What Was The Impact Of New Immigration In The 19th Century

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New immigration was not accepted by most citizens although it brought cheap labor to do undesirable jobs in the U.S. People feared radical influences from foreign extremists; people feared the growing Catholic political influence coming from immigrants enter the United States. The Anti- European Act was founded by the Immigration Restriction League. The IRL was founded by a group of Harvard graduates in 1894. The anti-immigrant group shaped a literacy test as a measure to “keep out ‘undesirable classes’ from southern and eastern Europe” from infiltrating the United States. In 1896, the league created a literacy bill with the support of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. President Cleveland vetoed the bill, though it eventually passed in 1918. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion acts of 1882 and 1892, which prohibited Chinese people from entering the U.S. In 1902 Chinese immigration was suspended indefinitely. In 1906, to distract attention from a municipal scandal, officials in San Francisco chose to stir up anti-Japanese feelings. …show more content…

Native-born Americans reacted profoundly and negatively to the arrival of Chinese men in the west. President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act which stated that the Chinese Americans already settled in America to stay and limited family members of Chinese Americans to immigrate with the correct paperwork. This act was one of the most overwhelming and scrupulous stipulation on free immigration in US history. When the exclusion act expired in 1892, Congress extended it for ten years in the name of a different act. This extension was made permanent in 1902. The new act “added restrictions by requiring each Chinese resident to register and obtain a certificate of