3. Reflecting the intensification of nativist political opinions in the United States, the early twentieth century saw Congress institute increasingly stringent requirements and proscriptions against prospective migrants
Following Henry Cabot Lodge’s initial attempt to introduce a literacy test – seeking in the 1890s to require immigrants to recite five lines from the Constitution – efforts to impose similar restrictions upon migrants were ubiquitous throughout the early twentieth century. With immigration statutes providing for the exclusion of “undesirables”, efforts were made to manipulate this clause to include an increasingly large array of individuals. The Immigration Act of 1903 would be the first, expanding the categories to include anarchists, epileptics, and the mentally ill, whilst the Immigration Act of 1907 supplemented the list with those possessing physical deformities.
Overturning President Wilson’s veto, on February 5, 1917, the Immigration Act of 1917 was passed into law. Also known as the Literacy Act or Asiatic Barred Zone Act, the bill dramatically expanded the list of “undesirables” to encompass “feebleminded persons”, “idiots”, and “political radicals”, as well the “mentally defective” which included homosexuals. Furthermore, spanning much of Asia and the Pacific Islands, a barred zone of migration was introduced prohibiting entry by individuals from these nations whilst simultaneously imposing a literacy test on prospective immigrants. Challenged in the courts, with components gradually reduced in severity, the barring of homosexuals remained part of the U.S. immigration code until 1990.