1924 Immigration Act
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a
United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...
that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from every country outside Latin America. It also authorized the creation of the country's first formal
border control Border control comprises measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it als ...
service, the U.S. Border Patrol, and established a "consular control system" that allowed entry only to those who first obtained a visa from a U.S. consulate abroad. The 1924 act was passed due to growing public and political concerns about the country's fast-changing social and demographic landscape. It replaced earlier legislation by significantly reducing immigration from countries outside the Western hemisphere. Immigrants from Asia were banned, and the total annual immigration quota for the rest of the world was capped at 165,000—an 80% reduction of the yearly average before 1914. The act temporarily reduced the annual quota of any nationality from 3% of their 1910 population, per the
Emergency Quota Act __NOTOC__ The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act (ch. 8, of May 19, 1921), was formulated mainly in response to the lar ...
of 1921, to 2% as recorded in the
1890 census The 1890 United States census was taken beginning June 2, 1890. The census determined the resident population of the United States to be 62,979,766, an increase of 25.5 percent over the 50,189,209 persons enumerated during the 1880 census. The ...
; a new quota was implemented in 1927, based on each nationality's share of the total U.S. population in the 1920 census, which would govern U.S. immigration policy until 1965. According to the Department of State, the purpose of the act was "to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity." The 1924 act would define U.S. immigration policy for nearly three decades, until being substantially revised by the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (), also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (), governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. It came into effect on June 27, 1952. The l ...
and ultimately replaced by the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, was a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ...
.


