U.S. Immigration Law: A History & Timeline

From asylum to immigration visas to green cards

American immigration law has not always been a matter of limiting who and how many immigrants should enter the United States. For the first century after the nation’s founding, laws generally encouraged and protected immigrants coming to the new country.

Changes came in 1875, when Congress passed the Page Act, which excluded “convicts and prostitutes” from entering the country. A few years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 became the first racially discriminatory law.

As the first major law restricting rather than encouraging immigration, the act banned Chinese laborers for ten years and prohibited existing Chinese-American residents from becoming citizens.

Amazingly, the law remained in force for six decades. Congress finally repealed it in 1943 during World War II. when China became an ally of the U.S. against Japan.

A constant evolution

In the century and a half since the Page Act, American immigration law and policy have vacillated significantly as the political pendulum has swung to and fro. Particularly after World War I, federal statutes began limiting immigration of various groups from Asia, Eastern Europe and Pacific island nations.

But certain ethnic groups were not the only targets of exclusionary measures. The forerunner of today’s immigration legal fundamentals, the Immigration and Nationalization Act of 1952, barred “epileptics, insane persons, professional beggars and anarchists.”

Well into the 21st century American immigration policy has become possibly the most debated political topic. Several relatively recent attempts to overhaul immigration law have failed to pass Congress. Both Republican- and Democratic-led efforts to overhaul our immigration system have failed repeatedly.

Phase one: Open door policy, 1776-1875

Naturalization Act of 1790

• Established residency requirements for naturalization
• Limited naturalization to “free white person(s)…of good moral character

Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798

• Right to expel “aliens”
• Right to remove males age 14+ who were nationals of enemy nations

Steerage Act of 1819

• First major law regulating immigration
• Mandated safer, more sanitary and less crowded conditions for immigrants arriving on ships
• Required minimum food and water supplies for passengers
• Captains were required to submit passenger lists indicating names, ages, occupations and countries of origin

Act to Encourage Immigration of 1864

• Established uniform qualification standards for naturalization
• Designed to address severe labor shortages during the Civil War by encouraging immigration

Phase two: A wave of discriminatory laws

Page Act of 1875

• Excluded any Asian woman involved in prostitution
• Barred the entry of anyone convicted of a crime in his or her country of origin
• Prohibited the immigration of anyone from Asia involved in forced labor

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

• In the wake of growing anti-Chinese sentiment, Page banned all immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years.
• Also denied citizenship to all Chinese already in the U.S.
• Was strengthened and renewed ten years later by the Geary Act and made permanent in 1902
• Although Page was not repealed till 1943), the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark that the law ruled that children of Chinese immigrants born in the U.S. were automatically granted birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Immigration Act of 1882

• Barred “idiots, lunatics, convicts and persons likely to become public charges”
• Imposed a head tax on non-citizens to fund government oversight of immigration
• Charged government agents to inspect ports and ships bringing immigrants to the country.

1903: Amendments to the Immigration Act of 1881

• Barred “epileptics, insane persons, professional beggars and anarchists”

Phase three: Post-WWI quotas & limits

Asiatic Barred Zone Act of 1917

• Prohibited Asia-Pacific natives

Quota Act of 1921

• Limited European immigrants to 3% of the U.S. population

Johnson-Reed Act/Immigration Act/National Quota Act of 1924

• Established permanent national-origin quotas till 1953, based on the 1890 census

Immigration & Nationality Act of 1952

• Eliminated bans from the 1880s on contract labor
• Promoted family reunification by exempting children and spouses of children from numerical limits
• Increased the quota for Europeans outside northern and Western Europe
• Set a minimum quota of 100 visas per country

Immigration & Nationality Act of 1965

• Abolished the National Origins Formula, lifting the restrictions on eastern-hemisphere immigrants
• Expanded limits on immigrants to 120,000 from the western hemisphere, 170,000 from the eastern hemisphere
• Formally removed de facto discrimination against Asians and southern and Eastern European

Immigration Act of 1990

• Expanded total limits to 700,000 worldwide and increased visas by 40%
• Created five employment-based visas
• Initiated a system for family-based visas
• Launched a lottery program to admit immigrants from “low admittance” countries

Dream Act (failed)

• Introduced in 1991, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act would have granted the temporary right to work and conditional residency to qualified immigrants arriving in the U.S. before age 16.
• Applicants would have had to graduate with a two-year, community-college degree, or complete two years of a four-year degree, or serve two years in the U.S. military.
• All who met the requirements following a six-year period would have earned permanent residency.
• After the introduction in Congress of several versions, the legislation ultimately failed in the Senate by a vote of 52-44, eight votes shy of overcoming a filibuster.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (failed)

• Would have given paths to citizenship for most illegal entrants
• Would have significantly increased legal immigration and enforcement

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

• A policy launched by President Barack Obama in 2012 that postponed deportation of young immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents no later than June 15, 2007
• Granted eligibility to qualified immigrants to receive work permits (Employment Authorization Documents, or EAD)
• President Donald Trump announced the termination of DACA in 2017.
• In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled the termination was unlawful.
• As of 2026, DACA faces review by a Texas federal district court in the wake of a 2025 appellate court ruling.
• The government is barred from approving new DACA applications.
• Existing DACA recipients can continue to renew their temporary status every two years.