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In backing a Senate proposal to slash legal immigration, President Trump said he aimed to help Americans “competing for jobs against brand-new arrivals.”  The looser immigration rules in place for half a century, he said, have “not been fair to our people, our citizens and our workers.”

Trump was careful to add that minority workers have been among those “hit hardest” by unfettered immigration. But there is a racially charged history to the idea that immigrant workers depress American wages, an argument that led to the country’s first immigration restriction law: the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Chinese workers first came to North America in significant numbers during the California Gold Rush of 1848-1855. Later arrivals helped build the First Transcontinental Railroad. When gold was plentiful and labor was in short supply, the Chinese were tolerated. But when the economy struggled in the 1870s, animosity against Asians grew.

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A lily vendor in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1896. (Arnold Genthe/Library of Congress)

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‘Cheap slaves’: Trump, immigration and the ugly history of the Chinese Exclusion Act

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