The law starts out by saying Chinese laborers constitute a danger to the United States. Yup; it just comes right out and says it. Then it says they can't immigrate for ten years.

There's only so many ways to say, "Hey, all those Chinese people who want to live and work in the U.S.? No thanks." This law tries all of them. The meat of the law is in Section 1, which is that bars Chinese people from immigrating for ten years.

The rest of it is spent on enforcement, including a system of monitoring Chinese people already in the country. It also points out how ship captains are supposed to deal with Chinese passengers, since this was before commercial air travel.