During the closing years of the 19th century, Emma Lazarus’ famous poem was inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.  Several decades after, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” no longer sounded like a good deal. Millions of new arrivals came to American shores every year, bringing with them poverty, disease and crime. Several previous Congressional acts already barred entry to anarchists and the Chinese, before the ultimate restriction, in the form of the Immigration Act of 1917.

On this day, Feburary 5, in 1917, Congress passed the Immigration Act, overriding by a more than two-thirds majority President Woodrow Wilson’s veto.The act did not forbid immigrant entry to the United States completely, but rather raised the bar for acceptance, to keep out the so-called “undesirables.” Among others, it forbade entry to anyone considered an “idiot” or “feeble-minded” or just plain illiterate. It also forbade homosexuals, Asians, and individuals otherwise “mentally or physically defective.”