Progressive-era immigration law expressly excluded the diseased, criminal, illiterate, and Asiatic.

Evidence

In 1903, the same year that the Lazarus poem was attached to the Statue of Liberty, an immigration law excluded “idiots, insane persons, epileptics,” and also prostitutes, “paupers,” persons “likely to become a public charge, professional beggars,” and people with any “loathsome or … dangerous contagious disease”; criminals, polygamists, anarchists, and those who might advocate overthrowing the government by force and violence were also barred. Later laws added to the list, and the immigration law of 1917 set up an “Asiatic barred zone,” which included India and what is now Malaysia and Indonesia. Illiterates were also unwelcome. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3884

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Colonial welfare systems formally excluded partially European families and native companions from coverage. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 839; Colonial officials excluded mixed-race paupers from recognition as European by phenotype. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 960; Mixed-race families were systematically excluded from colonial welfare benefits. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 839 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Race-ethnicity distinctions legally include and exclude colonized populations simultaneously #expands (0.78) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 42
• Colonial officials excluded mixed-race paupers from recognition as European by phenotype. #exemplifies (0.75) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 960
• Colonial welfare systems formally excluded partially European families and native companions from coverage. #exemplifies (0.72) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 839
• Mixed-race families were systematically excluded from colonial welfare benefits. #exemplifies (0.72) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 839