Immigration Restrictions

1780-1924Background:

Naturalization Act of 1790“any Alien being a free white person…may be admitted to become a citizen”

Alien/Sedition Acts of 1798

Naturalization ActResidence from 5 to 14 years for citizenship

Alien Enemies ActDeclared war/invasion= jailing/deporting citizens of enemy nation

Alien ActPrez allowed to deport non-US citizens considered dangerous

Sedition ActPermitted imprisonment and fines for criticizing gov’t

Knights of Labor/Page Act

Knights of Labor

Page Act (1875)= Chinese/Japanese/Asian immigration must be “voluntary”

Illegal: Prostitution, Coolie Labor

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

1st major immigration law

No Chinese immigration for 10 yearsChinese can’t be citizens

Why?

Made permanent in 1902

Immigration Restrictions

1882 Prohibitions: “convicts, lunatics, idiots or those not able to take care of themselves”

1891 Prohibitions: “idiots, insane persons, paupers, or persons likely to become a public charge, persons suffering from a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, persons who have been convicted of a felony or other infamous crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, polygamists and also any person whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another”

Dillingham Commission (1907-1910)

Immigration Act of 1907 (Progressives)Congressional committee to investigate immigration

Conclusions“Conceptual dichotomy”= new/old immigrants

Southern/Eastern Europeans threatened U.S. society

Assessing assimilation:English, US citizenship, abandoning native customs

Defined immigrant desirability, “superiority or inferiority”

RACE= central (good vs bad immigrants)

Influences advocacy of literacy tests, quotas

Literacy Tests (1917)

Immigration Restriction League

Henry Cabot Lodge

Proposed in 1896

Passed Congress: 1897, 1913, 1915, 1917

Vetoed by Cleveland, Taft, Wilson

Congress overrode veto in 1917

Excluded “aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of reading, who cannot read the English language, or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish."

Palmer Raids/Deportations (1919)

Emergency Quota Act (1921)

Johnson-Reed Act/National

Origins Act (1924)