Immigration—Almost Four Hundred Years of American History - Restrictions On Immigration Tighten

World War I temporarily stopped the influx of immigrants. In 1914, 1.2 million immigrants arrived; a year later the number dropped to barely 326,700. By 1918, the final year of the war, just over 110,000 immigrants ventured to America. However, the heavy flow started again after the war as people fled the war-ravaged European continent. More than 800,000 immigrants arrived in 1921.

The new wave of immigrants flocked to major cities where they hoped to find relatives or other immigrants from their native country as well as jobs. The 1920 census reported that for the first time in America's history the population living in cities exceeded that living in rural areas.

The First Quota Law

Concern over whether America could continue to absorb such huge numbers of immigrants led Congress to introduce a major change in American immigration policy. Other factors influencing Congress included racial fears about the "new" immigrants and apprehension over many of the immigrants' politically radical ideas.

The Quota Law of 1921 (42 Stat. 5) was the first quantitative immigration law. Congress limited the number of aliens of any nationality who could enter the United States to 3% of the number of foreign-born persons of that nationality who lived in the United States in 1910 (based on the U.S. Census Report). By 1910, however, many southern and eastern Europeans had already entered the country, a fact many legislators had overlooked. Consequently, in order to restructure the makeup of the immigrant population, Congress approved the Immigration Act of 1924 (43 Stat. 153). This act set the first permanent limitation on immigration, or the "national origins quota system." The law immediately limited the number of persons of each nationality to 2% of the population of that nationality who lived in the United States in 1890.

The 1924 law provided that after July 1, 1927, an overall cap would allow a total of 150,000 immigrants per year. Quotas for each "national origin" group were to be developed based on the 1920 census. Exempted from the quota limitation were spouses or dependents of U.S. citizens, returning alien residents, or natives of Western Hemisphere countries not subject to quotas (natives of Mexico, Canada, or other independent countries of Central or South America). The 1924 law further required that all arriving nonimmigrants present visas obtained from a U.S. consulate abroad. Visas were government authorizations permitting entry into a country. The 1917 and 1924 acts remained the American immigration law until 1952.

The Impact of Quotas

The new laws also barred all Asian immigration, which soon led to a shortage of farm and sugar-plantation workers. Filipinos filled the gap; since the Philippines was an American territory, they did not come under the immigration quota laws. In addition, large numbers of immigrants arrived from the Caribbean, peaking during the 1911–1920 period, when more than 123,000 Caribbean immigrants entered the United States. (See Table 1.1.)

Prior to World War I Caribbean workers had moved among the islands and to parts of South and Central America. Following the war many went north in search of work. Similarly, after World War II (1939–1945), when agricultural changes in the Caribbean forced many people off the farms and into the cities, many continued on to the United States or the United Kingdom in search of jobs.

With the new quota laws, the problem of illegal aliens arose for the first time. Previously, only a few of the small number of immigrants who had failed the immigration standards tried to sneak in, usually across the U.S.–Mexico border. With the new laws, the number of illegal aliens began to increase. Subsequently, Congress created the Border Patrol in 1924 (under 43 Stat. 240) to oversee the nation's borders and prevent illegal aliens from coming into the United States. This in turn resulted in a system of appeals and deportation actions.