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Restrictive Legislation As a response to this wave of immigration, a new series of federal laws was enacted that severely restricted settlement in the United States. By the 1890s, companies were forbidden to recruit workers from other countries. If you arrived in this country with a guarantee of work - for example, a promisary note from a relative or from a prospective employer who had recruited you in your home country- you could be deported with no right to appeal. Bills were also passed that required adult male immigrants to be able to read and write in their native languages, although many of these laws were vetoed by the President until 1917.
Many of these anti-immigration laws again targeted specific ethnic communities. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers who had played a major role in constructing a national railroad. This act was made permanent by Congress in 1902. In 1921, Congress passed the Emergency Immigration Act which set up a very complex quota system - "immigrants from any country could not exceed 3% of the number of persons of their nationality who had been in the United States in 1910."This drastically reduced the number of new settlers from 800,000 who arrived in 1921 to around 300,000 who arrived in 1922. The law also clearly favored immigration from Northern Europe. By 1924, the National Origins Act was passed, banning the immigration of East Asians and restricting the number of immigrants especially from Eastern European and Mediterranean countries who were considered "undesirables". By 1925, there seemed to be an overwhelming public animosity toward the practice of immigration and a great deal of hostility toward newcomers themselves, especially those from Central America and South America, Asia, Africa and southern Europe.
Polish immigrants arriving in NY, ca 1890s
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