What was the Emergency Quota Act?

After World War I ended, there was a growing concern in the United States regarding the increased number of immigrants coming to the country, especially immigrants from countries in southern and eastern Europe. These immigrants had different customs, cultures, and languages than the immigrants who had come in the first wave of immigration from countries in northern and western Europe. Some people felt these newer immigrants wouldn't fully assimilate into American society. Some of these newer immigrants were anarchists, which further frightened many Americans. With the arrival of communism in the Soviet Union near the end of World War I, there were also fears that some of these immigrants might try to spread communism to the United States.
In response to these fears, the Emergency Quota Act was passed in 1921. This law limited immigration to the United States, especially immigration from countries in southern and eastern Europe. This law would allow three percent of the number of people from another country that already lived in the United States in 1910 to come to the US each year. Since immigrants from southern and eastern Europe began arriving in the United States around 1880, this law favored immigrants from countries in northern and western Europe who had been coming to the United States since the 1820s and had far greater numbers of people already living in the country. The Emergency Quota Act was one of two major immigration laws passed in the 1920s designed to limit immigration to the United States.