4. Following the Passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act
Milestones: 1937–1945
Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, 1943
In 1943, Congress passed a measure to repeal the discriminatory exclusion laws against Chinese immigrants and to establish an immigration quota for Prc of around 105 visas per twelvemonth. Every bit such, the Chinese were both the start to be excluded in the kickoff of the era of immigration restriction and the first Asians to gain entry to the U.s.a. in the era of liberalization. The repeal of this human activity was a decision almost wholly grounded in the exigencies of World War 2, as Japanese propaganda fabricated repeated reference to Chinese exclusion from the United States in order to weaken the ties between the United States and its ally, the Republic of China. The fact that in addition to general measures preventing Asian immigration, the Chinese were discipline to their ain, unique prohibition had long been a source of contention in Sino‑American relations. In that location was little opposition to the repeal, because the Us already had in place a number of measures to ensure that, even without the Chinese Exclusion Laws explicitly forbidding Chinese immigration, Chinese however could not enter. The Immigration Act of 1924 stated that aliens ineligible for U.Due south. citizenship were not permitted to enter the United States, and this included the Chinese.
The Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act
More controversial than repeal was the proposal to get i stride further and place the Chinese on a quota basis for future entry to the United States. By finally applying the formulas created in the 1924 Immigration Human action, the total annual quota for Chinese immigrants to the United States (calculated as a percentage of the total population of people of Chinese origin living in the United states in 1920) would be around 105. In light of the overall immigration to the United States, at first glance the new quota seemed insignificant. Yet, those concerned nearly an onslaught of Chinese (or Asian) clearing and its potential impact on American guild and racial composition believed that even this small quota represented an opening wedge through which potentially thousands of Chinese could enter the United States. Considering migration within the Western Hemisphere was not regulated by the quota system, information technology seemed possible that Chinese residents in Central and South America would re-drift to the United States. Moreover, if the Chinese of Hong Kong were to apply nether the vast, largely unused British quota, thousands could enter each twelvemonth on height of the number of available Chinese visas.
Fears about the economic, social, and racial event of a "floodtide" of Chinese immigrants led to a compromise bill—fears that mirrored the xenophobic arguments that had led to Chinese Exclusion in the beginning identify, some sixty years previously. Under this bill, there would be a quota on Chinese clearing, merely, unlike European quotas based on country of citizenship, the Chinese quota would be based on ethnicity. Chinese immigrating to the Us from anywhere in the world would be counted against the Chinese quota, fifty-fifty if they had never been to Prc or had never held Chinese nationality. Creating this special, ethnic quota for the Chinese was a manner for the United States to gainsay Japanese propaganda by proclaiming that Chinese were welcome, only at the aforementioned time, to ensure that only a limited number of Chinese actually entered the land.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt threw the weight of his function behind the compromise mensurate, connecting the importance of the mensurate to American wartime goals. In a letter to Congress, Roosevelt wrote that passing the neb was vital to correcting the "historic mistake" of Chinese exclusion, and he emphasized that the legislation was "of import in the cause of winning the war and of establishing a secure peace."
The repeal of Chinese exclusion paved the way for measures in 1946 to admit Filipino and Asian-Indian immigrants. The exclusion of both of these groups had long damaged U.South. relations with the Philippines and Bharat. Eventually, Asian exclusion ended with the 1952 Immigration Human action, although that Act followed the pattern of the Chinese quota and assigned racial, not national, quotas to all Asian immigrants. This organization did non end until Congress did away with the National Origins quota arrangement altogether in the Clearing Act of 1965.
Source: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/chinese-exclusion-act-repeal
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