Magnuson Act
The Magnuson Act (also: Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943 ) was a US federal law. The law proposed by Senator Warren G. Magnuson and passed on December 17, 1943 repealed the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act , which had existed since 1882, and allowed Chinese people to enter the United States again. For the first time in American history, the law gave Chinese people who already lived in the USA the opportunity to apply for and acquire American citizenship .
Background and story
The law came about after China became an ally of the United States during World War II . Since then, the Chinese Exclusion Act has been a constant nuisance in Sino-American relations, which the American legislature at least formally tried to get rid of with the Magnuson Act. The provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924 were applied to the immigration of Chinese with immediate effect, which set quotas for immigration that for each ethnic group depended on the size of the compatriot already settled in the USA. As a result, even after the Magnuson Act came into force, no more than 105 Chinese were initially allowed to enter the USA per year. The number of Chinese immigrants did not increase significantly until 1965, when immigration law was revised with the Immigration and Naturalization Services Act of 1965 .