Background
Not only were new applicants from India denied the privilege of naturalization, the new Asian classification suggested that retroactive revocation of naturalized status was appropriate, a point that some courts upheld when prosecutors argued that Indians who had applied for naturalized status using the Caucasian categorization improperly had been granted naturalized citizen status. Some of the consequences of revoked naturalized status are illustrated by the example of some Indian land owners living in California who found themselves under the jurisdiction of the California Alien Land Law of 1913. Specifically, Attorney General Ulysses S. Webb was very active in revoking Indian land purchases; in a bid to strengthen the Asiatic Exclusion League, he promised to prevent Indians from buying or leasing land. Under intense pressure, and with Immigration Act of 1917 preventing fresh immigration to strengthen the fledgling Indian-American community, many Indians left the United States, leaving only half their original American population, 2,405, by 1940.
Read more about this topic: United States V. Bhagat Singh Thind
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