The Chinese Exclusion Act was approved on May 6, 1882. It was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States.
In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year ban on Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States. For the first time, federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities.
The Chinese Exclusion Act required the few non-laborers who sought entry to the United States (such as diplomatic officers) to obtain certification from the Chinese government that they were qualified to immigrate. But this group found it increasingly difficult to prove their status because the 1882 act defined laborers as “skilled and unskilled…and Chinese employed in mining.” Thus very few Chinese could enter the country under the 1882 law.
The 1882 exclusion act also placed new requirements on Chinese who had already entered the country. If they left the United States, they had to obtain certifications to re-enter. Congress, moreover, refused state and federal courts the right to grant citizenship to Chinese resident aliens, although these courts could still deport them.
When the exclusion act expired in 1892, Congress extended it for 10 years in the form of the Geary Act. This extension, made permanent in 1902, added restrictions by requiring each Chinese resident to register and obtain a certificate of residence. Without a certificate, they faced deportation.
The Geary Act regulated Chinese immigration into the 20th century. With increased immigration following World War I, Congress adopted new means for regulation: quotas and requirements pertaining to national origin. Congress shifted its attention to limiting immigration from a wider variety of countries, including many in Southern and Eastern Europe and all of Asia. The Immigration Act of 1924 (also known as the Johnson-Reed Act and the National Origins Act) established the 1890 census as the basis for determining how many immigrants would be admitted — the limit for each nationality was 2 percent of that nationality already living in the United States and recorded by the census takers.
In 1943, when China was a member of the Allied Nations during World War II, Congress repealed all the exclusion acts. However, quotas remained, leaving a yearly limit of 105 Chinese immigrants. Foreign-born Chinese also won the right to seek naturalization.
The so-called national origin system, with various modifications, lasted until Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1965. Effective July 1, 1968, a limit of 170,000 immigrants from outside the Western Hemisphere could enter the United States, with a maximum of 20,000 from any one country. Skill and the need for political asylum determined admission.
The Immigration Act of 1990 provided the most comprehensive change in legal immigration since 1965. The act established a “flexible” worldwide cap on family-based, employment-based, and diversity immigrant visas. The act further provides that visas for any single foreign state in these categories may not exceed seven percent of the total available.
In 2011-2012, Congress condemned the Chinese Exclusion Act and affirmed a commitment to preserve civil rights and constitutional protections for all people: the Senate unanimously passed Senate Resolution 201 in 2011; and the House of Representatives unanimously passed House Resolution 683 in 2012.
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