Restrictive Immigration Laws

Introduction

During the time of industrial growth or post-World War II, the United States saw an influx of immigrants coming in to have a chance of a better future. The promise of United States was so attractive that people would often forge their documents just to have a way into the country. This led to a severe crisis in the United States, as the country faced an increase in homelessness, unemployment and most of illegal citizens. To prevent the unwanted flow of foreigners, the United States Congress passed several laws restricting the number, rights and privileges of immigrants (Dinnerstein & Reimers, pp. 58).

Thesis Statement

“Are the laws for controlling immigration to the United States ethical and justifiable?”

Johnson Reed Act

American congressional legislation, enacted May 26, 1924, also called the National Origins Act or the Johnson-Reed Act, which established a quota on certain groups in the United States. After a number of years of high immigration rates (mostly of eastern Europeans, many of whom were perceived to be anarchists or to hold other leftist ideologies), the U.S. Congress set an annual quota of 2 percent of a nationality's population as determined in the 1890 U.S. census, with a minimum of one hundred people for each nationality. The act placed severe limits on emigration from Italy, Russia, and other countries of southern and eastern Europe, as well as from Africa. In addition, historian Harold Butler writes, "A very controversial amendment to the Johnson Bill had the effect of excluding the Japanese although they were not specifically named" (Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1963, pp. 195). The Senate vote on this amendment came on April 16, 1924, two days before the bill was voted on. Republican Senator Le Baron B. Colt of Rhode Island, chair of the Senate Committee on Immigration, opposed the amendment. The enactment also established the U.S. Border Patrol. The legislation was highly controversial and is now widely condemned by historians and legal scholars as racist (Dinnerstein & Reimers, pp. 56).

Immigration Quota Act

Federal U.S. immigration legislation enacted on May 26, 1924, that amended the U.S. Emergency Quota Act by halving the 1921 quota (placing the number of immigrants at 164,447) and by limiting annual immigration for any group to 2 percent of that group's U.S. population according to the census of 1890. This quota was to apply until 1927, when the limit on immigrants was to be set at 150,000, apportioned by national origin according to the 1920 census. Sponsored by Senator Hiram W. Johnson of California and Senator James A. Reed of Missouri, the act favored immigrants from northern and western Europe. It aroused so much hostility that it was not implemented until 1929 (Ngai & Gjerde, pp. 230, Chapter 9).

Chinese Exclusion

The term for all Han ethnic Chinese people who live outside mainland China (the Communist People's Republic of China; PRC), and especially for Chinese living in Southeast Asia, which includes the Indochina Peninsula, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines. The Han Chinese have defined themselves for more than 2,000 ...