The Immigration Act of 1917

The story of the Immigration Act of 1917 is not just about a law. It’s about fear, power, and a nation at war with itself over the question of who gets to be American. By the time the bill passed over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto in February 1917, the United States had been wrestling with immigration policy for decades. The country had already built walls—figuratively and literally—against certain immigrants, but the 1917 Act was a watershed moment. It codified a deep-seated nativism that had been simmering since the late 19th century, a reaction to waves of immigrants from places that many Americans considered undesirable. Southern and Eastern Europeans, particularly Italians, Poles, and Jews, had been arriving in droves, unsettling the old order dominated by Northern and Western European Protestants. Asian immigration, already curtailed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Gentlemen’s Agreement with Japan, faced its most restrictive measure yet: the infamous Asiatic Barred Zone, a sweeping prohibition that covered nearly the entire continent of Asia.

But to understand how we got there, we have to step back to the late 19th century, when the first real efforts at immigration restriction began. The Immigration Restriction League, founded in 1894 by a group of Boston Brahmins, had one mission: keep out what they saw as racially inferior immigrants. Prescott F. Hall, one of its founders, along with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, championed the idea of literacy tests as a means of filtering out the “unfit.” If an immigrant couldn’t read 30 to 40 words in their native language, they didn’t belong. Simple as that. The reasoning, of course, was thinly veiled prejudice. Southern Italians and Eastern European Jews were more likely to be illiterate than their Northern and Western European counterparts, making literacy tests an effective way to reduce the numbers of these groups. And while literacy tests had been proposed multiple times—President Grover Cleveland vetoed one in 1897, William Howard Taft rejected another in 1912, and Wilson himself vetoed one in 1915—the tide was turning.

By 1916, America was on edge. Europe was in flames, and while the United States had yet to enter the Great War, fears of radicalism and foreign subversion were running high. The Russian Revolution was just around the corner, and the idea that anarchists and communists might be sneaking into the country under the guise of poor, huddled masses struck terror into the hearts of many lawmakers. This was the perfect storm for the final push toward restriction. The Immigration Act of 1917, also called the Literacy Act or the Burnett Act, was introduced in the House by Representative Robert Lee Henry of Texas. It sailed through Congress, passing the House 307-87 and the Senate 35-17.

Wilson, ever the idealist, vetoed it on December 14, 1916. His argument was simple: it was un-American to deny people entry based on education. The American Dream was built on the idea that people could rise, no matter their background. Restricting immigration based on literacy, Wilson believed, was an attack on that very dream. But by this point, Wilson’s influence on immigration policy was waning. Congress, emboldened by a rising tide of nationalism and nativism, was ready to act. On February 1, 1917, the House overrode Wilson’s veto by a vote of 287-106. Four days later, the Senate did the same, 62-20. The bill became law, marking the first time the U.S. Congress had successfully overridden a presidential veto on an immigration matter.

The law’s provisions were sweeping. It formally created an Asiatic Barred Zone, covering the vast expanse from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. If you were from India, Afghanistan, Indochina, or most of the Pacific Islands, you were now legally barred from entering the United States. The only exceptions were for select professionals—teachers, religious ministers, and government officials. It wasn’t just Asians, though. The act expanded the list of undesirable immigrants to include the “mentally defective,” alcoholics, anarchists, polygamists, and anyone who might become a “public charge.” The literacy test requirement meant that anyone over the age of sixteen had to prove they could read in their native tongue—unless, of course, they were fleeing religious persecution, in which case they might be granted an exception.

The reaction was swift and divided. Nativists celebrated, heralding the act as a triumph in the ongoing struggle to preserve America’s racial and cultural identity. The Immigration Restriction League had finally gotten its literacy test. The American Federation of Labor, which had long lobbied for restrictions on low-wage immigrant labor, saw the act as a victory for American workers. But immigrant communities were outraged. Jewish and Italian leaders decried the literacy test as a blatant attempt to curb their numbers. The Indian community, still small at the time, recognized the Asiatic Barred Zone as an act of racial exclusion. And Mexico? Well, the law included an $8 head tax and paperwork requirements for Mexican immigrants, but given the need for agricultural labor in the Southwest, many of these provisions were quietly waived in practice.

The act’s impact was immediate and far-reaching. In the short term, it choked off immigration from Asia almost entirely. Chinese immigration had already been banned since 1882, and now virtually the entire continent was locked out. The literacy test didn’t dramatically reduce European immigration—it turned out that literacy rates had improved significantly—but it set the stage for even stricter laws to come. In 1921 and 1924, Congress would go even further, imposing numerical quotas that favored Northern and Western Europeans while drastically limiting Southern and Eastern Europeans. The 1917 Act, then, was the beginning of the end of America’s open-door policy.

Looking back, the Immigration Act of 1917 was a turning point. It was the first real assertion of the federal government’s power to decide who belonged and who didn’t, based on criteria beyond criminality or disease. It reflected a nation that was becoming increasingly insular, worried that the influx of foreigners would dilute its identity. It set a precedent for the even harsher laws that followed in the 1920s, laws that would not be undone until the civil rights movement reshaped America’s immigration policies in the 1960s. And yet, the concerns that drove the act—fears of foreign radicals, economic competition, and cultural preservation—are still with us today. The 1917 Act may be history, but its echoes can still be heard in debates about immigration policy, national security, and what it means to be an American.