 Eugenicists understood races to be biologically distinct human populations with rank-able physical and behavioral profiles (see  section 1.2 above).  Black people were more prone to criminality and lower intelligence than White people, they believed; and a child who was born of mixed-race parents was likely to fall somewhere in between. The anti-miscegenation laws promoted by eugenicists were explicitly designed to prevent White people from breeding with Black people. Black people were not the only targets though. Eugenicists also spoke of the “Irish race”, the “Italian race”, and the “Slavic race”. These racial categories were just as real for the eugenicists as the categories of Black, White, and Asian, and anti-immigration laws were passed to keep undesirable races away (entry:  race).