshoe” contends that the “radical ends of the political spectrum often have more in common with each other than they do with the moderate political center.” Indeed, his well-researched history not only critiques today’s xenophobia from the right, particularly from President Donald Trump, but also ironically traces its ideological origins to the left. For example, notable early- 20th-century progressives, such as the leader of the conservationist movement, Madison Grant, and the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, included strict immigration restrictions and racist eugenics in their platforms. Worsley convincingly connects the pseudoscientific racism that permeated the anti-immigration wing of the Progressive Movement to today’s ethnocentrists, particularly John Tanton (the co-founder of the controversial Center for Immigration Studies), who deploy similar environmental and eugenicist arguments in their opposition to immigration. Moreover, even icons of the modern Democratic Party, such as Barbara Jordan—the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South—placed a dramatic reduction of total immigration as a centerpiece of their political agendas through the 1990s. Given Worsley’s proximity to Mesa’s immigrant community, he also provides a detailed look at how state and federal enforcement of racially motivated immigration policies have disrupted the lives of Arizona’s immigrant population. Though the book’s history of the Progressive Movement leaves out supporters of immigration (such as Jane Addams), the work is a solid primer for those looking for an accessible history of anti-immigration movements in the United States and their continued reverberations in contemporary politics.

A compassionate, reasoned look at the left- and right-wing origins of anti-immigration sentiment.