e law applied to nations of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Asian Russia, and certain islands in the Atlantic and Pacific.In 1924, the basic immigration quotas were changed; the new law provided for annual immigration quotas for all countries from which immigranta might be admitted. Quotas were based on the desirability of various nationalities; aliens from northern and Western Europe were considered more desirable than those from southern and Eastern Europe. Immigrants who fulfilled lawful residence requirements were exempt from quotas, as were alien wives, children, and some husbands of U.S. citizens.In 1941 Congress passed an act providing for the denial of visas to aliens whose presence in the U.S. would endanger public safety. Immigration legislation passed after 1941 included repealing the laws barring Chinese from entering the U.S. and allowing their admission to the country in accordance with an annual quota. A federal law passed in 1945 authorized (for a limited time) the admission to the U.S., without regard to quota and physical and other standards, the wives and children of citizens serving in or honorably discharged from the armed forces of the U.S. during World War II.A federal law of 1946 authorized the admission to the U.S., under annual quota, of immigrants from India. Legislation was enacted by Congress in 1948 to permit the immigration before July 1, 1950, of 202,000 European people driven from their homes in the years preceding World War II as a result of political or racial persecution and those forcibly transported from their homes during World War II.Most of the laws relating to immigration were enacted by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The Refugee Relief Act of 1953 made an additional allocation of places for the victims of war and disaster. The 1965 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act abolished the national-origin quotas and established an annual limitation of...
