History of Immigration Laws in the United States

I. National Amendments or Prohibitions to Citizenship A.Amendment 14 1.Civil Rights of Citizenship Granted to freed African Americans 2.ratified in 1868 B.Amendment 15 1.Voting rights extended to African Americans 2.Ratified in 1870

II. Asian Exclusion Acts A.Barring immigrants from citizenship & ownership of property B.Chinese Exclusion Acts / Immigration Exclusion Act (1882) 1.Prohibited citizenship for Chinese immigrants. 2.Subsequent acts reinforcing the exclusion of Chinese immigrant were passed in 1884, 1886 and In 1882, 1884, 1886, and 1888, Congress passed Chinese exclusion acts, suspending immigration of Chinese laborers and barring reentry of all Chinese laborers who departed and did not return before the passage of the Act“ C.Immigration Act of Exclusion of Asian Indians

D.Immigrant Act of Exclusion of Japanese 2.The Immigration Act of 1924 barred entry of 'aliens ineligible to citizenship 3.Japanese and other Asians were barred by the 1790 naturalization law stipulating that 'whites only' could be naturalized as citizens 4.The 1924 act totally excluded them from immigration E.The Tydings-McDuffie Act of Cut Filipino immigration to a quota of fifty persons per year 2.All Filipinos in the United States were reclassified as 'aliens. F.Alien Land Laws (1913, 1920, and 1923) 1.prohibited Asian immigrants from owning land and other forms of property through the legal construction of nonwhites as aliens ineligible to citizenship

G."Asia Barred Zone” 1.The 1917 immigration act denied entry to people from a "barred zone" that included South Asia through Southeast Asia and islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans 2.Excluded American possessions of the Philippines and Guam H.Magnuson Act (1943) 1.lifted the barriers to citizenship for most immigrants of Asian origin 2.The Magnuson Act had three significant parts a.It repealed the Exclusion Act of 1882 b.It established a quota for Chinese immigrants c.It made Chinese eligible for citizenship

A.For the first time, the United States passed a restrictive immigration quota 1.The quota was designed to maintain the "character" of the United States 2.It apportioned immigration certificates based on the population of the United States in the year In 1894, the Immigration Restriction League was founded a.It supported literacy-tests for would- be immigrants. b.The literacy test passed in Congress in 1896 c.Was vetoed by President Grover Cleveland, who insisted that the United States should remain a haven for all oppressed people. III. Immigration Quotas

B. President Theodore Roosevelt was a strong supporter of the literacy test 1.Responding to the assassination of President McKinley, he called for the exclusion of anarchists 2.Congress promptly legislated the exclusion of anarchists 3.Four years later of those who were "imbeciles, feeble minded and people, with physical or mental defects.“ C. In 1907, the Congress appointed a joint House-Senate Committee called the Dillingham Commission 1.Its report called for the issuance of literacy tests. 2.It also suggested restrictive policies that would limit immigration based on national origin. 3.The Congress passed a bill requiring a literacy test, but President Wilson vetoed it. 4.In 1917, the Congress once again passed a bill requiring literacy for immigrants. 5.Wilson once again vetoed the bill, but this time the Congress overrode the veto.

D. In response to growing public opinion against the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe 1.Congress passed first the Quota Act of Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson-Reed Act) a.The 1924 law imposed a total quota on immigration of 165,000—less than 20 percent of the pre-World War I average b.It based ceilings on the number of immigrants from any particular nation on the percentage of each nationality recorded in the 1890 census c.A blatant effort to limit immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe d.The 1924 Act, the annual quota for Italians was set at less than 4,000

IV. Exclusion abolished A.Asian Exclusion Repeal Acts , for Filipino and East Indian B.McCarran-Walter Act (1952) 1.Abolished the 1917 ”Asia Barred Zone” 2.Allowed for immigration into the United States based on ethnic quotas.

C. Immigrant Act (1965) 1.Eliminated immigration quotas 2.Establishing new criteria for immigrants 3.The 1965 act abolished 'national origin' quotas and specified seven preferences for Eastern Hemisphere quota immigrants a.Unmarried adult sons and daughters of citizens b.Spouses and unmarried sons and daughters of permanent residents c.Professionals, scientists, and artists of exceptional ability d.Married adult sons and daughters of U.S. citizens e.Siblings of adult citizens f.Workers, skilled and unskilled, in occupations for which labor was in short supply in the United States g.Refugees from Communist-dominated countries or those uprooted by natural catastrophe.