In 1875, the US Supreme Court declared that regulation of immigration was a federal matter but did not specify the terms of immigration. The immigration service was established only in 1891. Tellingly, the first federal immigration laws, which created the foundation for US immigration, were based on exclusion. It is crucial to recognize that when and how “immigration” as such began, it was based on overt, blatant racism. That law was the Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882, which suspended Chinese immigration for a ten-year period and barred resident Chinese from US citizenship, and in 1902,
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