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Immigration

United States Immigration Laws 1900-1960

United States Immigration Laws 1900-1960
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 7 to 9
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   11.51

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    feeble-minded, ideology, domestic, policies, housing, deport, dramatic, security, unskilled, racial, political, skilled, asiatic, literacy, recruit, affected
     content words:    President Theodore Roosevelt, Immigration Act, Asiatic Barred Zone, Quota Act, Eastern Europe, Western Hemisphere, National Origins Act, Border Patrol, Western Europe, Chinese Exclusion Laws

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United States Immigration Laws 1900-1960
By Sheri Skelton 		  
1     The U.S. experienced a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants during the first twenty years of the twentieth century. Approximately 14.5 million people entered the U.S. from 1900-1920, the largest number of people legally admitted during a twenty-year period.
 
2     Immigration concerns became increasingly tied to labor interests. Employers wanting to recruit foreign workers for lower wages supported fewer restrictions on immigration. Laborers desiring higher wages wanted to limit the number of immigrant workers allowed to enter the country.
 
3     In 1907 the U.S. and Japan developed a "Gentleman's Agreement" in which the two countries mutually agreed to regulate the number and background of Japanese immigrants to the U.S. This "Gentleman's Agreement" was not an official law but rather an understanding worked out between the leaders of the two countries. Japan agreed to allow only the educated and people with business interests to travel to the U.S. and not permit skilled or unskilled laborers the freedom to travel. In exchange, President Theodore Roosevelt promised to desegregate California schools, which separated Japanese students from other students.
 
4     That year, too, the head tax on new immigrants was increased and additional persons for exclusion were noted. These included imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, persons with physical or mental defects, and children under age 16 without parents.
 
5     The 1917 Immigration Act introduced a literacy test that immigrants who were 16 years or older had to pass. The Act also created an "Asiatic Barred Zone" that prevented all Asian immigrants from entering the country.

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