When U.S. Excluded Asians

This law is best known for its creation of a “barred zone” extending from the Middle East to Southeast Asia from which no persons were allowed to enter the United States. Its main restriction, however, consisted of a literacy test intended to reduce European immigration, with exemptions for those who could show they were fleeing persecution.  It had taken Congress two decades to enact a literacy test, after repeated vetoes by the White House. They were successful amid heightened fears of immigration and the spread of radicalism during World War I and the Russian Revolution. This law also further clarified funding and administrative procedures to facilitate enforcement of immigration laws and expanded excludable classes of immigrants.