The Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943, also known as the Magnuson Act, was an

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...

law proposed by U.S. Representative (later Senator) Warren G. Magnuson of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

and signed into law on December 17, 1943, in the United States. It allowed Chinese immigration for the first time since the

Chinese Exclusion Act The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law excluded merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplo ...

of 1882, and permitted some Chinese immigrants already residing in the country to become naturalized citizens. However, in many states, Chinese Americans (mostly immigrants but sometimes U.S. citizens) were denied property-ownership rights either

by law A by-law (bye-law, by(e)law, by(e) law), or as it is most commonly known in the United States bylaws, is a set of rules or law established by an organization or community so as to regulate itself, as allowed or provided for by some higher authorit ...

or ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...

'' until the Magnuson Act itself was fully repealed in 1965. This act is the first legislation since 1870 which relaxed racial and national immigration barriers in the United States and started the way to the completely non-racial immigration legislation and policy of the late 1960s. The Magnuson Act was passed on December 17, 1943, two years after the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...

became an official allied nation of the United States in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Although considered a positive development by many, it was still restrictive, limiting Chinese immigrants to an annual quota of 105 new entry visas. The quota was determined according to the

National Origins Formula National Origins Formula is an umbrella term for a series of qualitative immigration quotas in America used from 1921 to 1965, which restricted immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere on the basis of national origin. These restrictions included l ...

prescribed by the

Immigration Act of 1924 The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...

, which set immigration quotas on countries subject to the law as a fraction of 150,000 in proportion to the number of inhabitants of that nationality residing in the United States as of the 1920 census, which for China was determined to be 0.07%, or 105 per annum. Chinese immigration later increased with the passage of the

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (), also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (), governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. It came into effect on June 27, 1952. Befor ...

, which abolished direct racial barriers and later by the

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ...

, which abolished the National Origins Formula.

References

{{Immigration to the United States 1943 in American law United States federal immigration and nationality legislation History of immigration to the United States Chinese-American history 1943 in international relations Anti-Chinese legislation China–United States relations December 1943 events