Voting and Civil Rights 1882-1906

1882

The Chinese Exclusion Act “was the first major law that restricted immigration to the U.S. It effectively halted Chinese immigration for ten years and prohibited Chinese from becoming US citizens. Through the Geary Act of 1892, the law was extended for another ten years before becoming permanent in 1902.” The Act provided deportation procedures for illegal Chinese. Chinese exclusion stemmed from racism and anxiety Americans felt about competing for jobs.

1891

Under the Immigration Act of 1891 “the federal government assumed direct control of inspecting, admitting, rejecting, and processing all immigrants seeking admission to the United States…. The Bureau of Immigration created the Office of the Superintendent of Immigration within the Treasury Department to enforce immigration laws.”

1892

“Ellis Island opens to process arriving immigrants. They were given a complete examination. Officials looked at medical, psychological, moral, and vocational factors in making decisions about entry.” Ellis Island was an inspection station with the purpose of enforcing immigration regulations.

1880 -1900’s

“Grandfather clauses” was a legal mechanism that kept former slaves and their descendants from voting. Grandfather clauses allowed “those who were able to vote before 1867 and those whose father or grandfather could vote before 1867 to skip the tests and taxes.” African Americans did not gain the right to vote until 1870 and due to grandfather clauses, along with literacy tests and poll taxes, they would be excluded from voting in southern states such as Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia”.

1903

Immigration Act of 1903 “reaffirmed all immigration and contract labor laws made after 1875. It expanded excludable classes of immigrants to include anarchists, people with contagious diseases, criminals, prostitutes, epileptics, those who had been insane within five years, and those who had ever had two or more attacks of insanity. … In 1907 excludable groups were expanded to include imbeciles, feeble-minded [persons], and persons with physical or mental defects which might affect their ability to earn a living.”

1906

Naturalization Act of 1906 required citizens to learn English before citizenship could be granted. “As nativists’ fears about immigration from Europe and China grew, legislators began to consider ways to restrict immigration into the United States and to prevent those not deserving from being granted citizenship.… the report recommended the implementation of a literacy test to weed out “undesirable” immigrants” (Jeremiah Jaggers)