U.S. National Origins Act 1924 — Closing the Door on Mass Immigration
The Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act), signed by President Calvin Coolidge on May 26, 1924, was the most consequential immigration law in American history. It reduced annual immigration from approximately 800,000 in the peak years to 165,000 total, and redesigned the ethnic composition of future immigration by embedding racial preferences into law. The quota mechanism was carefully engineered for discriminatory effect. National quotas were calculated at 2% of the number of foreign-born residents of each nationality in the 1890 census — before the peak of Southern and Eastern European immigration. This formula ensured that 70% of all quotas went to Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany. Italy's actual annual arrivals had been around 200,000; the Act cut its quota to 3,845. Poland: to 5,982. Russia: to 2,248. Greece: to 100. The Act also completely excluded East Asians through the 'aliens ineligible for citizenship' clause, permanently damaging U.S.-Japanese relations (Japan designated May 26 a national day of humiliation). The racial logic of the Act was explicit and openly stated. Representative Albert Johnson, the Act's House sponsor, relied heavily on Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (1916), which argued that Southern and Eastern Europeans represented inferior racial stock that would degrade the Anglo-Saxon-Nordic American population. The Eugenics Record Office provided testimony to Congress supporting the restrictive quotas as scientific racial hygiene. The Act was preceded by the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 (based on the 1910 census), which had already cut Southern European immigration; the 1924 Act made the restrictions permanent and tightened them. The consequence for Jewish refugees during the 1930s and 1940s was catastrophic: as Nazi persecution escalated, the fully subscribed quotas combined with systematic consular obstruction meant that hundreds of thousands of Jews who applied for U.S. visas — including the family of Anne Frank — were turned away.
- Year: 1921 CE
- Category: Political
