Trump Administration Defends Chinese Exclusion Act in Smithsonian Report

The White House Domestic Policy Council released a 162-page report that condemns several Smithsonian Institution displays for “promoting an anti-American sentiment.” The memo attacks a PowerPoint slide that featured a butterfly—deemed “a well-known symbol in the illegal alien activist community”—and dedicates a substantial section to defending the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, arguing that the law was not motivated by racial animus.

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The Chinese Exclusion Act, enacted in 1882, was the first major federal statute to restrict immigration on the basis of race or nationality, barring Chinese laborers from entry and preventing resident Chinese from naturalization. Historians note that the law emerged amid violent anti-Chinese riots in Los Angeles (1871) and Oregon (1887) and was justified by claims that Chinese workers “could subsist on just one grain of rice per day.” In 1889 the Supreme Court upheld the statute, stating that “the presence of foreigners of a different race…[is] dangerous to…peace and security.” Contemporary immigration strategist Stephen Miller has repeatedly cited the era of racial quotas as a model for current policy, echoing rhetoric from the 1880s.

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• Donald Trump – President, who described the Smithsonian as “come[ing] under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.”

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• Stephen Miller – Deputy chief of staff for policy, author of the 2023 proclamation restricting immigration from 39 countries and frequent defender of race-based quotas.

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• Mae Ngai – Columbia University historian of Asian-American studies, provides scholarly context on the law’s racist foundations.

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• Stuart Anderson – Executive director of the pro-immigration National Foundation for Economic Policy, who links Miller’s rhetoric to the 1882 law.

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The administration’s report characterizes museum texts that label the Chinese Exclusion Act as “a tool of white supremacy” as “false” and argues that the law was a “reasonable policy to benefit America First.” Miller’s 2022 remarks, “You are not just importing individuals. You are importing societies,” are cited to illustrate the administration’s view that immigration restrictions are a matter of national security rather than racial bias.

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Catherine Rampell, economic editor at *The Bulwark*, contends that the report “bristles at any suggestion that this famously racist law may have been motivated by any kind of racial animus,” warning that the administration’s defense could signal an intent to revive similar restrictions. Mae Ngai emphasizes that “the economic part was almost an alibi for the racism,” underscoring the law’s overt racial intent.

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Recent scholarship finds that the Chinese Exclusion Act “slowed overall economic growth in the West, hurt manufacturing output, and even reduced the labor supply and the quality of jobs held by white and U.S.-born workers, the intended beneficiaries of the Act.”

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• “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” — Donald Trump, President

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• “You are not just importing individuals. You are importing societies,” — Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy

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• “The economic part was almost an alibi for the racism,” — Mae Ngai, Historian, Columbia University

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• “restrictive immigration laws as a tool of white supremacy.” — Text from a Smithsonian exhibition cited in the White House memo

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The Smithsonian exhibition describes the Chinese Exclusion Act as “the first of many restrictive immigration laws” and labels it a “tool of white supremacy,” whereas the White House memo calls that characterization “false.” No official acknowledgment in the report admits the law’s racial motivation, leaving a clear discrepancy between museum scholarship and the administration’s interpretation.

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