United States passes immigration law banning "undesirables"

August 2, 1882. The United States Legislature passes "An act to regulate immigration". The Act aims to regulate immigration.

Under this Act every person attempting to enter the country who is not a citizen of the United States can be charged a levy of fifty cents (§1). The funds collected from the levy are then to be put toward paying for the cost of regulating immigration (§2). Each non-citizen attempting to enter the country needs to be examined according to a set of exclusionary criteria. If found to be "undesirable", they can be barred entry. The grounds for exclusion include: convicts, lunatics, idiots, or "any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge" (§3).

The phrase "becoming a public charge" hints at this Act's connection to eugenics, particularly in the United States. The rise of eugenic theory and practice coincided with a rise in immigration in the United States, particularly from eastern Europe. As immigration rates rose, public concern grew over the rising number non-western, non-Anglo-Saxon people entering the country.

The rising immigration rates resulted in a public concern that America would be overrun or flooded by "undesirable" persons. A similar motivation underwrote parts of the eugenic movement (Lombardo, 2003). This legislation thus highlights the connections between eugenic and societal concerns more generally of the time as it points to how public worries about "undesirables", whether they be foreign or mentally incompetent, could drive policy decisions.

-Luke Kersten

  • United States of America. (1882). An Act to regulate immigration. U.S. Sess. I Chap. 376; 22 Stat. 214.

  • Lombardo, P. (2008). Three Generations NO Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

United States passes immigration law banning "undesirables"

August 2, 1882. The United States Legislature passes "An act to regulate immigration". The Act aims to regulate immigration.

Under this Act every person attempting to enter the country who is not a citizen of the United States can be charged a levy of fifty cents (§1). The funds collected from the levy are then to be put toward paying for the cost of regulating immigration (§2). Each non-citizen attempting to enter the country needs to be examined according to a set of exclusionary criteria. If found to be "undesirable", they can be barred entry. The grounds for exclusion include: convicts, lunatics, idiots, or "any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge" (§3).

The phrase "becoming a public charge" hints at this Act's connection to eugenics, particularly in the United States. The rise of eugenic theory and practice coincided with a rise in immigration in the United States, particularly from eastern Europe. As immigration rates rose, public concern grew over the rising number non-western, non-Anglo-Saxon people entering the country.

The rising immigration rates resulted in a public concern that America would be overrun or flooded by "undesirable" persons. A similar motivation underwrote parts of the eugenic movement (Lombardo, 2003). This legislation thus highlights the connections between eugenic and societal concerns more generally of the time as it points to how public worries about "undesirables", whether they be foreign or mentally incompetent, could drive policy decisions.

-Luke Kersten

  • United States of America. (1882). An Act to regulate immigration. U.S. Sess. I Chap. 376; 22 Stat. 214.

  • Lombardo, P. (2008). Three Generations NO Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.