Sovereign Mercy: The Legalization of the White Russian Refugees and the Politics of Immigration Relief

* * * The history of the Russian refugees is complex and even troubling; over the course of the twentieth century, they would be the victors and the van- quished and the persecutors and the persecuted. [...] While the term “White Russian” principally refers to the military units that remained loyal to the tsar during the March Revolution and then opposed the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War, it also refers to a broader group, mainly the nobility and the propertied classes, who shared the anti-Bolshevik orientation of the military.20 They, especially the officers and infantrymen, also were inten. [...] It excludes him from the fullest and most useful participation in the life of the country.”106 Based on the findings of the Ellis Island Committee, the INS, with the approval of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, prepared five bills pertaining to deportation and undocumented immigration.107 Closely following the letter and spirit of the Ellis Island Committee Report, one of the bills, H. [...] The legalization of the Russian refugees was less a reflection of the nation’s adherence to abstract humanitarian norms and more a demonstration of the power of the state to dispense compassion in the interests of control. [...] Despite the prevalence of racism and xenophobia and the languishing of immigration and refugee relief in the United States—as attested by the uncertain status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the erosion of refugee and asylum protec- tions for migrants from the Global South—the experience of the Ukrainians demonstrates that the dispensation of sovereign mercy remains well withi.