As the FIFA World Cup was underway in the summer of 2026,
A popular X post (archived) claimed in late May 2026: "119 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt banned Islam from the USA. And we could do the same thing today." The claim has persisted over several years, including in a Times of Israel blog post from 2017. The post claimed that Roosevelt expanded on previous legislation to specifically exclude Muslims from entering the U.S., even though such a ban would also impact Mormons who practiced polygamy:
The Immigration Act of 1891 banned polygamists from entering the United States. It was passed during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison. Later, when he was president, Theodore Roosevelt expanded that ban to include all who believed in polygamy as a religious principle, whether or not they personally practiced polygamy — or, indeed, whether or not they were married at all. That is to say, Teddy Roosevelt imposed a "Muslim ban" in 1907.
Mormons, the target of the 1891 ban, had formally renounced and prohibited polygamy, and by 1907 the practice had all but disappeared even among those who had entered so-called "plural marriages" before the 1890 manifesto that changed Latter-day Saints' marital practice. Roosevelt's action thus was directed specifically at Muslims.
The actual text of the legislation did not mention Islam or Muslims. Further, such a restriction existed before Roosevelt, who signed an act expanding it to include not just practicing polygamists, but all those "admit their belief in the practice of polygamy." We also found evidence that Muslims as well as other groups including Mormon
The U.S. government has imposed numerous restrictive immigration policies since its founding, including U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to impose travel bans on people from Muslim-majority countries during his first administration.
We should note, however, that today "practicing polygamists" are still ineligible to receive visas to the U.S. According to the U.S. Code, "Any immigrant who is coming to the United States to practice polygamy is inadmissible." This clause does not prevent Muslims in general from immigrating to the country.
Below, we break down relevant sections of the 1907 legislation and the impact it had on various communities, according to newspaper reports from the time.
What does the legislation say?
In 1891, before Roosevelt's administration, Congress passed an immigration restriction that banned practicing polygamists from entering the U.S. A March 1891 amendment to the Immigration Act about "the importation of aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor" stated:
That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States, in accordance with the existing acts regulating immigration, other than those concerning Chinese laborers: All idiots, insane persons, paupers or persons likely to become a public charge, persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous contagious disease, persons who have been convicted of a felony or other infamous crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, polygamists, and also any person whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another or who is assisted by others to come [...]
The act did not mention Muslims or Islam in its language.
In 1907, under Roosevelt, Congress expanded the same act to include "persons who admit their belief" in polygamy (emphasis ours):
That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: All idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous ; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously ; paupers ; persons likely to become a public charge ; professional beggars ; persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease ; [...] persons who have been convicted of or admit having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude ; polygamists, or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy, anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States, or of all government [...]
Again, the above act does not mention Muslims or Islam, nor does it mention other groups that practice or historically practiced polygamy.
Which immigrants was the legislation referring to?
A 2005 academic article in the Columbia Law Review, titled "Polygamy, Prostitution, and the Federalization of Immigration Law," noted that extending the exclusion in 1907 to "persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy" resulted in diplomatic problems with the Ottoman Empire, which claimed the U.S. was discriminating against Muslims. This restrictive immigration legislation also targeted individuals outside the protections of monogamous marriage, including prostitutes, concubines and women in arranged marriages.
A report in IEHS Online, an academic journal on immigration studies, argued that the 1891 act was specifically geared toward curbing both Mormon and Chinese immigration in the 1870s by targeting the practice of polygamy. The report cited an 1877 congressional report that stated:
If they [referring to Chinese immigrants] become American citizens, if they become Christianized, in the first place, they would not be allowed to have their polygamy and their second wives. If they become American citizens, our laws will prevent that practice. We are not proposing to turn any part of California into a Salt Lake.