Context

The
Naturalization Act of 1790 The Naturalization Act of 1790 (, enacted March 26, 1790) was a law of the United States Congress that set the first uniform rules for the granting of United States citizenship by naturalization. The law limited naturalization to "free whi ...
declared that only people of European or white descent were eligible for naturalization, but eligibility was extended to people of African descent in the
Naturalization Act of 1870 The Naturalization Act of 1870 () was a United States federal law that created a system of controls for the naturalization process and penalties for fraudulent practices. It is also noted for extending the naturalization process to "aliens of ...
. Chinese and Japanese laborers were barred from immigrating to the U.S. in the 1882
Chinese Exclusion Act The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a United States Code, United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law made exceptions for travelers an ...
and the
Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 The was an gentlemen's agreement, informal agreement between the United States of America and the Empire of Japan whereby Japan would not allow further immigration of laborers to the United States and the United States would not impose restricti ...
, respectively. A limitation on Eastern and
Southern Europe Southern Europe is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, C ...
an immigration was first proposed in 1896 in the form of the literacy test bill. Henry Cabot Lodge was confident the bill would provide an indirect measure of reducing emigration from these countries, but after passing both houses of Congress, it was vetoed by President
Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms and the first Hist ...
. Another proposal for immigration restriction was introduced again in 1909 by U.S. Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge Henry Cabot Lodge (May 12, 1850November 9, 1924) was an American politician, historian, lawyer, and statesman from Massachusetts. A member of the History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served in the United States ...
. The
Immigration Act of 1917 The Immigration Act of 1917 (also known as the Literacy Act or the Burnett Act and less often as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act) was a United States Act that aimed to restrict immigration by imposing literacy tests on immigrants, creating new cate ...
restricted immigration further in a variety of ways. It increased restrictions on Asian immigration, raised the general immigrant head tax, excluded those deemed to be diseased or mentally unwell, and in light of intense lobbying by the
Immigration Restriction League The Immigration Restriction League was an American nativist and anti-immigration organization founded by Charles Warren, Robert DeCourcy Ward, and Prescott F. Hall in 1894. According to Erika Lee, in 1894 the old stock Yankee upper-class f ...
, introduced the literacy test for all new immigrants to prove their ability to read English. In the wake of the
post–World War I recession The post–World War I recession was an economic recession that hit much of the world in the aftermath of World War I. In many nations, especially in North America, economic growth continued and even accelerated during World War I as nations mo ...
, many Americans believed that bringing in more immigrants would worsen the
unemployment rate Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is the proportion of people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work d ...
. The
First Red Scare The first Red Scare was a period during History of the United States (1918–1945), the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of Far-left politics, far-left movements, including Bolsheviks, Bolshevism a ...
of 1919–1921 had fueled fears of foreign radicals migrating to undermine American values and provoke an uprising like the 1917
Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...
in
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
. The number of immigrants entering the United States decreased for about a year from July 1919 to June 1920 but doubled in the year after that. U.S. Representative Albert Johnson, a
eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...
advocate, and Senator David Reed were the two main architects of the act. They conceived the act as a bulwark against "a stream of alien blood"; it likewise found support among xenophobic and nativist groups such as the
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...
. However, some proponents, such as the
American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...
(AFL), welcomed the act for reducing cheap immigrant labor that would compete with local workers. Both public and Congressional opposition was minimal. In the wake of intense
lobbying Lobbying is a form of advocacy, which lawfully attempts to directly influence legislators or government officials, such as regulatory agency, regulatory agencies or judiciary. Lobbying involves direct, face-to-face contact and is carried out by va ...
, it passed with strong congressional support. There were nine dissenting votes in the
Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
and a handful of opponents in the
House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
, the most vigorous of whom was freshman
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
Representative
Emanuel Celler Emanuel Celler (May 6, 1888 – January 15, 1981) was an American Democratic Party (United States), Democratic politician from New York (state), New York who represented parts of the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in the United Stat ...
, a
Jewish American American Jews (; ) or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% id ...
. Decades later, he pointed out the act's "startling discrimination against central, eastern and southern Europe." Proponents of the act sought to establish a distinct American identity by preserving its ethnic homogeneity. Reed told the Senate that earlier legislation "disregards entirely those of us who are interested in keeping American stock up to the highest standard—that is, the people who were born here." He believed that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, most of whom were Catholics or Jews, arrived sick and starving, were less capable of contributing to the
American economy The United States has a highly developed mixed economy. It is the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). As of 2025, it has the world's seventh highest nominal GDP per capita and ninth ...
, and were unable to adapt to
American culture The culture of the United States encompasses various social behaviors, institutions, and Social norm, norms, including forms of Languages of the United States, speech, American literature, literature, Music of the United States, music, Visual a ...
. Eugenics was used as justification for the act's restriction of certain races or ethnicities of people to prevent the spread of perceived feeblemindedness in American society.
Samuel Gompers Samuel Gompers (; January 27, 1850December 11, 1924) was a British-born American cigar maker, labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and served as the organization's ...
, himself a Jewish immigrant from Britain and the founder of the
American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...
(AFL), supported the act because he opposed the cheap labor that immigration represented even though the act would sharply reduce Jewish immigration. Both the AFL and the
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...
supported the act.Steven G. Koven, Frank Götzke,
American Immigration Policy: Confronting the Nation's Challenges
' (Springer, 2010), p. 133
Historian John Higham concludes: "Klan backing made no material difference. Congress was expressing the will of the nation.". Lobbyists from the West Coast, where a majority of Japanese, Korean, and other East Asian immigrants had settled, were especially concerned with excluding Asian immigrants. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act had already slowed Chinese immigration, but as Japanese andto a lesser degreeKorean and Filipino laborers began arriving and putting down roots in
Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. As American settlement i ...
, an exclusionary movement formed in reaction to the "
Yellow Peril The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror, the Yellow Menace, and the Yellow Specter) is a Racism, racist color terminology for race, color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East Asia, East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the ...
."
Valentine S. McClatchy Valentine Stuart McClatchy (August 29, 1857 – May 15, 1938) was an American newspaper owner and journalist. As publisher of ''The Sacramento Bee'' (now The McClatchy Company) from the time of his father's death in 1883, co-owning the paper with ...
, the founder of
The McClatchy Company McClatchy Media Company, or simply McClatchy and MCC, is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law. Originally based in Sacramento, California, United States, and known as The McClatchy Company, it b ...
and a leader of the anti-Japanese movement, argued, "They come here specifically and professedly for the purpose of colonizing and establishing here permanently the proud Yamato race." He cites their supposed inability to assimilate to American culture and the economic threat that they posed to white businessmen and farmers. Opposing the act, U.S. Secretary of State
Charles Evans Hughes Charles Evans Hughes (April 11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was an American politician, academic, and jurist who served as the 11th chief justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
said, "The legislation would seem to be quite unnecessary, even for the purpose for which it is devised." The act faced strong opposition from the Japanese government with which the U.S. government had maintained a cordial economic and political relationship. In Japan, the bill was called by some the "Japanese Exclusion" act. Japanese Foreign Minister Matsui Keishirō instructed the Japanese ambassador to the U.S.,
Masanao Hanihara was a Japanese people, Japanese diplomat. Biography He was born on August 25, 1876. He came to the United States in 1902 as a member of the Japanese Embassy at Washington, D.C., was consul general at San Francisco in 1916–18, then returned ...
, to write to Hughes: Wisconsin Senator
Robert M. La Follette Robert Marion La Follette Sr. (June 14, 1855June 18, 1925), nicknamed "Fighting Bob," was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Wisconsin in both chambers of Congress and served as the 20th governor of Wisconsin from 1901 to 1906. ...
, who did not vote on the bill, in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, said that the bill would have to be revisioned "to make its operation simple, humane, and free from the misery and disappointment to which would-be immigrants are now subjected." Members of the Senate interpreted Hanihara's phrase "grave consequences" as a threat, which was used by hardliners of the bill to fuel both houses of Congress to vote for it. Because 1924 was an election year, and he was unable to form a compromise, President
Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously ...
declined to use his
veto A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president (government title), president or monarch vetoes a bill (law), bill to stop it from becoming statutory law, law. In many countries, veto powe ...
power to block the act, although both houses passed it by a veto-overriding two-thirds majority. The act was signed into law on May 24, 1924.


