Immigration Act of 1917: Nativism Bans Asian Entry

Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson’s veto on February 5, 1917, passing the Immigration Act by overwhelming margins and slamming the door on virtually all immigration from Asia. The law created an "Asiatic Barred Zone" stretching from Afghanistan to the Pacific Islands, prohibiting entry by anyone born within its boundaries. It also imposed a literacy test on all immigrants over sixteen, a provision three previous presidents had vetoed over the prior two decades. Anti-immigrant sentiment had been building in the United States since the 1880s. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had barred Chinese laborers specifically. The Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907 restricted Japanese immigration through diplomatic channels. But the 1917 act went further than any previous law, creating a sweeping geographic ban that encompassed India, Burma, Siam, the Malay States, the East Indian Islands, Polynesia, and parts of Russia and the Middle East. The message was blunt: the United States wanted European immigrants, not Asian ones. The literacy test was the law’s other major weapon. Prospective immigrants had to demonstrate the ability to read a passage of thirty to forty words in any language. Presidents Grover Cleveland, William Taft, and Wilson had each vetoed literacy test legislation, arguing it was a thinly disguised class barrier masquerading as a merit standard. Wilson called the test "a fundamental departure from the traditional and long-established policy of this country." Congress disagreed, overriding his veto with a 287-106 vote in the House and 62-19 in the Senate. The act also barred "idiots," "feeble-minded persons," epileptics, alcoholics, anarchists, polygamists, and "persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority," a category used to exclude homosexuals. The law established a template for the even more restrictive Immigration Act of 1924, which imposed national origin quotas designed to preserve the ethnic composition of the United States as it existed in 1890. These quota systems remained in effect until 1965.