One Mighty and Irresistible Tide

February 24, 2020
Journalist Yang chronicles four decades of American immigration legislation and reform in her sober and well-researched debut. Noting that between 1880 and WWI, only 1% of new arrivals were turned away from U.S. ports of entry, Yang explores how the rise of eugenics in the early 20th century helped anti-immigration activists to win passage of the 1924 Johnson–Reed Act, which set quotas drastically reducing immigration from southern and eastern Europe, “banned Asian immigration altogether,” and required prospective arrivals to obtain American visas before departing their countries of origin. The new law, according to Yang, cut the total number of arrivals by more than half. As the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany in the 1930s, quotas and “anti-Semitic prejudices” within the U.S. State Department shut the doors to many Jewish refugees. After WWII, President Harry Truman’s executive order allowing private charities to sponsor refugees “became central to the U.S. immigration system,” and in 1965, Sen. Ted Kennedy played a key role in the legislative effort to replace quotas with a cap system that prioritized family reunification. Yang’s comprehensive and easy-to-follow record of a crucial period in the evolution of U.S. immigration policy sheds light on the political, cultural, and historical considerations behind this contentious issue. Readers seeking insights into contemporary proposals to reform the system will find plenty in this lucid account.