From Open Doors to Closed Borders: America's Immigration Revolution

Ever wondered why America went from being the "land of opportunity" for everyone to picking and choosing who could enter? The answer lies in one of the most dramatic policy shifts in American history.

Before 1917, the US operated an open door policy that made immigration as easy as possible to help colonise the country. Over 70% of immigrants were processed at Ellis Island near New York, creating America's famous "melting pot" of cultures. People came for loads of reasons - escaping war devastation in Europe, seeking adventure and fresh starts, reuniting with family, owning land, or fleeing religious persecution and poverty.

However, everything changed when Americans began feeling "swamped" by the massive influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe $13 million between 1900-1914$. These newcomers were often poor, couldn't speak English, and seemed very different from the ideal WASP citizen $White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant$. Xenophobia - an irrational fear of foreigners - began spreading rapidly across America.

The real game-changer was the 1917 Russian Revolution, which sparked fears that immigrants might bring communist ideas into America. This led to a series of increasingly restrictive laws: the 1917 literacy test, the 1921 emergency quota system allowing only 857,000 immigrants yearly, the 1924 National Origins Act cutting quotas to 2% based on 1890 census data (favouring Northern Europeans), and finally the 1929 Immigration Act restricting total immigration to just 150,000 per year with no Asians allowed.

Key Point: The shift from open door to restricted immigration wasn't just about numbers - it reflected deep-seated fears about preserving American identity and preventing communist infiltration.