The huge influx of Latinos, Asians and other people of color into the United States over the past 20 years is triggering a revamped understanding of who deserves civil rights, a UC Davis civil rights scholar says.

Kevin Johnson, author of the new book "The 'Huddled Masses' Myth: Immigration and Civil Rights," says that exclusion and deportation of minorities have been "part and parcel" of U.S. immigration laws throughout our nation's history.

However, as immigrants have increasingly become racial minorities in the past two decades, their lack of civil rights has become more troubling, Johnson says. The problems range from English-only laws for obtaining government services to employment discrimination based on citizenship status.

Johnson points to the patterns some immigrant women face without civil rights. Although liberally admitted into the United States as spouses of white U.S. citizens, once here the women face domestic violence and abuse as well as exploitation in low-paying industries or in the sex trades. But they have little recourse besides deportation.

Johnson, a professor of law and Chicana/o studies, calls on U.S. courts to review the constitutionality of executive-branch treatment of noncitizens.

"This would contribute toward a much-needed dialogue between Congress and the courts on the fair and proper treatment of non-citizens, like the dialogues that exists with respect to the rights of minority groups in the United States," he says.

Johnson does see hope in changing attitudes toward immigrants and their civil rights, including the fact that civil rights organizations are fighting for the rights of day laborers, many of them undocumented immigrants, to seek work, and for humane conditions in the garment industry.