Immigration Act of 1917 (Barred Zone Act)
Descriptive Information
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https://exhibits.library.illinois.edu/s/ias/item/3819
- Title
- Immigration Act of 1917 (Barred Zone Act)
- Description
- The Immigration Act of 1917 created a "barred zone" from the Middle East to Southeast Asia from which no immigrants were allowed to enter the USA. It also enacted a literacy test to restrict immigration (primarily from European countries). The act also expanded excluded classes of immigrants, including "idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons: persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority; persons with chronic alcoholism; paupers...persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons...mentally or physically defective...persons who have been convicted of or admit having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists...anarchists... prostitutes...persons who directly or indirectly procure or attempt to procure or import prostitutes...contract laborers...persons likely to become a public charge; persons who have been deported under any of the provisions of the act...persons whose tickets or passage is paid for with the money of another...stowaways..."
