Institutional belief · Eugenics and immigration
Immigration as biological improvement
Immigrants were classified by racial, hereditary, and national-origin traits as either improving or threatening the nation's biological and “ethnic” condition.
1 episode
Current understanding
Current understanding
National origin, ethnicity, and socially defined race do not determine a person's hereditary worth or whether their descendants biologically improve a country. Human genetic variation does not divide populations into superior and inferior national stocks, and social, intellectual, or moral traits cannot be ranked through the eugenic categories used by these immigration policies.
Institutional episode
Colombia
Colombia's 1922 immigration law explicitly linked immigration to improving the country's physical and moral “ethnic conditions” and built an administrative system for selecting and excluding migrants. The law placed immigration work in a named ministry office, consular agents and local immigration boards. During the 1920s and 1930s, officials applied this eugenic and racial framework to restrict migrants including Afro-Caribbeans and, under increasingly restrictive Foreign Ministry visa policy, Jewish refugees.
Institutions
- Congreso de Colombia
- Oficina de Información y Propaganda del Ministerio de Agricultura y Comercio
- Juntas de Inmigración
- Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores
Documented consequences
- Racial selection of immigrants
- Exclusion of Afro-Caribbean migrants
- Restrictions on Jewish refugees
Institutional machinery
Ley 114 de 1922 assigned immigration administration to the Oficina de Información y Propaganda del Ministerio de Agricultura y Comercio, working through immigration agents abroad and Juntas de Inmigración at ports, border towns and major cities. During the late 1930s, the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores and Colombian consular network became central to increasingly restrictive visa policy, including measures applied to Jewish refugees.
Sources and what they establish
- Ley 114 de 1922 — Sobre inmigración y colonias agrícolasGovernment of Colombia — SUIN-Juriscol
Primary law linking immigration to improvement of Colombia's physical and moral ethnic conditions; names the immigration office within the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, immigration agents abroad, Juntas de Inmigración, consular officials and port authorities that implemented the system.
- El discurso eugenésico y las teorías racistas en las políticas migratorias colombianas — el rechazo de migrantes afroantillanos y judíos (1920–1940)Historia y Espacio — Universidad del Valle
Uses diplomatic correspondence and executive decrees to document how eugenic and racist migration policy was applied to Afro-Caribbean migrants and Jewish refugees from 1920 to 1940, including the Foreign Ministry and consular machinery.
- Decreto 1723 de 1938 — disposiciones sobre inmigración y extranjeríaMinisterio de Relaciones Exteriores de Colombia — Normograma
Primary 1938 decree tightening visa and immigration requirements and assigning discretionary exceptions to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the contemporary policy operated through Colombian consulates and was used within the restrictive framework applied to Jewish refugees.
Last reviewed: 23/08/2026