Congress creates Asiatic barred zone in immigration law

Congress enacts the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson's veto on February 5, 1917. The law creates an Asiatic barred zone that excludes immigrants from much of Asia and the Pacific, and it adds literacy tests and other restrictions. The law expands federal racial and national-origin exclusion beyond earlier Chinese exclusion. It marks another step in building an immigration system that ranks people by race, geography, and perceived fitness for citizenship. Immigration law becomes a formal instrument of anti-Asian and racial exclusion.