It depends a bit on ethnicity. Quotas were in place that favored Northern and Western Europeans over Eastern and Southern (Mediterranean) Europeans. And anyone from Europe was favored over Japanese or Chinese—thus things like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1880.
Those favored ethnicities were also those closest to the existing elites’ desired American culture, which kinda makes the point: they felt the more dissimilar ethnicities couldn’t be absorbed at their existing immigration rate.
It depends a bit on ethnicity. Quotas were in place that favored Northern and Western Europeans over Eastern and Southern (Mediterranean) Europeans. And anyone from Europe was favored over Japanese or Chinese—thus things like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1880.
Those favored ethnicities were also those closest to the existing elites’ desired American culture, which kinda makes the point: they felt the more dissimilar ethnicities couldn’t be absorbed at their existing immigration rate.