Chapter 2 addresses the role of the law in the racial makeup of the American populace. Haney López argues that although the country’s racial composition reflects global migration patterns, it is primarily the product of conscious design by law makers. Federal law restricted immigration based on race from the 1880s until 1965. In 1882, for example, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, preventing Chinese laborers from entering the country for 10 years. Congress expanded the act to include all Chinese people in 1884 before implementing it indefinitely. In the same period, Congress also passed a bill barring Black people from immigrating to the US. (The bill stalled in the House after intensive lobbying by special interest groups).

In 1921, Congress implemented temporary quotas privileging immigration from Western and Northern Europe, making the quotas permanent with the National Origin Act of 1924. During the Great Depression, federal immigration officials targeted Mexican immigrants with roundups and mass deportations, resulting in the expulsion of roughly 500,000 people, more than half of them US citizens. In 1954, another one million Mexicans were deported.

Immigration reform led to the removal of racial restrictions on immigration in 1965. That year, Congress abolished the National Origin Act and the Immigration Act of 1917 or the Asiatic Barred Zone, which targeted Asian individuals and prevented them from immigrating to America.