100 years and 16 presidents ago, a look at another anti-immigration act

Sunday marks the centennial of one of the darkest, most discriminatory immigration turns in American history: the passage of the Immigration Act of 1917. The law banned immigrants from the Asiatic Barred Zone, a new, massive region that included Saudi Arabia, most of China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Now, 100 years and 16 presidents later, some see that ugly history repeating itself.

Less than a week after moving into the White House, President Trump signed an order to increase deportations of an undocumented immigrant population that is 77% Hispanic and 15% Asian. He then instituted a temporary travel ban from countries that are 98% Muslim and suspended the admission of refugees who come mostly from Africa and the Middle East.

In some ways, the 1917 law serves as a reminder of how different the times were back then. It banned "idiots" and "imbeciles" and created a literacy test targeting immigrants from eastern Europe. But immigration historians see similarities in the hostility toward foreign settlers that's on display a century later.

Trump said he halted the refugee program for 120 days and barred immigration from seven majority Muslim countries for 90 days to give security agencies time to improve vetting procedures for people coming from terror-prone countries. He also vowed to build a wall along the southern border to stem illegal immigration.

Alan Kraut sees something else happening. "From the moment that Trump in his campaign characterized Mexicans as a bunch of criminals, and talked about Muslims in a negative way, it was clear to me and many other scholars around the country where this theme came from," said Kraut, a history professor at American University and past president of the Organization of American Historians. "It had a long echo."

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As damaging as the Immigration Act of 1917 was, it was just one chapter in America's long history of discrimination that goes back to the battles against Native Americans and the enslavement of African-Americans. There were periods of intense anti-Catholicism focused on the Irish and the Germans and multiple periods of rampant anti-Semitism.

Asians became an increasing target during the California gold rush, as tales of gold-filled rivers lured thousands to California. That led to passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement" of 1907, which banned most immigrants from Japan.

The fear of an Asian onslaught, dubbed the "Yellow Peril," culminated in the Immigration Act of 1917, which had such overwhelming support in Congress that it became law despite a veto by President Woodrow Wilson. It was followed by the Immigration Act of 1924, which created an immigration quota system that favored immigrants from Western Europe and marginalized Asians, Africans and other ethnic groups.

Taeku Lee, a professor of political science and law at the University of California-Berkeley, said he senses a similar nativist sentiment today that is driven by a mix of demographic changes, economic insecurity and anxieties about national security.

"Today’s fantasied scourge of 'aliens' from south of the border and terrorists cloaked in the garb of refugees is the Yellow Peril of the late 19th and early 20th century," Lee said.

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Lee sees another difference. Wilson opposed the 1917 law and led "a charge for freedom and against totalitarianism" around the world, including the creation of the League of Nations following World War I. By contrast, Trump's focus is inward looking, as he speaks critically about the United Nations and NATO while "shying away from this long-standing role of 'leader of the Free World.'"

The first step toward overcoming the revival of nativism is to understand its roots, said Ali Noorani, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a group that advocates for immigrants in the U.S.

"I think it's important to acknowledge the large number of Americans who are worried, who are afraid," he said. "We have to understand what that fear is."

Noorani, whose parents immigrated to California in 1971 from Pakistan, one of the banned countries in 1917, said he has reason for hope: The U.S. has always risen up from its lowest moments, as it did in 1965 when Congress passed a law that eliminated the 1917 Asiatic Barred Zone and rescinded the quota system.

"The American story is a story about these kinds of moments. You see dark moments like 1917 followed by incredible moments like 1965," he said. "What gets us out of this dark moment is leadership from a range of civic and political leaders saying, 'America is better than this.'

"But that's not going to happen overnight," Noorani added, "just like fixing what happened in 1917 didn't happen overnight."