"You can’t demolish something unless you know how it’s built. Kelly Lytle Hernández’s brilliant new book lays out a scathing blueprint to help us understand the key roles that racism and white supremacy have always played in our immigration system. As usual, Lytle Hernández gives us a history lesson that lives, breathes, and most importantly, fights back." -Jason De León, author of Soldiers and Kings

"At a moment when the punditry and politics of immigration so distresses the United States, award-winning historian Kelly Lytle Hernández makes it make sense. Racist by Design is a courageous call to conscience that encourages us to resist the forces of history and replace them with possibilities born of struggle." -Martha S. Jones, author of Birthright Citizens

"Based on original research and thinking, Kelly Lytle Hernández explains how America’s immigration law was founded on the racist premise that the country should be for white people. Black, Asian, and Latinx migrants and communities fought for the right to be in the U.S. and persisted in winning some reforms; but the hard truth is that the edifice remains. Lytle Hernández builds on a generation of immigration scholarship and takes it to another level. Important, accessible, and urgent." -Mae Ngai, author of The Chinese Question

"In Racist by Design, Kelly Lytle Hernández brings the same fire she has brought to her scholarship for twenty years, showing how white supremacy has shaped our immigration system. She details how that regime was built, brick by brick, law by law, decision by decision, through precedents, rules, enforcement, and operational protocols. But like anything built, this system can be unbuilt, and Lytle Hernandez gives us the blueprints." -Natalia Molina, author of The Other Immigrant Story

"Kelly Lytle Hernández is unparalleled at unearthing hidden histories of immigrant exclusion in the United States. Racist by Design reveals the depths of white supremacist policymaking and the creative resistance efforts that have challenged it. This illuminating and damning intervention in today’s immigration crisis narratives gives weight to the argument that there can be no migrant justice without racial justice." -Silky Shah, author of Unbuild Walls