Provisions

The immigration act made permanent the basic limitations on
immigration to the United States Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and Culture of the United States, cultural change throughout much of history of the United States, its history. As of January 2025, the United States has the la ...
established in 1921 and modified the
National Origins Formula The National Origins Formula is an umbrella term for a series of quantitative immigration quotas in the United States used from 1921 to 1965, which restricted immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere on the basis of national origin. These restri ...
, which had been established in that year. In conjunction with the
Immigration Act of 1917 The Immigration Act of 1917 (also known as the Literacy Act or the Burnett Act and less often as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act) was a United States Act that aimed to restrict immigration by imposing literacy tests on immigrants, creating new cate ...
, it governed American immigration policy until the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (), also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (), governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. It came into effect on June 27, 1952. The l ...
, which revised it completely, was passed. The act provided that no alien ineligible to become a citizen could be admitted to the U.S. as an immigrant. That was aimed primarily at Japanese aliens, although they were not explicitly named in the act. It imposed fines on transportation companies who landed aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law. It defined the term "immigrant" and designated all other alien entries into the U.S. as "non-immigrant," or temporary visitors. It also established classes of admission for such non-immigrants. The act set a total immigration quota of 165,000 for countries outside the
Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the 180th meridian.- The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Geopolitically, ...
, an 80% reduction from average before World War I, and barred immigrants from Asia, including Japan. However, the
Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
was then a U.S. colony and so its citizens were
U.S. nationals United States nationality law details the conditions in which a person holds United States nationality. In the United States, nationality is typically obtained through provisions in the U.S. Constitution, various laws, and international agree ...
and could thus travel freely to the U.S. The act did not include China since it was already barred under the Chinese Exclusion Act. The 1924 act reduced the annual quota of any nationality from 3% of their 1910 population (as defined by the
Emergency Quota Act __NOTOC__ The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act (ch. 8, of May 19, 1921), was formulated mainly in response to the lar ...
of 1921) to 2% of the number of foreign-born persons of any nationality residing in the U.S. according to the
1890 census The 1890 United States census was taken beginning June 2, 1890. The census determined the resident population of the United States to be 62,979,766, an increase of 25.5 percent over the 50,189,209 persons enumerated during the 1880 census. The ...
. A more recent census existed, but at the behest of a eugenics subcommittee chaired by eugenicist
Madison Grant Madison Grant (November 19, 1865 – May 30, 1937) was an American lawyer, zoologist, anthropologist, and writer known for his work as a conservation movement, conservationist, eugenics, eugenicist, and advocate of scientific racism. Grant i ...
, Congress used the 1890 one to increase immigrants from Northern and Western Europe and to decrease those from Eastern and Southern Europe. According to ''Commonweal'', the act "relied on false nostalgia for a census that only seemed to depict a homogenous, Northern European–descended nation: in reality, 15 percent of the nation were immigrants in 1890." The 1890-based quotas were set to last until 1927, when they would be replaced by of a total annual quota of 150,000, proportional to the national origins figures from the 1920 census.Immigration Act of 1924 (43 Stat.153)
However, this did little to diversify the nations from which immigrants came because the 1920 census did not include Blacks, Mulattos, and Asians as part of the American population used for the quotas. The lowest quota per country was 100 individuals, but even then only those eligible for citizenship could immigrate to the U.S. (i.e. only whites in China could immigrate). Establishing national origin quotas for the country proved to be a difficult task, and was not accepted and completed until 1929. The act gave 85% of the immigration quota to Northern and Western Europe and those who had an education or had a trade. The other 15% went disproportionately to Eastern and Southern Europe. The act established preferences under the quota system for certain relatives of U.S. residents, including their unmarried children under 21, their parents, and spouses at least 21 and over. It also preferred immigrants at least 21 who were skilled in agriculture and their wives and dependent children under 16. Non-quota status was accorded to wives and unmarried children under 18 of U.S. citizens; natives of Western Hemisphere countries, with their families; non-immigrants; and certain others. Subsequent amendments eliminated certain elements of the law's discrimination against women, but this was not more fully achieved until
1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, ...
.


