Immigration Laws In The Early 1900s

The United States has always been a country of immigrants. It was founded by immigrants from Europe who were escaping religious oppression to start a new life on a distant continent, far away from the old world and its problems. This country continued to be a destination for many immigrants. They have traveled here for reasons similar to those of the first settlers. The U.S. had imposed immigration restrictions before, but in the early to mid 1900s, some changes were made that drastically altered the amount of immigrants allowed into the country. Collectively, these laws were called the National Origins Formula, and they imposed a new quota system that not only limited the amount of immigration, but gave some countries more freedom than others.
By introducing the quota system, they made it possible to control the amount of people who would be allowed in from each country. Digging deeper, it can be concluded that these laws had some considerable racial and cultural bias. Most of the time this was intentional. The government, spurred on by people like eugenicists and nativists, wanted to invite some types of people into the country and leave others out. They had a variety of reasons for wanting to exclude certain people. Some groups were considered a threat to the American social structure, and were unwelcome because of their different ways of going about life. Others were seen as radicals, communists, or other undesirable people who were feared or hated by the average American; sometimes simply because the media painted them that way, or the government did not approve of them. Not all of people’s fears were unfounded, but a great many of them did not really pose much of a threat to the United States. Some of the feelings of resentment towards newcomers were more unintentional, and came about because of years of nativism, and being immersed in popular culture at the time, which has a very big effect on how people think. The National Origins Formula was not completely bad or unnecessary, and there were some legitimate reasons behind them. The laws were simply implemented in an unfortunately discriminatory way that caused some strife, and backlash among the international community. Constantine Panunzio sums it up rather nicely in his article on immigration policy. “Viewing the immigration policy as a whole, the results it has produced, and the proposals for alteration, it would seem as if most of the difficulties are due to the fact that the methods it employs are fundamentally negative and discriminatory.” The Formula laws did not embody the American ideals of freedom and equality as