The effect was immediate and dramatic. In 1921, nearly a quarter million Italians had fled their country for the United States. By 1925, that number fell by 90 percent. About 200,000 Russian Jews arrived on American shores in 1921. A year after passage of the Immigration Act, only 7,000 were let into the country. Greeks went from 46,000 in one year to a few hundred. Left behind in Poland were 3.5 million Jews who would be targeted with mass execution in little more than a decade. Also among those denied entry because of restrictions on Jews was the family of Anne Frank.