Quota calculation formula

The 1924 act provided that census data from 1920 would determine the quotas beginning in . The
Bureau of the Census The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
and
Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business ...
estimated the ''National Origins of the White Population of the United States in 1920'' in numbers, then calculated the percentage share each nationality made up. The National Origins Formula derived quotas by calculating the equivalent proportion of each nationality out of a total pool of 150,000 annual quota immigrants, with a minimum quota of 100. This formula was used until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 adopted a simplified formula limiting each country to a flat quota of one-sixth of one percent of that nationality's 1920 population count, with a minimum quota of 100.


Quotas by country under successive laws

Listed below are historical quotas on emigration from the
Eastern Hemisphere The Eastern Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth which is east of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and west of the antimeridian (which crosses the Pacific Ocean and relatively little land from pole to p ...
, by country, as applied in given fiscal years ending June 30, calculated according to successive immigration laws and revisions from the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 to the final quota year of 1965. The 1922 and 1925 systems based on dated census records of the foreign-born population were intended as temporary measures; the 1924 Act's National Origins Formula based on the 1920 census of the total U.S. population took effect on July 1, 1929.


Visas and border control

The act also established the "consular control system" of immigration, which divided responsibility for immigration between the
U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...
and the
Immigration and Naturalization Service The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was a United States federal government agency under the United States Department of Labor from 1933 to 1940 and under the United States Department of Justice from 1940 to 2003. Refe ...
. The act also mandated no alien to be allowed to enter the U.S. without a valid immigration visa issued by an American consular officer abroad. Consular officers were now allowed to issue visas to eligible applicants, but the number of visas to be issued by each consulate annually was limited, and no more than 10% of the quota could be given out in any one month. Aliens were not able to leave their home countries before having a valid visa, as opposed to the old system of deporting them at ports of debarkation. That gave a double layer of protection to the border since if they were found to be inadmissible, immigrants could still be deported on arrival.


Establishment of Border Patrol

The National Origins Act authorized the formation of the
United States Border Patrol The United States Border Patrol (USBP) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and is responsible for secu ...
, which was established two days after the act was passed, primarily to guard the
Mexico–United States border The international border separating Mexico and the United States extends from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from urban areas to deserts. It is the List of ...
.Airriess, Christopher A.; ''Contemporary Ethnic Geographies in America'', p
40
A $10 tax was imposed on Mexican immigrants, who were allowed to continue immigrating based on their perceived willingness to provide cheap labor.


Results

The act was seen in a negative light in Japan, causing resignations of ambassadors and protests. A citizen committed ''
seppuku , also known as , is a form of Japanese ritualistic suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honor, but was also practiced by other Japanese people during the Shōwa era (particularly officers near ...
'' near the
U.S. Embassy in Tokyo The Embassy of the United States of America in Tokyo (駐日アメリカ合衆国大使館 ''Chū Nichi Amerikagasshūkoku Taishikan'') is the embassy of the United States in Tokyo, Japan. Along with consulates in Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuo ...
with a note that read: "Appealing to the American people". American businesses situated in Japan suffered the economic brunt of the legislation's repercussions, as the Japanese government subsequently increased tariffs on American trading by '100 per cent'. Passage of the Immigration Act has been credited with ending a growing democratic movement in Japan during this time period, and opening the door to Japanese militarist government control. According to David C. Atkinson, on the Japanese government's perception of the act, "this indignity is seen as a turning point in the growing estrangement of the U.S. and Japan, which culminated in the 1941
attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...
". The act's revised formula reduced total emigration from 357,803 between 1923 and 1924 to 164,667 between 1924 and 1925. The law's impact varied widely by country. Emigration from
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
and
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
fell 19%, while emigration from Italy fell more than 90%. From 1901 to 1914, 2.9 million Italians immigrated, an average of 210,000 per year. Under the 1924 quota, only 4,000 per year were allowed since the 1890 quota counted only 182,580 Italians in the U.S.
Historical Statistics of the United States: 1789–1945
', Series B 304–330 (p. 32). US Bureau of the Census, 1949.
By contrast, the annual quota for Germany after the passage of the act was over 55,000 since German-born residents in 1890 numbered 2,784,894. Germany, Britain, and Ireland had the highest representation in 1890. The provisions of the act were so restrictive that in 1924 more Italians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Greeks, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Poles, Portuguese, Romanians, Spaniards, Chinese, and Japanese left the U.S. than arrived as immigrants. During World War II, the U.S. modified the act to set immigration quotas for their allies in China. The immigration quotas were eased in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and replaced in the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, was a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ...
.


