A U.S. law so racist even Hitler praised it.
May 26, 1924: The Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act, became law.
On May 26, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act, into law.
The law created racial immigration quotas designed to preserve what the U.S. State Department later described as the “ideal of U.S. homogeneity.”
For immigrants from Asia, it was not just a quota. It was a ban.
Four years later, Adolf Hitler praised America’s immigration law for excluding people he called “strangers of the blood.” Nazi lawmakers viewed this favorably because it excluded what they described as “wholly foreign racial population masses.”
That was not an accident. The law was built on the same racial logic that had shaped decades of exclusion in the United States.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
President Calvin Coolidge signing the Immigration Act, a.k.a. the Johnson-Reed Act, which effectively banned immigration from most of Asia.
In Japan, it was called the “Japanese Exclusion Act.” Some say it helped fuel the rise of Japanese militarism, by proving the U.S. would never see Japan as equal.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Albert Johnson, one of the architects of the Immigration Act of 1924, supported eugenics, the false “science” used to rank human beings by race and nationality.
David A. Reed, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and co-author of the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act.
There was a time when even many white people weren’t welcome in the United States – Cartoon from Fiery Cross, 1923
A Quota for Some. A Ban for Others.
The Johnson-Reed Act was named after its two main architects: U.S. Representative Albert Johnson and Senator David Reed. Johnson was a eugenics advocate. Reed was a leading restrictionist. Together, they helped create one of the most openly racist immigration laws in American history.
The law created immigration quotas based on national origin. It used the 1890 census to limit immigration to 2% of each nationality’s population already living in the United States at that time.
That choice was deliberate. The 1890 census favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe, while sharply reducing immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Poles, Greeks, Russians, and Jews.
But for Asians, the law went further.
Excluded
Chinese laborers had already been barred by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Japanese immigration had already been restricted by the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907. The 1924 law expanded that exclusion. It barred immigration from people who were ineligible for U.S. citizenship, which meant nearly all Asian immigrants.
This was the culmination of decades of anti-Asian exclusion, nativism, and racial panic. Supporters feared the country’s changing demographics and argued that immigration threatened American identity. Eugenics gave that fear a false scientific language.
Supporters claimed certain races and ethnic groups were less desirable, less intelligent, or less capable of becoming American. These ideas were discussed openly in Congress, promoted by academics, and embraced by powerful political movements.
The law found support among xenophobic and nativist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan.
Courtesy of British Columbia Archives
An anti-Chinese poster announcing the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, May 6, 1882
After winning the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the Russo-Japanese War, Theodore Roosevelt negotiated an immigration agreement with Japan in 1907.
Eugenics and other forms of racial pseudo science gave lawmakers a false “scientific” language for exclusion.
Japanese Foreign Minister Matsui Kishirō warned that the Immigration Act of 1924 would damage U.S.-Japan relations by singling out Japanese immigrants for exclusion.
Masanao Hanihara, Japan’s ambassador to the United States, warned that the 1924 immigration bill would bring “grave consequences” to U.S.-Japan relations.
The Immigration Act of 1924 did not directly cause Pearl Harbor. But historians have argued it deepened Japan’s resentment toward the United States.
The Reaction in Japan
The law caused outrage in Japan. In Japan, some called it the “Japanese Exclusion Act.”
For years, the United States and Japan had maintained a tense but workable diplomatic relationship. The 1924 law changed that.
Japanese Foreign Minister Matsui Keishirō instructed Ambassador Masanao Hanihara to warn U.S. officials that the bill would single out Japanese people as “unworthy and undesirable” in the eyes of the American public. Historians have argued that the law helped damage U.S.-Japan relations and weakened democratic forces in Japan, opening more space for militarists who pointed to American racism as proof that Japan would never be treated as an equal.
It did not cause Pearl Harbor by itself, but it deepened the animosity that helped history get there.
A Law That Lasted for Decades
The Johnson-Reed Act did more than restrict immigration. It also authorized the creation of the country’s first formal border control service: the U.S. Border Patrol.
The Johnson-Reed Act shaped U.S. immigration policy for nearly three decades.
It remained the foundation of American immigration law until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 revised parts of the system. The national origins quota system was not fully dismantled until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
By then, generations had been affected. The law limited immigration for some. For Asians, it meant exclusion. And for the world, it became proof that America’s racial hierarchy was not just social custom. It was federal law, one even the Führer approved.
The Immigration Act of 1924 did more than create racial quotas. It also authorized the U.S. Border Patrol, creating a federal system for policing the nation’s borders.
Courtesy of History.com
The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act revised U.S. immigration law, removing racial barriers that excluded Asian immigrants to the U.S., but there was more to it.
When Adolf Hitler praised America’s 1924 immigration law, it showed how far racial exclusion had gone.