May 6, 1882
The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed, the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States, making it unlawful for Chinese laborers to enter the US for the next 10 years & denying naturalized citizenship to the Chinese already here. Renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902, this act cut off Chinese immigration for more than 60 years. This act signaled the shift from a previously open immigration policy in the United States to one in which the federal government exerted control over immigrants. Criteria were gradually set regarding which people—in terms of their ethnicity, gender and class—could be admitted.
