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Robert Longley is a U.S. government and history expert with over 30 years of experience in municipal government and urban planning.
Updated on January 02, 2022The National Origins Act, a component of the Immigration Act of 1924, was a law enacted on May 26, 1924, to greatly reduce the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States by setting immigration quotas for each European nation. This immigration quota setting aspect of the 1924 law remains in effect today in the form of the per-country visa limits enforced by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
During the 1920s, the United States was experiencing a resurgence of anti-immigration isolationism. Many Americans objected to the growing numbers of immigrants being allowed to enter the county. The Immigration Act of 1907 had created the Dillingham Commission—named for its chairman, Republican Senator William P. Dillingham of Vermont—to review the effects of immigration on the United States. Issued in 1911, the commission’s report concluded that because it posed a serious threat to America’s social, cultural, physical, economic, and moral welfare, immigration from southern and eastern Europe should be drastically reduced.
Based on the Dillingham Commission report, the Immigration Act of 1917 imposed English literacy tests for all immigrants and completely barred immigration from most of Southeast Asia. However, when it became clear that literacy tests alone were not slowing the flow of Europe immigrants, Congress looked for a different strategy.
Based on the findings of the Dillingham Commission, Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 creating immigration quotas. Under the law, no more than 3 percent of the total number of immigrants from any specific country already living in the United States, according to the 1910 decennial U.S. Census, were allowed to migrate to the United States during any calendar year. For example, if 100,000 people from a particular country lived in America in 1910, only 3,000 more (3 percent of 100,000) would have been allowed to migrate in 1921.
Based on the total foreign-born U.S. population counted in the 1910 Census, the total number of visas available each year to new immigrants was set at 350,000 per year. However, the law set no immigration quotas whatsoever on countries in the Western Hemisphere.
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While the Emergency Quota Act sailed easily through Congress, President Woodrow Wilson, who favored a more liberal immigration policy, used the pocket veto to prevent its enactment. In March 1921, newly inaugurated President Warren Harding called a special session of Congress to pass the law, which was renewed for another two years in 1922.
In passing the National Origins Act, legislators made no attempt to hide the fact that the law was to limit immigration specifically from the countries of southern and eastern Europe. During debates on the bill, Republican U.S. Representative from Kentucky John M. Robsion rhetorically asked, “How long shall America continue to be the garbage can and the dumping ground of the world?”
Never intended to be permanent, the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 was replaced in 1924 by the National Origins Act. The law lowered the 1921 per-country immigration quotas from 3 percent to 2 percent of each national group residing America according to the 1890 Census. Using 1890 instead of 1910 census data allowed more people to migrate to America from countries in northern and western Europe than from countries in southern and eastern Europe.
Immigration based exclusively on a national origin quota system continued until 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) replaced it with the current, consular-based immigration system that factors in aspects such as the potential immigrants’ skills, employment potential, and family relationships with U.S. citizens or legal permanent U.S. residents. In conjunction with these “preferential” criteria, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also applies a per-country permanent immigration ceiling.
Currently, no group of permanent immigrants from any single country can exceed seven percent of the total number of people immigrating to the United States in a single fiscal year. This quota is intended to prevent immigration patterns to the United States from being dominated by any one immigrant group.
The following table shows the results of the INA’s current quotas on U.S. immigration in 2016:
| Region | Immigrants (2016) | % of Total |
| Canada, Mexico, Central, and South America | 506,901 | 42.83% |
| Asia | 462,299 | 39.06% |
| Africa | 113,426 | 9.58% |
| Europe | 93,567 | 7.9% |
| Australia and Oceania | 5,404 | 0.47% |
On an individual basis, the three countries sending the most immigrants into the United States in 2016 were Mexico (174,534), China (81,772), and Cuba (66,516).
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, current U.S. immigration policies and quotas are intended to keep families together, admit immigrants with skills that are valuable to the U.S. economy, protect refugees, and promote diversity.
To be admitted to the United States, refugees must show that they are unable to return to their home countries because of a “well-founded fear of persecution” due to their race, membership in a particular social group, political opinion, religion, or national origin.
Refugees must apply for admission from outside of the United States, usually from a “transition country” that is outside their home country. The admission of refugees depends on factors such as the degree of risk they face in their home country, their membership in a group that is of special concern to the United States—as designated yearly by the president and Congress—and whether or not they have family members in the United States.
Each year, the president, in consultation with Congress, sets the numerical ceiling for total refugee admissions broken down into limits for each region of the world. After the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the number of refugees admitted into the United States fell sharply. According to the American Immigration Council, annual admissions of refugees returned to their previous levels after the George W. Bush administration put new security checks in place. Refugee admissions rose during the Barack Obama administration, then fell sharply during the Donald Trump administration, from 110,000 in 2017 to 45,000 in 2018 and 30,000 in 2019. For 2020, the ceiling was set at an all-time low of 18,000—although only 11,814 were admitted. The 2021 refugee ceiling was set at 15,000 by the Trump administration but raised to 62,500 by the Joe Biden administration. However, as of August 31, 2021, only 7,637 refugees had been admitted.
To qualify for U.S. citizenship through the naturalization process, immigrants must have held Legal Permanent Resident status (a green card) for at least five years, or three years if they obtained their green cards through a U.S.-citizen spouse or through the Violence Against Women Act. Exceptions to the minimum green card status minimums are also extended to members of the U.S. military serving in a time of war or declared hostilities, among a few others. Applicants for U.S. citizenship must be at least 18 years old, demonstrate continuous residency, demonstrate “good moral character,” pass English and U.S. history and civics exams, and pay an application fee, among other requirements.
