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At the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had an Open Door policy towards immigration.

This meant that anyone could come from their home country to settle in America.

By 1920, more than 40 million people had arrived and made new lives for themselves.

Traditionally, immigrants had tended to come from northern and western Europe, for example from Britain, Ireland and Germany.

However, between 1900 and 1914, those who arrived were mainly from eastern Europe, Italy, Greece and Russia.

By 1920, many Americans began to disapprove of the government's Open Door policy because they feared the economic, political and social impact of immigration.

These fears were often unjustified, but they led to a lot of hostility.

Americans had a range of economic, political and social concerns about the increase in the amount of immigrants arriving in the USA.

A combination of push and pull factors made people emigrate to the USA.

The push factors made people want to leave their own countries, and the pull factors attracted them to the USA.

The main reasons were:

• Escaping from poverty in their own country.
• Escaping from political persecution.
• The religious tolerance promised in the American Bill of Rights, for example the Jews wanted to escape the pogroms in Russia.
• A plentiful supply of land and the hope of owning property.
• Massive industrialisation in the USA meant the possibility of jobs with higher wages than in their homeland.
• The adventure of going to a new country.
• The hope of equality of opportunity ("The American Dream").

• Many immigrants were illiterate and there were fears they might become a burden on society.
• They were taking jobs that many Americans thought should be theirs.
• They drove down wages because there were so many of them competing for jobs.

• It was feared immigrants held dangerous extremist views, such as anarchism and communism. The trauma of World War One and the Red Scare in 1919 increased concerns.

• Americans thought immigrants did not have the same love for the USA and devotion to it as they did. This meant they regarded immigrants as unpatriotic.

• There was a lot of prejudice against immigrants, particularly towards those from southern Europe, Ireland and Asia.
• The sheer numbers led to pressures on housing as well as overcrowded slums that were linked to crime, violence and prostitution.
• They were blamed for the spread of infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and cholera.
• Many were Roman Catholics or Jews, therefore from a different cultural and religious background from wealthier Americans and previous generations of immigrants who were described as WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants).

The concerns over the new wave of immigration led to pressure on politicians to change the Open Door policy.

Lawmakers in the US Congress passed laws to restrict immigration.

1. Literacy Test, 1917: Immigrants had to pass a series of reading and writing tests. Many of the poorer immigrants, especially those from eastern Europe, had received no education and therefore failed the tests - so, they were refused entry.

2. The Dillingham Hardwick Act, 1918: Forbade the entry of people with &#��27;���Բ������󾱲���’ political views.

3. The Emergency Quota Act, 1921: This law restricted the number of immigrants to 357,000 per year and also set down a quota. A quota was a limit on the amount that could enter from each country based upon the existing population from that country already living in the USA. So, only 3 per cent of the total population of any overseas group already in the USA in 1910 could come into America after 1921. This quota system favoured immigration from Britain and western Europe because of the large numbers of these groups already in the USA.

4. The National Origins Act, 1924: This law used the same formula but reduced the maximum number of immigrants to 150,000 per year and cut the quota to 2 per cent, based on the population of the USA in 1890. This act, like the previous one, restricted the number of southern and eastern European immigrants. It also prohibited immigration from Asia. However, it did not apply to immigrants from Mexico because they were an important source of labour for Californian farmers.

It seemed clear that the America government only wanted what they thought was the ‘right type’ of immigrant.

This meant prioritising Northern Europeans over other groups.

For example, the number of Italian immigrants dropped from 200,000 a year to only 4000.

The President, Calvin Coolidge, had said that “America must be kept for the Americans”.

America’s 'open door' was now firmly closed to many and open only to the preferred few.

In the 1920s, there was an increase in xenophobia and racial persecution in the USA.

There were a number of high profile examples of hostility towards immigrants.

Many Americans were frightened by the communist revolution in Russia in October 1917.

Some believed that a communist uprising could also happen in the USA and destroy the American way of life.

Immigrants were suspected of bringing communism in from Europe.

This was known as the Red Scare.

The Red Scare was heightened by:

• The formation of the American Socialist Party and the American Communist Party.

• Industrial unrest in 1919, which included a general strike in Seattle and all of the Boston police force refusing to work. Communists were blamed for these strikes.

The scare led to:

• Mobs and police attacking left-wing parades and the seizure of left-wing books and pamphlets.

• All strikes being seen as “red” and workers not joining trade unions in case they were branded communists.

• A new law called The Sedition Act made it a crime to criticise the US government and army.

• The Palmer Raids and injustices, such as internment and unfair trials.

Mitchell Palmer (the Attorney General, a member of the government) told Congress there was an ongoing communist plot.

He used the Red Scare as an excuse to organise raids against left-wing organisations.

These raids had serious consequences.

• 6,000 people were arrested in 36 cities across the United States. Not all of them were communists and Jews, Catholics and black people were targeted.

• 556 of those arrested were also deported on flimsy evidence under the 1918 Alien Act.

• People used the raids as an excuse to attack any group they disliked or distrusted.

• 36 mail bombs were discovered in April 1919.

• In September 1920, a bomb exploded on Wall Street, killing 38 people and a bomb destroyed the front of Mitchell Palmer's home.

• Trade unions were weakened by Palmer’s rumours and raids because they were branded un-American.

Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco were Italian immigrants.

The two men were anarchists and had avoided serving in World War One.

They spoke little English.

They seemed to fit the prejudiced view many Americans had of immigrants.

In May 1920, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested and accused of armed robbery and murder.

From the beginning, public opinion was against them because of their political ideas and because they were immigrants.

During the court case in May 1921, Judge Webster Thayer was also prejudiced against them.

They were convicted of the crime in a very unfair trial.

Although a man named Celestino Madeiros later admitted that he had committed the crime, Sacco and Vanzetti lost their lengthy appeals.

In August 1927, they were both executed by electrocution in Charlestown prison.

The restrictions on the lives of immigrants created an environment in which employers felt they could exploit minorities.

For example, they had to work longer hours for lower pay.

It also led to an increase in the number attacks on them by the KKK.

It intensified the Red Scare because people felt there must be a real threat if the government was restricting immigration.

During the Palmer Raids many immigrants were being arrested and deported.

It led to immigrant communities in the USA becoming more isolated from other Americans.