1. Designed to “preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity”, the Immigration Act of 1924 banned Asians from migrating to the United States and sought to eradicate Jewish immigration due to the supposed immoral effect of Jewry upon American society
Whilst the Naturalization Act of 1790 permitted only individuals of white descent to be eligible, in 1870, following the Fourteenth Amendment, this criterion was widened to those of African origin. Igniting popular outrage among nativists, by the 1920s the First Red Scare had induced a widespread xenophobic fear of foreigners and their effect upon American society and values. Seeking to protect the “superior” ethnic composition of the United States, the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Asian Exclusion Act or National Origins Act, made permanent several limitations on immigration into the United States and hardened the requirements for prospective migrants.
Supported and campaigned for by the KKK, the act effectively banned immigration from Asia by prohibiting settlement by individuals ineligible for citizenship. Furthermore, the statute imposed an eighty percent reduction on pre-World War One averages on the total immigration permissible from outside the Western Hemisphere, allowing only 165,000 in total. Seeking also to reduce the influx of Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, the quotas laid out in the Emergency Act three years prior were reduced further. Rather than the original three percent, the 1924 act lowered this figure to just two percent whilst simultaneously moving back the historic marker to the 1890 census.