In addition, Chinese were not allowed to bear witness in court, and could not receive bail in habeas corpus proceedings.

The Geary Act, besides renewing the exclusion of Chinese laborers for another 10 years, also outlined provisions that required Chinese already in the U.S. to possess "certificates of residence" (as well as "certificates of identity" after the McCreary amendment was added) that served as proof that they entered the U.S. legally and had the right to remain in the country.

Another of the Act's provisions required two white witnesses to testify to a Chinese person's immigration status.

[5] Although the Act stated that these certificates – as well as similar "certificates of identity" later created by the then newly formed Bureau of Immigration to document all Chinese who were actually exempt from the Exclusion and subsequent Geary Acts (for example merchants, teachers, travelers, and students) – were supposed to serve as "indubitable proof of legal entry", the documents did not function to protect legal immigrants and residents from government harassment.

[6] This unprecedented level of inquiry was motivated by the prejudiced view that it was, as Senator Geary said, "impossible to identify [one] Chinaman [from another]".

[8] Such "gatekeeping" in Lee's characterization was rooted in "a western American desire to sustain white supremacy in a multiracial West".

[9] The Los Angeles Herald strongly supported the Act and its certification provision, stating in an editorial that "nearly all civilized nations have had until lately a very rigid system of passports in which a very exact personal description of the bearer formed a part.

Its leaders argued that by making Chinese immigrants pay the "illegal costs and expenses" of enforcing the law, the bill imposed taxation without representation.

The Geary Act provisions for imprisonment and forced labor were invalidated by Wong Wing v. United States in 1896.

[15] When Ny Look, a Chinese Civil War veteran was arrested in New York for failure to register, Judge Emile Henry Lacombe of the U.S.

Circuit Court in the Southern District of New York, ruled in In re Ny Look that there were no deportation provisions in the law and Look could not be detained indefinitely therefore he should be released.