The Emergency Quota Act was approved on this date in 1921. The Act limited the number of European immigrants into the U.S. for the first time. It set the annual limit at 3% of the number of foreign-born persons in the U.S. from that country in the 1910 Census. About 357,000 immigrants could be admitted annually, the majority from northern Europe.
The Quota Act did not apply to “aliens from the so-called Asiatic barred zone, … [or] aliens who have resided continuously for at least one year immediately preceding the time of their admission to the United States in the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, the Republic of Cuba, the Republic of Mexico, countries of Central or South America, or adjacent islands….”
In other words, no East Asians would be admitted whatsoever (having been barred by previous laws), but there were no restrictions on immigrants from the Western Hemisphere.
Immigration limitations have always been about cultural wars, not economic ones.