By the mid-1930s, most Americans were aware of the threat the Nazis posed to Germany's "racial enemies." Acts of violence and humiliation were recounted regularly in newspapers and magazines. Even Adolf Hitler's "secret" euthanasia program was discussed on the front page of The New York Times. Many Americans were outraged by Hitler's actions. Yet few were willing to aid refugees from Nazi Germany.

As thousands of Jews tried desperately to leave Europe, they encountered legal barriers wherever they turned. The quotas set by the National Origins Act of 1924 made it almost impossible for refugees to find a safe haven in the United States. When some Americans tried to ease restrictions, eugenicists like Harry Laughlin of the Eugenics Records Office (ERO) blocked their efforts. In a special report, Laughlin asked Congress to "offer no exceptional admission for Jewish refugees from Germany" and no admission to anyone without "a definite country to which he may be deported, if occasion demands" and to anyone whose ancestors were not "members of the white or Caucasian race." Laughlin suggested that Congress "look upon the incoming immigrants" as "sons-in-law to marry their own daughters." In his view, "immigrants are essentially breeding stock."

As a result of Laughlin and other eugenicists, the nation's immigration laws remained unchanged. At the time, many Americans were more concerned with unemployment at home than with stateless Europeans. Although few were openly antisemitic, opinion polls reveal that many felt that Jews had to be kept in their "place." Therefore the United States made little effort to save Jews until 1944, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board. By then, about 80 to 85 percent of the Jews who would die in the Holocaust had already perished.