6 May 1882
Chinese Exclusion Act
United States; Chinese migrants and residents
Approved on 6 May 1882, the act suspended the entry of Chinese laborers beginning ninety days after passage and ending ten years after passage. It also barred state and federal courts from naturalizing Chinese people.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
The laborer category included skilled and unskilled workers and miners. Specified returning residents and eligible non-laborers could enter subject to documentation rules; Chinese government officials on government business and their servants were exempt. This was not a ban on every Chinese person entering or a rule about birth citizenship.