Roosevelt encouraged a ban on polygamists in his 1906 State of the Union address, but did not mention specific groups. According to a transcript of the speech from the American Presidency Project, he said (emphasis ours):
At present the wide differences in the laws of the different States on this subject result in scandals and abuses; and surely there is nothing so vitally essential to the welfare of the nation, nothing around which the nation should so bend itself to throw every safeguard, as the home life of the average citizen. The change would be good from every standpoint. In particular it would be good because it would confer on the Congress the power at once to deal radically and efficiently with polygamy; and this should be done whether or not marriage and divorce are dealt with. It is neither safe nor proper to leave the question of polygamy to be dealt with by the several States. Power to deal with it should be conferred on the National Government.
When home ties are loosened; when men and women cease to regard a worthy family life, with all its duties fully performed, and all its responsibilities lived up to, as the life best worth living; then evil days for the commonwealth are at hand.
According to a PBS report, Mormons stopped the widespread practice of polygamy by the late 19th century and early 20th century. In 1890, Wilford Woodruff, head of the Mormon church, announced an end to official support for polygamy.
In 1911, Roosevelt defended himself in a letter against accusations that he had colluded with Mormon Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah by supporting him during a trial in exchange for Mormon votes. Roosevelt reiterated his support for Smoot and his opposition to polygamy, per The New York Times archives (emphasis ours):
Neither the Church nor any one on behalf of the Church ever agreed to deliver to me the votes of the States mentioned, nor to try to do so; nor was any allusion to the matter ever made to me. Neither Senator Smoot nor any other citizen of Utah was, as far as I know, ever so much as consulted about the patronage in the States surrounding Utah, nor did the Mormon hierarchy [...]
As to there being a cessation of the movement for Federal control of marriage, including divorce and polygamy, so far as I know there never was such cessation; personally I have always favored such control. [...]
Senator Smoot came to me of his own accord and assured me that he was not a polygamist, and I may also add that it was the universal testimony of those who knew anything about his domestic life that it was exemplary in every way.
The practice of polygamy across a range of immigrant groups was a widely discussed topic in government when the laws expanded the language around such a restriction. It affected numerous groups including, but not limited to, Muslims.
Muslims and Mormons: effects of the legislation
While the legislation's language does not refer to a particular group, newspaper reports at the time indicated that it impacted Mormons who sought to enter the U.S. A May 1907 report in The Salt Lake Tribune stated that the immigration law meant "It is apparent that all Mormon converts should be excluded from the United States." The report also stated that the law would go into effect on July 1, 1907.
(The Salt Lake Tribune)
A 1908 New York Times archival story detailed how a Mormon girl who tried to immigrate from England was deported after she declared her belief in polygamy:
Rather than deny an article of her faith Delphine Doddsworth, an English girl, 21 years old, has twice submitted to exile. Miss Doddsworth became a convert to Mormonism in England. At the immigration office in Boston she was asked if she believed in the practice of polygamy.
"I believe in the doctrine of plural marriage," she replied.
Under the law no believer in polygamy may enter the United States. The girl was set aside for deportation, and later, despite the personal appeal of Senator Smoot at Washington, returned to England.
In 1897, before Congress and Roosevelt officially expanded the restriction to include those who believed in polygamy whether or not they practiced it, a New York Times report detailed how six Muslims were deported after reportedly declaring their belief in polygamy. The article claimed these were the "first polygamists excluded under existing immigration laws." The following exchange took place as the men appeared before a "Board of Special Inquiry" after arriving via steamship:
"You believe in the Koran?" asked President Stump.
"Thank Allah, yes!" responded the men in chorus.
"The Koran teaches polygamy?" continued the Inspector through an interpreter.
"Blessed be Allah, it does!"
"Then you believe in polygamy?" asked Capt. George Ellis.
"We do, we do! Blessed be Allah. We do!" chorused the Arabs, salaaming toward the setting sun.
"That settles it," said President Stump. "You won't do." They were ordered deported.
Another 1897 article in The Ulm Review in Minnesota described a similar exchange, except the six deported men were reportedly Turks. The men were asked whether they believed in the Quran and also denied being polygamists. However, the inspector reportedly said, "Yes, you are. Everybody who believes in the Koran must be a polygamist. If you are not a polygamist you do not live up to your religion."
For further reading, Snopes has reported extensively on purported travel bans enforced by the Trump administration as well as the false claim that an old law prevents Muslims from holding public office.