Immigration Act of 1924

President Coolidge signs the immigration act on the White House South Lawn along with appropriation bills for the Veterans Bureau. John J. Pershing is on the President's right.

The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, Asian Exclusion Act (43 Statutes-at-Large 153), was a United States federal law that limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, down from the 3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, according to the Census of 1890. It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who were immigrating in large numbers starting in the 1890s, as well as prohibiting the immigration of East Asians and Asian Indians.

Congressman Albert Johnson and Senator David Reed were the two main architects. In the wake of intense lobbying, the Act passed with strong congressional support. There were six dissenting votes in the Senate and a handful of opponents in the House, the most vigorous of whom was freshman Brooklyn Representative Emanuel Celler. Over the succeeding four decades, Celler made the repeal of the Act into a personal crusade. Some of the law's strongest supporters were influenced by Madison Grant and his 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race. Grant was a eugenicist and an advocate of the racial hygiene theory. His data purported to show the superiority of the founding Northern European races. But most proponents of the law were rather concerned with upholding an ethnic status quo and avoiding competition with foreign workers.

The act was strongly supported by well-known union leader and founder of the AFL, Samuel Gompers. Gompers was a Jewish immigrant, and uninterested in the accusations by many Jews that the quotas were based on anti-Semitism.

National origins quota

Further information: National Origins Formula

The National Origins Quota of 1924, according to the Immigration Act, was the first permanent limitation on immigration into the United States and established the “national origins quota system. aka all about sex. alot and alot of sex. thats all you saw on the streets just a punch of people having sex.” In conjunction with the Immigration Act of 1917, it governed American immigration policy until 1952 (see the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952).

It contained two quota provisions:

Effective until June 30, 1927—set the annual quota of any quota nationality at two percent of the number of foreign-born persons of such nationality resident in the continental United States in 1890 (total quota - 164,667).

From July 1, 1927 (later postponed to July 1, 1929) to December 31, 1952—used the national origins quota system: the annual quota for any country or nationality had the same relation to 150,000 as the number of inhabitants in the continental United States in 1920 having that national origin had to the total number of inhabitants in the continental United States in 1920.

Preference quota status was established for unmarried children under 21; for parents; for spouses of U.S. citizens aged 21 and over; and for quota immigrants aged 21 and over who are skilled in agriculture, together with their wives and dependent children under age 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 this law’s inherent discrimination against women but comprehensive elimination did not occur until 1952 (see the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952).

The 1924 law established the “consular control system” of immigration by mandating that no alien may be permitted entrance to the United States without an unexpired immigration visa issued by an American consular officer abroad. Thus, the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service shared control of immigration.

It introduced the provision that, as a rule, no alien ineligible to become a citizen shall be admitted to the United States as an immigrant. This was aimed primarily at Japanese aliens.

It imposed fines on transportation companies who landed aliens in violation of U.S. Immigration laws.

It defined the term “immigrant” and designated all other alien entries into the United States as “nonimmigrant” (temporary visitor). It established classes of admission for non-immigrant entries.

Results

Relative proportions of immigrants from Northwestern Europe (red) and Southern and Eastern Europe (blue) in the decades before and after the immigration restriction legislation.

The Act halted "undesirable" immigration by quotas. The Act barred specific origins from the Asia-Pacific Triangle, which included Japan, China, the Philippines (then under U.S. control), Siam (Thailand), French Indochina (Laos, Vietnam,and Cambodia), Singapore (then a British colony), Korea, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Burma (Myanmar), India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Malaysia. Based on the Naturalization Act of 1790, these immigrants, being non-white, were not eligible for naturalization, and the Act forbade further immigration of any persons ineligible to be naturalized.

In the 10 years following 1900, about 200,000 Italians immigrated annually. With the imposition of the 1924 quota, 4,000 per year were allowed. At the same time, the annual quota for Germany was over 57,000. 86% of the 155,000 permitted entries were from Northern European countries, with Germany, Britain, and Ireland having the highest quotas.

The Act set no limits on immigration from the Latin American countries.

The quotas remained in place with minor alterations until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

See also

• National Origins Formula
• History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States
• List of United States Immigration Acts
• Racial equality proposal
• Leslie Charteris (specifically exempted from the provisions of the Act)
• SS St. Louis
• White Australia policy
• Yellow Peril

Further reading

• Daniels, Roger. The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion. Berkley and others: University of California Press, 1977. Covers the development of the anti-Japanese movement in California from late 19th Century to the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924
• Aristide Zolberg, A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America, Harvard University Press 2006, ISBN 0674022181
• U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History, hg. von Michael Robert Lemay, Elliott Robert Barkan, Greenwood Press 1999, ISBN 0313301565
• Ngai, Mae. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN 0691074712

References

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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
• Text of 1924 Immigration Act
• Asian Exclusion Act of 1924
• Quotas defined in Immigration Law of 1924