National Origins Act of 1924

1. A law that severely restricted immigration by establishing a system of national quotas that blatantly discriminated against immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and virtually excluded Asians. The policy stayed in effect until the 1960s.

Example Sentences

With Congress’ sights in the 1920s set on legislation that would block “undesirable” immigration, the National Origins Act of 1924 was enacted, establishing a cap on how many immigrants could enter the U.S. under a system that reserved 96% of slots for European immigrants and included a total ban on Asian immigrants.

Read more on Seattle Times

Less than a decade later, the United States embraced drastic restrictions on immigration through the National Origins Act of 1924.

Read more on Salon

With its entrance into the First World War, the country started to implement race-based quota systems and other immigration controls, culminating in the passage of the National Origins Act of 1924, which excluded all Asian immigrants and sought to insure that ninety-six per cent of America’s immigration slots were reserved for Europeans.

Read more on The New Yorker

From the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, to the Naturalization Act of 1790, to the Homestead Act of 1862, to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the Asiatic Barred Zone Act of 1917, to the National Origins Act of 1924, to Executive Order 9066 of 1942, to Executive Order 13769 of 2017, bigotry disguised as nationalism is nothing new.

Read more on The Guardian

The split between rural fundamentalists and urban modernists, between recent migrants to the United States from eastern and southern Europe and older assimilated Americans found expression in the National Origins Act of 1924, a discriminatory immigration act.

Read more on The Guardian