During the 1920's, 30's and 40's the US Government substantially cut immigration to the US. This is generally attributed to the Great Depression and the major unemployment it produced, which peaked at 24.9% in 1933. At the time labor organisations mounted energetic and effective anti - immigration campaigns on the specious basis that 'immigrants will take all the jobs'. Numbers, though, were just one aspect of anti- immigration sentiment and policy in the US at the time. Race and ethnicity were at least as significant, and had been since visibly foreign immigrants from places beyond north-western Europe began to arrive in the US in large numbers during the 1880's.

Xenophobia erupted across the US in the 1920s. Manifesting in  the rise of organised anti- foreigner movements such as the Ku Klux Klan, campaigns such as the " Keep California White" campaign, race riots and the lynching of Mexican immigrants in the South, this xenophobia soon moved the government to legislate racially discriminating provisions into the US immigration program.

In 1921 the U. S. Congress passed the national- origins- based Quota Act aimed at limiting the migration of Jews to the US. In 1924 this was modified to  also ban all immigration from Asia.

Immigration numbers continued their decline with the US experiencing negative net immigration between 1932 and 1935.

The national- origins- based Quota act was not repealed in the 1930's or 40's to help  the persecuted Jewish people of Europe. In 1943 it was changed as a favour to an ally in the struggle against Imperial Japan, allowing Chinese people to enter the US as immigrants - though only 105 per year. It was 1965 before the national- origins- based system was fully abolished.

Illustrating the importance of race in US immigration policy before 1965: while in 1963 Greece had a quota of 308 people per year and a backlog of 97,  577, Italy a quota of 5, 666 and a backlog of 122, 706, and Poland a quota of 6, 488 and a backlog of 55, 429 ; Britain used only 25, 000 of its 65, 361 allotted visas, and Ireland 5, 500 of 17, 756.

Further Reading:

Fetzer, J., Public Attitudes toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.

Joppke, C., Immigration and the Nation - State, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999.