This year marks one hundred years since the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, popularly known as the Johnson-Reed Act. Reflecting the nativism, xenophobia, and scientific racism of the early twentieth century, this law drastically reduced immigration to the United States, excluded non-white immigrants who were racially ineligible for citizenship, and created a permanent national origins quota system that prioritized immigrants from northern and western Europe. In creating these new discriminatory barriers to immigration, the Johnson-Reed Act transformed... Read more