Jewish migration

The law heavily restricted immigration from the countries where most Jews in the U.S. had come from, including Russia, which alone accounted for nearly 75% of Jewish immigrants.Stuart J. Wright, ''An Emotional Gauntlet: From Life in Peacetime America to the War in European Skies'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), p. 163 Because Eastern European immigration did not become substantial until the late 19th century, the law's use of the population of the U.S. in 1890 as the basis for calculating quotas effectively made mass migration from Eastern Europe, where the vast majority of the
Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( ), alternatively the dispersion ( ) or the exile ( ; ), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southe ...
lived at the time, impossible. In 1929, the quotas were adjusted to one-sixth of 1% of the 1920 census figures, and the overall immigration limit reduced to 150,000. The act was seen as causing many Jews to instead immigrate to
mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
, spurring the
Fourth Aliyah The Fourth Aliyah () refers to the fourth wave of the Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine, mainly from Europe, between the years 1924 and 1928. The character of the Fourth Aliyah Starting around 1924 the character and the composition of t ...
. In 1937, the
Peel Commission The Peel Commission, formally known as the Palestine Royal Commission, was a British Royal Commission of Inquiry, headed by Lord Peel, appointed in 1936 to investigate the causes of conflict in Mandatory Palestine, which was administered by t ...
noted the act spurred immigration levels not anticipated during the drafting of the 1922
Mandate for Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British Empire, British administration of the territories of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine and Emirate of Transjordan, Transjordanwhich had been Ottoman Syria, part of the Ottoman ...
. The law was not modified to aid the flight of
Jewish refugees This article lists expulsions, refugee crises and other forms of displacement that have affected Jews. Timeline The following is a list of Jewish expulsions and events that prompted significant streams of Jewish refugees. Assyrian captivity ...
in the 1930s or 1940s despite the rise of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. The quotas were adjusted to allow more Jewish refugees after
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, but without increasing immigration overall.


Legacy

The act has been characterized as the culmination of decades of intentional exclusion of Asian immigrants. The act had negative economic effects. Economists have argued that both innovation and employment were negatively affected by the restrictions. In a 2020 paper, the economists
Petra Moser Petra Moser is an economist and economic historian serving as a Professor of Economics at the New York University Stern School of Business. Her work examines the origins of creativity and innovation. She is the recipient of a National Science ...
and Shmuel San demonstrated that the drastic reduction in immigration from Eastern and Southern European scientists led to fewer new patents, not only from immigrants but also from native-born scientists working in their fields. Even the mass migration of unskilled workers had been a spur to innovation, according to a paper by Kirk Doran and Chungeun Yoon, who found "using variation induced by 1920s quotas, which ended history's largest international migration" that "inventors in cities and industries exposed to fewer low-skilled immigrants applied for fewer patents." Nor did US-born workers benefit, according to a 2023 study in the ''American Economic Journal.'' Farming, a sector of the economy highly reliant on migrant labor, shifted towards more capital-intensive forms of agriculture, whereas the mining industry, another immigrant-reliant industry, contracted. Looking back on the significance of the act, Harry Laughlin, the eugenicist who served as expert advisor to the House Committee on Immigration during the legislative process, praised it as a political breakthrough in the adoption of
scientific racism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that the Human, human species is divided into biologically distinct taxa called "race (human categorization), races", and that empirical evi ...
as a theoretical foundation for immigration policy. Due to the reliance upon eugenics in forming the policy, and growing public reception towards scientific racism as justification for restriction and racial stereotypes by 1924, the act has been seen as a piece of legislation that formalized the views of contemporary U.S. society. Historian Mae Ngai writes of the national origins quota system:
At one level, the new immigration law differentiated Europeans according to nationality and ranked them in a hierarchy of desirability. At another level, the law constructed a
White American White Americans (sometimes also called Caucasian Americans) are Americans who identify as white people. In a more official sense, the United States Census Bureau, which collects demographic data on Americans, defines "white" as " person having ...
race, in which persons of European descent shared a common Whiteness distinct from those deemed to be not White.
In 1928, Nazi leader
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
praised the act for banishing "strangers of the blood". U.S. immigration law was cited favorably by the framers of Nazi legislation due to its excluding "wholly foreign racial population masses".


