On this day, February 5, in 1917

Congress passed the Immigration Act, overruling Woodrow Wilson's Veto. The immigration Act of 1917 implemented an "Asiatic Barred Zone", which specifically prevented immigrants from India, Indochina, Afghanistan, Arabia, the East Indies, and other Asian Countries from entering America. The Act also established a literacy test, which was designed in such a way that most working-class immigrants could not pass it. This is a classic example of racism and classism being inserted into our legal system in discrete ways; Hmmm… The dangers of institutionalized racism.