Is racial bias built into U.S. immigration law? “The first instance of any kind of visa as we know it for a legal way to come into the system started with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1884,” according to Jenny Yang, Director of Advocacy and Policy for World Relief’s Refugee and Immigration Program. Scientific data was circulated as evidence that Chinese people were inferior and ought to be kept out. However, immigration law based on race was abolished in 1965. “Still, a lot of reforms are needed.”