Immigration Act of 1924 Signed into Law

Signed by President Calvin Coolidge on May 26, 1924, the Immigration Act — also known as the Johnson-Reed Act — established a national origins quota system that severely restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe and effectively banned immigration from Asia entirely. The same legislation created the United States Border Patrol. Rooted in eugenicist theory and nativist politics, the act shaped the demographic composition of the United States for four decades until its repeal by the Hart-Celler Act of 1965.