Senate Apologizes for Chinese Exclusion Act

As it prepares to pass a bill this week to punish China for undervaluing its currency, the U.S. Senate has passed a resolution expressing regret for the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and subsequent laws that banned most Chinese immigrants from the United States and denied them citizenship.

The Senate resolution(SR201) acknowledged that the laws targeting Chinese immigrants were incompatible "with the basic founding principles recognized in the Declaration of Independence that all persons are created equal," and with "the spirit" of the Constitution. It said the United States "deeply regrets passing six decades of legislation directly targeting the Chinese people for physical and political exclusion and the wrongs committed against Chinese and American citizens of Chinese descent who suffered under these discriminatory laws."