How did the quota system limit immigration?
The Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 restricted European arrivals each year to 3% of the foreign-born of any nationality as shown in the 1910 census. A quota law in 1924 reduced the number to 2% based on the 1890 census, which included fewer of the “new” immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. This law set a permanent limitation. which became effective in 1929, of slightly over 150,000 immigrants per year based on the “national origins” of the U.S. population as of 1920. In signing the law Coolidge pledged, “America must be kept American.
