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Why Repealing Section 1325 is Crucial
Since the first Democratic debates, Americans have found themselves discussing the legalese of Title 8 U.S. Code § 1325. Many armchair scholars have been weighing in arguing for the need to criminalize people crossing the border. While others argue for the need to repeal the section altogether. As pundits argue its merits, the conversation should be focused on its more sinister origins and its implementations.
To truly understand Section 1325, Title 8 of the U.S. code — the provision in U.S. federal law that criminalizes unlawful entry into the United States — we must look at its origins. Surely, by now you’ve heard of the person behind the law, Coleman Livingston Blease. While others reported on this once-obscure law, the nature of Blease’s racist ideology seems to be mentioned only in passing. As if the premise for such a law was to be regarded as normal for its time, therefore, it’s no big deal. However, the law is a remnant of the horrible stain on our nation’s history known as the Jim Crow era.
Blease wasn’t just an avowed white supremacist, he was the worst of his kind because of the power he wielded as the Mayor of the town he grew up in, as a lawmaker in South Carolina (both in the House and Senate), as the governor of South Carolina, and eventually as a Senator in the United States Senate.
