The Immigration Act of 1917 was the first immigration law to employ a literacy test. Passed in reaction to the high tide of immigration between the 1880s and the onset of World War I, it sought to limit the number of immigrants, particularly those from southern and eastern Europe. The number of immigrants was 788,922 in 1882 and reached 1,285,349 in 1907. Not only did the number of immigrants steadily increase, but the countries of origin for immigrants dramatically shifted as well. Although emigrants from Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia, and the Balkans were nonexistent in the 19th century, combined these countries sent nearly 75 percent of the immigrants who arrived in the United States in 1907. By this time, vocal opposition already challenged earlier “open door” immigration policies, but the nativist movement in the United States failed to enact any major pieces of legislation affecting the migration of individuals into the country.
The context for immigration policy changed with the entry of the United States into World War I. Patriotic and national unity efforts, and fears of immigrant subversion, culminated in increasing and systematic efforts at the “Americanization” of immigrants. The champions of immigrant restriction reached their first significant victory in 1917 with the passage of the Immigration Act, also known as the Alien Exclusion Act. It was the first in a series of restrictive immigration laws based on the findings of the Dillingham Commission. The cornerstone of the 1917 act was a literacy test. All immigrants over 16 years of age who could not pass were denied entry to the United States. The Immigration Act also banned the immigration of laborers from India, Indochina, Afghanistan, Arabia, the East Indies, and several other countries within an Asiatic Barred Zone. The act did not explicitly prohibit the entry of emigrants from China and Japan, because other laws already restricted emigration from these two countries. The 1917 legislation was the first step in establishing restrictive federal immigration policies based on a rank order of eligible immigrants that favored national groups thought to be most assimilable—primarily emigrants from northwest Europe. When President Wilson received the legislation, he declared the act was a violation of American ideals
World History
