In other words, the 1996 laws took the harshest elements of the criminal-justice system—mass incarceration, discriminatory policing, zero tolerance—and injected them into the immigration system.

The 1996 laws greatly expanded the use of secret evidence in deportation. Legal residents accused of “terrorism” were deported without hearing the testimony against them, or who had offered it. Just about every case known to the public was against Arabs or Muslims.

Clinton’s bills, by building a robust pipeline for mass deportation, created the legal architecture for present-day human-rights abuses at the border. Since their passage, the budget for deportation has exploded: from $1.9 billion in 1997 ($3 billion adjusted for inflation) to $21.1 billion by 2018.

When signing the second of the 1996 laws, Clinton said, “It strengthens the rule of law by cracking down on illegal immigration at the border, in the workplace, and in the criminal justice system—without punishing those living in the United States legally.”

But my father was a legal resident. Like so many people seeking a home in America, Dad had a backstory. He was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and uprooted from his homeland in 1947. The British colonizers, as they were leaving the subcontinent, had a man who’d never set foot there draw lines to divide India and Pakistan. Dad became a lifelong migrant, forever picking up and starting over, fated to be irrelevant and stepped on wherever he landed. He—and later, we—were among the early victims of modern low-end globalization.

Dad landed in Queens, New York, in 1981, as did Mom, my big brother and sister, and me. While we overstayed tourist visas, we were able to get green cards (my aunt and her husband, naturalized citizens, sponsored us). We became legal permanent residents. That put us on the fast track to the American dream, or so we thought.

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With papers, I became a precocious scholarship kid at an elite Manhattan prep school that today costs a Tesla a year. Dad started his own business, a wholesale electronics shop on 28th Street and Broadway—the exact same block where he’d once shoveled snow for $5 an hour. He spoke six languages, including English, and could multiply large numbers in his head. He was doing so well, we made the vaunted move to suburban New Jersey and even bought a five-foot-wide TV.

Then, in 1996, Dad and his younger brother, who helped run our store, were arrested and taken to jail on Rikers Island. New York State said they had sold watches and calculators to the wrong guys—members of the notorious Cali drug cartel. They were charged with money laundering. It confused Dad. His electronics store sold to anyone who wanted to buy. “I’m just doing what everyone is doing,” he kept saying.

The defense lawyers we hired told my dad and uncle to take a plea bargain. They could each serve eight months and put the matter behind them, or they could go to trial and face the “trial penalty”—in which case, if convicted, they could serve more than a decade.