Arthur signs the Chinese Exclusion Act, creating the first ethnic deportation regime

President Chester Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6, 1882, making Chinese laborers the first nationality explicitly barred from immigrating to the United States by federal law. The act required Chinese residents to carry identity certificates proving their status or face deportation, establishing the first federal documentation-and-deportation machinery. Courts were stripped of the power to grant Chinese residents citizenship, though habeas corpus petitions remained a contested avenue of relief.