Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jeff Sessions Roasted By Twitter Bot For Praising 1924 Jewish Quota Immigration Law

A Twitter bot that drew international attention last month for its tweets about Holocaust refugees amidst the rollout of Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration has trained its fire on Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

In January, the bot tweeted photos of the passengers on the ill-fated 1939 journey of the St. Louis, a boat full of Jewish refugees from Europe that was turned back by U.S. authorities. The tweets drew implicit connections to the treatment of refugees through the executive orders of the Trump Administration.

Today, the bot is tweeting again – this time, to point out that the 1924 immigration law that Attorney General Sessions has praised was the very reason why the St. Louis was turned away.

The bot, created by Jewish educator Russel Neiss, is tweeting names of St. Louis passengers one by one.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.