Just think for a moment what a better place this country would have been if this law had not passed

[RB TexLa]

The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson-Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, Asian Exclusion Act, (43 Statutes-at-Large 153) was a United States federal law that limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, according to the Census of 1890. It excluded immigration of Asians. It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who were immigrating in large numbers starting in the 1890s, as well as prohibiting the immigration of East Asians and Asian Indians.

Congressman Albert Johnson and Senator David Reed were the two main architects. In the wake of intense lobbying, the Act passed with strong congressional support.<1> There were six dissenting votes in the Senate and a handful of opponents in the House, the most vigorous of whom was freshman Brooklyn Representative Emanuel Celler. Over the succeeding four decades, Celler made the repeal of the Act into a personal crusade. Some of the law's strongest supporters were influenced by Madison Grant and his 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race. Grant was a eugenicist and an advocate of the racial hygiene theory. His data purported to show the superiority of the founding Northern European races. But most proponents of the law were rather concerned with upholding an ethnic status quo and avoiding competition with foreign workers






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924

[nomorenomore08]

1. White Europeans might already be a minority.

Not saying that's a good thing OR a bad thing, just an interesting possibility to contemplate. And of course, that Immigration Act is one more ugly stain on America's history.

[aquart]

2. Not too good at visualizing potential scenarios, I take it?

Because all men of good will will behave well to each other in your fantasies?

Let's see, unrestricted immigration...hey, big country. No matter if millions and millions come. And there were so many good reasons to get out ..and then hang out with each other speaking their own native languages in their own crowded American communities. It's all good. They won't eat each other in a cold hungry winter.

So what would we have? One Quebec? Twenty? Fifty? All separatist and all angry because someone else was getting more? And labor. Damn that would be cheap. Yeah, manufacturers would love that kind of labor.

You really need to read up more on what happened to the people who did come.

[RB TexLa]

6. Didn't have to be unrestricted. But could have changed which countries had the most and least.

And what is wrong with people speaking in their native language?

[dugaresa]

3. this topic came up recently at a dinner I attended

with some folks from the Netherlands where there were no restrictions (however there are now) and now apparently it has caused some problems for them.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_/ai_n6167149

It was interesting to hear how other countries are dealing with immigration and the sorts of problems they have as a result. The main one appeared to be integration. My grandparents were immigrants, they lived in somewhat ethnically segregated areas, however marriage to individuals outside their own ethnic group and further intermarriage resulted in the "melting pot" we have today in the US in many areas.

However the question is...what if the immigrant group entering a country has no desire to blend?

Don't claim to know the answer but it is not a simple issue to resolve.

[RB TexLa]

4. kick

[DonEBrook]

5. There is no way to know if it would have been "better."

...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. These sort of laws kept a lot of Jews from fleeing the Holocaust.

I don't really want to know what your view of "better" means.