12. Banning all migration from China to the United States, the Chinese Exclusion Act cruelly separated families and reduced immigrant laborers to second-class status until the mid-20th century
Following the Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868, the United States established formal friendly relations and granted China the status of most favored nation vis-à-vis trade. In response to the populist anti-immigration movements at home, the United States sought modifications to this arrangement under the Angell Treaty in 1880. Whilst confirming to preserve the protections of Chinese laborers already present, the new treaty permitted the American government to temporarily suspend the immigration of laborers from China. Signed into law by Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act built on the aforementioned Page Act to appease nativist tendencies.
Proscribing for the first time in federal law the entry of an entire ethnic group, the act prohibited all migration from China to the United States. Barred for an initial period of ten years, despite the agreement to uphold the rights of existing migrants, Chinese workers already in the United States were horrendously affected by the law. Unable to leave, these existing communities were cut off from their families in Asia. Concurrently, their statuses were downgraded to that of “permanent aliens”, excluding them from ever attaining citizenship. Renewed in 1892, and made permanent in 1902 under the Geary Act, it would not be repealed until 1943 when a less than generous 105 Chinese per year were subsequently allowed to enter the country.