See also

* Anarchist Exclusion Act *
Anti-Italianism Anti-Italianism or Italophobia is a negative attitude regarding Italians or people with Italian ancestry, often expressed through the use of prejudice, discrimination or stereotypes. Often stemming from xenophobia, anti-Catholic sentiment and jo ...
*
History of antisemitism in the United States Antisemitism has a long history in the United States of America. American Jews, Jewish people having been History of the Jews in the United States, living in North America since the Colonial history of the United States, colonial period, and ...
*
Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 The was an gentlemen's agreement, informal agreement between the United States of America and the Empire of Japan whereby Japan would not allow further immigration of laborers to the United States and the United States would not impose restricti ...
*
History of immigration to the United States Throughout U.S. history, the country experienced successive waves of immigration, particularly from Europe and later on from Asia and from Latin America. Colonial-era immigrants often repaid the cost of transoceanic transportation by becomi ...
*
Immigration Act of 1917 The Immigration Act of 1917 (also known as the Literacy Act or the Burnett Act and less often as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act) was a United States Act that aimed to restrict immigration by imposing literacy tests on immigrants, creating new cate ...
* * List of United States Immigration Acts * Mexican Repatriation *
Nordicism Nordicism is a racialist ideology which views the "Nordic race" (a historical race concept) as an endangered and superior racial group. Some notable and influential Nordicist works include Madison Grant's book '' The Passing of the Great Rac ...
* Racial Equality Proposal *
Racism in the United States Racism has been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices, and actions (including violence) against Race (human categorization), racial or ethnic groups throughout the history of the United States. Since the early Colonial history of the Uni ...
*
Statue of Liberty National Monument The Statue of Liberty National Monument is a United States national monument comprising Liberty Island and Ellis Island in the states of New Jersey and New York. It includes the 1886 Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World'') b ...
* White Australia policy


References

Footnotes Citations


Further reading

* Allerfeldt, Kristofer. "'And We Got Here First': Albert Johnson, National Origins and Self-Interest in the Immigration Debate of the 1920s." ''Journal of Contemporary History'' 45.1 (2010): 7-26. * * * Higham, John. ''Strangers in the land: Patterns of American nativism, 1860-1925'' (2nd ed. Rutgers University Press, 1963) pp 301–330
online
* * * Keely, Charles B. "Immigration in the Interwar Period." in ''Immigration and US Foreign Policy'' (Routledge, 2019) pp. 43–56. * Lee, Erika. "America first, immigrants last: American xenophobia then and now." ''Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era'' 19.1 (2020): 3–18
online
* * Marinari, Maddalena. ''Unwanted: Italian and Jewish mobilization against restrictive immigration laws, 1882–1965'' (UNC Press Books, 2019). * Montoya, Benjamin C. ''Risking Immeasurable Harm: Immigration Restriction and US-Mexican Diplomatic Relations, 1924–1932'' (U of Nebraska Press, 2020)
online
* Ngai, Mae M. "The architecture of race in American immigration law: A reexamination of the Immigration Act of 1924." ''Journal of American History'' 86.1 (1999): 67–92
online
* *
online
* Yuill, Kevin. " 'America must remain American': The Liberal Contribution to Race Restrictions in the 1924 Immigration Act." ''Federal History'' (2021)
online
*


External links


Statistics of who was allowed in after the Immigration Act of 1924

"'Shut the Door': A Senator Speaks for Immigration Restriction"
– transcript of speech given before Congress by Sen. Ellison D. Smith, April 9, 1924
Eugenics Laws Restricting Immigration
*

{{Authority control 1924 in international relations 1924 in American law 68th United States Congress Anti-Asian sentiment in the United States Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States Anti-Filipino sentiment Anti-immigration politics in the United States Anti-Italian sentiment Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States Anti-Korean sentiment in the United States Anti-Slavic sentiment Asian-American issues European diaspora in the United States Eugenics in the United States Nordicism White supremacy Italian-American history Presidency of Calvin Coolidge United States federal immigration and nationality legislation Repealed United States legislation 1924 in Judaism May 1924 in the United States Immigration bans Scientific racism Antisemitism in the United States