Webb–Haney Act

The Webb–Haney Act, also known as the Alien Land Law of 1913, was a California statute passed in 1913. It stripped "all aliens ineligible for citizenship" (which included all Asians except Filipinos, who were subjects of the United States) of the right to own land in California. It also limited the leasing of land by said aliens to three years. Many Japanese immigrants, or Issei, circumvented this law by transferring the title of their land to their American-born children, or Nisei, who were citizens. Several other states would later pass their own alien land laws, modeled after the Webb-Haney Act.