>>92415705The system exists to distinguish possible immigrants based on the value they could bring to the US labour force as citizens. While the system was overtly racist and no longer exists, its primarily goal was to try and avoid create a racially stratified class system where certain races were driven into all the low-paying labour jobs because they couldn't do anything else--which is what had happened immediate after emancipation.
>italiansItaly had only recently unified from a disparate mass of local autarkies and was basically a century behind western europe in industrialization and education. They were considered low-value immigrants because most of them were uneducated, barely literate and had no skills which would contribute to the US economy.
>irishThe Irish were at the time under brutal repression from England and mainly attempted to move to the US as refugees to escape famines, disease and the like. Unlike the Italians, who were simply behind on modernisation, Irish had been systematically denied opportunities to learn or develop skills as part of England's bid to maintain absolute control over the country. There were also various militant revolutionary groups within Ireland that the US feared would spread if they let too many Irish in--which turned out to be a founded fear as later on US-based irish nationalists would invade Canada and attempt a coup in Ireland.
Catholicism had a part in these groups being discriminated against as well
