The American ruling class has a long history of scapegoating immigrant workers in order to divert and undermine the class struggle. Donald Trump’s demagogic attacks on undocumented workers is only the latest iteration of this cynical tactic.

One of the first significant examples of this kind of policy was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which was accompanied by the same anti-immigrant rhetoric being used today.

The first wave of Chinese immigration took place during the California Gold Rush, which peaked in the early 1850s, followed by a second wave in the 1860s during the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Industrial capitalists and railroad owners seized upon this influx of migrants as cheap, highly exploitable labor. In the mines, Chinese workers received as little as $8 a day, while white laborers were paid $20 a day. Out of 12,000 Chinese laborers who built the western portion of the rail line, 1,200 died on the job.

The capitalists also used Chinese workers as scabs in strikes, and deliberately fostered racist animosity to keep the workers divided. At the coal mines in Rock Springs, Wyoming, striking workers were fired en masse in 1871 and replaced by Scandinavian immigrants willing to work for less. When the Scandinavian workers themselves struck in 1875, the company brought in Chinese workers to replace them. By 1884, the mine owners decided to employ only Chinese labor. This was followed by attacks against Chinese workers, culminating in the brutal Rock Springs Massacre, in which white miners killed 28 Chinese miners and burned down their houses.

This cynical campaign of racist scapegoating led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which illegalized Chinese immigration and deprived Chinese immigrants in the US of all citizenship rights. / Image: public domain

The recession known as the Panic of 1873 led to widespread discontent over unemployment. The bourgeois press systematically channeled this anger toward racial hatred of Chinese immigrants, portraying them as immoral and uncivilized people who were taking white workers’ share of the pie. All the while, the capitalists continued to eagerly exploit Chinese labor to maximize profits.

This cynical campaign of racist scapegoating led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which illegalized Chinese immigration and deprived Chinese immigrants in the US of all citizenship rights. Undocumented workers were fined $1,000, sentenced to up to five years in prison, or deported.

Despite the racist propaganda suggesting that white workers would benefit from the anti-Chinese crackdown, the opposite occurred. At the time of the Exclusion Act, Chinese workers had become a critical part of the US workforce, making up 12% of the male working-age population and 21% of the immigrant workforce in the western US. The subsequent exodus of Chinese labor led to a collapse in the labor supply, with the Chinese immigrant workforce declining by 64%. This led to a 62% drop in manufacturing output in the western states, and slowed economic growth until 1940. According to a 2024 study by Harvard University, titled “The Impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on the Economic Development of the Western US,” rather than increasing wages for US-born and white workers, it led to lower wages and worse working conditions,

The legislation was finally repealed in 1943 in an effort by the US ruling class to establish closer ties with China against Japan during WWII. The rhetoric used against Chinese workers back then is the same demagogy used by Trump and the ruling class against Latino immigrants today. The only beneficiaries of racist anti-immigrant policies are the capitalists who drive down wages, pit one section of the workers against another, and squeeze vast profits out of a vulnerable workforce.