Deportation as Rescue: White Slaves, Women Reformers, and the US Bureau of Immigration

Abstract:In the spring of 1914, the US Bureau of Immigration sent Kate Waller Barrett, a well-known American medical doctor, social reformer, and suffragist, on a three-month trip across Europe to study the sources of the "white slave traffic." Although Barrett stressed her interest in protecting the victims of white slavery, her report focused on the power of the US government to deport noncitizen women for their postentry sexual conduct. Barrett argued that sexually immoral immigrant women could be redeemed through the process of deportation if they were cared for by women immigration officers with the cooperation of women's voluntary organizations around the world. This article examines how Barrett and the Bureau worked together to reconfigure deportation as a protective rather than a punitive act. In doing so, they expanded the authority of white maternalist women's organizations to police poor migrant women and women of color domestically, and to pursue US government interests in the international arena.