The Immigration Act of 1965 was issued to establish a new form of immigration policy that abolished national quotas set during the 1920's. This countered the idea of nativism, which was prominent in the early 20th century. The Emergency Quota Act in 1921 severely reduced the number of people that could migrate to the United States every year, and the quota system wasn't changed much since then.
As nativism started to die down towards the mid 20th century, there began to be increasing opposition against the quota systems. Foreigners who wanted to come over to the United States largely believed that the quotas discriminated against them. Even President Kennedy stated that the immigration policy could not be tolerated and gave a speech for immigration reform in 1963. Although Kennedy wasn't able to enforce a legislation to abolish the immigration quotas due to his assassination, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, was able to sign the bill in October 1965.
While the legislation was able to abolish quotas, it "did place caps on per-country and total immigration, as well as caps on each category." However, these caps were very large, and it did not inhibit many immigrants from coming over. The caps were also completely different from the former immigration policy as the quotas from 1929 gave over 1/3 of the annual immigration slots to Germans. It "banned discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas based on 'race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.'"
One major change that the legislation brought about was the support for family unification and skilled labor. If someone had a family members living in the United States, he/she could also immigrate over and join the rest of his/her family. Additionally, people who were adept and seeking jobs in the United States were also preferred. As a result of these two preferences, there was the prevalence of chain immigration, which was the idea that one person migrating to the United States would lead to more family members coming over.
The Immigration Act of 1965 has led to a significant impact in terms of the diverse population in the United States today. Prior to the legislation, immigrants primarily came in from Southern and Eastern Europe. However, after it was enforced, people started to come from a variety of regions, primarily Asia and Latin America. At the beginning, many immigrants fled to the United States due to conflicts such as the Vietnam War. Afterwards, most people came over in seek of new opportunities. While the immigration policy has led to an increase of migration to the United States, there is also debate concerning illegal immigration, which is still an important topic today.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/us-immigration-since-1965
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/geopolitical-origins-us-immigration-act-1965
Thanks for your post on this act Kevin! I think it's really interesting to see how the Immigration Act of 1965 contrasted with the previous trend of nativism. In fact, previous immigration acts like the Immigration Act of 1917 and 1924 were specifically to restrict immigration, and bar other ethnicities from entering the United States. I believe this contrast was due to the perception of foreigners, as the restriction of immigration focused on the harms of immigration, like taking jobs and housing, but the welcoming of immigration, as seen in this act, focused on the skilled labor that foreigners were able to bring, and the introduction and cultivation of other cultures through their families. A question that this introduced for me was: Is restricting immigration ever necessary or good?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-america-grappled-immigration-100-years-ago-180962058/
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act
The Immigration Act of 1965 was an important step in opening up America and what it means to be American. However, it did not ban all "discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas": it wasn't until the Immigration Act of 1990 that homosexual prospective immigrants were allowed to come to the US. Before this, homosexuals had been legally considered "mentally defective," which is blatantly discriminatory against this group of people.
ReplyDeleteThe Immigration Act of 1990 also introduced the Green card Lottery, which was an application of the diversity principle of the 1965 act. This lottery randomly selects 50,000 people to give Diversity Immigrant Visas.
The Immigration Act of 1965 was a big step forward from the policies of the 1920s, but the 1990 act did much more to promote diversity.