* Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882: Chinese immigration is forbidden for ten years. This law will be renewed and rendered permanent in the twentieth century and will last until 1943.
* 1890: control of immigration turned over to federal government.
* United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898: Supreme Court rules that children born in America of Asian parents must be granted citizenship. Denying citizenship would violate the 14th Amendment and jeopardize the rights of native-born whites.
* Literacy Test Act, 1917: Required immigrants to be literate in some language.
*National Origins Act, 1924: Sets a quota of 150,000 total immigrants a year disproportionately distributed to England and Northern Europe, with few slots allotted to southern and Eastern Europe and none for Asians. Ends mass immigration into the U.S. until its repeal in 1965.