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.  The act followed the Angell Treaty of 1880, a set of revisions to the US–China  Burlingame Treaty of 1868 that allowed the US to suspend Chinese immigration.
Jan 30, 2017 ... It also required applicants to declare publicly their intention to become citizens of  the United States and to renounce any allegiance to a foreign prince, potentate,  state, ... "The [1790] Naturalization Act excluded from citizenship not only  nonwhite immigrants but also a group of people already here - Indians.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), is a United States Supreme  Court case in which the Court ruled that "a child born in the United States, of  parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the  Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United  States, and ...
Though the notion that anybody can become an American oversimplifies the  case, the fact is that the United States has exhibited a remarkable willingness  and ability to assimilate .... In other words, the new exclusion law barred aliens on  the basis of ideological views, as had the Alien Acts just over a century earlier.
Contrary to popular belief at the time, the Chinese in America were not “coolies,”  kidnapped men forced into slavery. ... In 1855, the legislature passed another law  titled “An Act to Discourage the Immigration to this State of Persons Who Cannot  Become Citizens Thereof” levying a $50 tax on the owner of a ship “for each ...
With the exception of slavery and the Chinese Exclusion Act, our laws have never barred persons from becoming citizens.