The Immigration Act of 1924 may or may not have been successful, but if nothing else, it created the illusion of success. Discus - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... Section 11(a) of the aforementioned law states that, "The annual quota of any nationality shall be two per centum of the number of foreign-born individuals of such nationality resident in continental United States as determined by the United States Census of 1890, but the minimum quota of any nationality shall be 100”. However, the law does not just stop from the restrictive quota, it also made a sweeping ban against Asians from entering the United States with the exception of the Filipino and Japanese citizens. With the implementation of the Immigration Act of 1924, immigrants from Eastern European counties saw a drastic decrease in number while there was not much effect to the Northern and Western European immigrants. As a result the law unintentionally created a divide which implies that the people from Eastern Europe were inferior and disfavored as compared with the rest of the continent. Likewise, the law also created the same divide in Asia because of the imposition of the Asiatic barred zone, which in simple terms, banned all citizens of Asian countries from entering the US pursuant to a provision in Section 11(d) of the law which excludes “aliens ineligible to citizenship or their descendants”. ...
The violation resulted in tension and strained relations between Japan and the US in the 1920s. The only exception was the citizens of the Philippines, a US colony. However, this privilege was only short-lived because in 1934, the Tydings-McDuffie Act was passed into law which declared the Philippines as an independent and sovereign state effective July 4, 1946 but removed the Filipino people’s status as US nationals effective immediately. With its status as an independent state, the Philippines was given an immigration quota of only 50 immigrant visas per year. But then again, when World War II erupted, the US armed forces needed personnel so they reclassified the Filipinos as US nationals and enlisted them into the US army. Taken altogether, the Immigration Act created a big impact on the movement of people towards America. Apparently, in the years that followed, immigration statistics look very different from its earlier data. After 1924, there was a drastic decrease if not total elimination of immigrants from the barred Asian countries as well as the Eastern European states. In contrast, the ratio of Northern and Western Europeans vis-a-vis the total number of immigrants for each year dramatically increased because their competitions were literally stifled. If we evaluate the Immigration Act of 1924 within its own context and in terms of its declared purpose, which is “To limit the immigration of aliens into the United States,” then I would say that the law has been successful. However, it has also been successful in creating a common resentment among the citizens of the excluded countries who also want their share of milk and honey. In essence, the law had successfully created a selective and discriminatory process on who can ...Download file to see next pagesRead More