The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the
89th United States Congress and signed into law by President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
.
The law abolished the
National Origins Formula
National Origins Formula is an umbrella term for a series of qualitative immigration quotas in America used from 1921 to 1965, which restricted immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere on the basis of national origin. These restrictions included l ...
, which had been the basis of
U.S. immigration policy since the 1920s.
[Greenwood, M. J., & Ward, Z. (2015). Immigration quotas, World War I, and emigrant flows from the United States in the early 20th century. Explorations in Economic History, 55, 76–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2014.05.001] The act removed ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' discrimination against
Southern and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
ans,
Asians, as well as other non-
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
and
Northern Europe
The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other g ...
an ethnic groups from
American immigration policy.
The National Origins Formula had been established in the 1920s to preserve American homogeneity by promoting immigration from Western and Northern Europe.
During the 1960s, at the height of the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, this approach increasingly came under attack for being
racially discriminatory. With the support of the Johnson administration, Senator
Philip Hart
Philip Aloysius Hart (December 10, 1912December 26, 1976) was an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, he served as a United States Senator from Michigan from 1959 until his death from cancer in Washington, D.C. in 1976. He was known as ...
and Congressman
Emanuel Celler
Emanuel Celler (May 6, 1888 – January 15, 1981) was an American politician from New York who served in the United States House of Representatives for almost 50 years, from March 1923 to January 1973. He served as the dean of the United States H ...
introduced a bill to repeal the formula.
[Tichenor, D. (2016). The historical presidency: Lyndon Johnson’s ambivalent reform: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 46(3), 691–705. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12300] The bill received wide support from both northern
Democratic and
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
members of Congress, but strong opposition mostly from Southern Democrats, the latter mostly voting Nay or Not Voting. President Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 into law on October 3, 1965.
In opening entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than Northwestern Europeans, the Act significantly altered immigration demographics in the country for the first time since it was
founded.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 created a seven-category preference system that gives priority to relatives and children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, professionals and other individuals with specialized skills, and refugees.
The act also set a numerical limit on immigration (120,000 per annum) from the
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term We ...
for the first time in U.S. history.
While proponents of the bill had argued that it would not have a significant effect on the total level of immigration or the demographic mix of the country, it nevertheless increased the total number of immigrants as well as the share of immigrants from Asia,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
as well as Eastern and Southern Europe in the following decades.
Background
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 marked a radical break from U.S. immigration policies of the past. Since Congress restricted naturalized citizenship to "white persons" in 1790, laws restricted immigration from Asia and Africa, and gave preference to Northern and Western Europeans over Southern and Eastern Europeans.
During this time, most of those immigrating to the U.S. were Northern Europeans of
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
faith and Western Africans who were forced to immigrate because of slavery.
[History. (2006). U.S. Immigration Before 1965. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/u-s-immigration-before-1965] This pattern shifted in the mid to late 19th century for both the Western and Eastern regions of the United States. There was a large influx of immigration from Asia in the Western region, while Eastern and Southern European immigrants settled more in the Eastern United States.
Once the demographics of immigration were changing, there were policies put in place to reduce immigration to exclude individuals of certain ethnicities and races. Congress passed the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law excluded merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplom ...
to stop the inflow of Chinese immigrants. Then in 1917, Congress passed the
Immigration Act
Immigration Act (with its variations) is a stock short title used for legislation in many countries relating to immigration.
The Bill for an Act with this short title will have been known as a Immigration Bill during its passage through Parliament ...
; this act had prevented most immigration of non-North Western Europeans because it tested language understanding.
This act was followed by
the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, that placed a quota on immigration which used the rate of immigration in 1910 to mirror the immigration rate of all countries.
[Massey, C. G. (2016). Immigration quotas and immigrant selection. Explorations in Economic History, 60, 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2015.11.001] The Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 had helped bring along the
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
had permanently established the National Origins Formula as the basis of U.S. immigration policy, largely to restrict immigration from
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
,
Southern Europe
Southern Europe is the southern regions of Europe, region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countrie ...
, and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
. According to the
Office of the Historian
The Office of the Historian is an office of the United States Department of State within the Foreign Service Institute. It is legally responsible for the preparation and publication of the official historical documentary record of U.S. foreign po ...
of the U.S. Department of State, the purpose of the 1924 Act was "to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity" by limiting immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.
At the time the U.S. had been recognized by many as the global leader in codified racism. The ''National Socialist Handbook for Law and Legislation'' of 1934–35, edited by the lawyer
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank (23 May 1900 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and lawyer who served as head of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War.
Frank was an early member of the German Workers' Party ...
, contains a pivotal essay by Herbert Kier on the recommendations for race legislation which devoted a quarter of its pages to U.S. legislation, including race-based citizenship laws,
anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalization, criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different R ...
, and immigration laws.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
wrote of his admiration of America's immigration laws in ''
Mein Kampf
(; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germ ...
'', saying:
In the 1960s, the United States faced both foreign and domestic pressures to change its nation-based formula, which was regarded as a system that discriminated based on an individual's place of birth. Abroad, former military allies and new independent nations aimed to de-legitimize discriminatory immigration, naturalization and regulations through international organizations like the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
. In the United States, the national-based formula had been under scrutiny for a number of years. In 1952, President Truman had directed the Commission on Immigration and Naturalization to conduct an investigation and produce a report on the current immigration regulations. The report, ''Whom We Shall Welcome'', served as the blueprint for the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. At the height of the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
the restrictive immigration laws were seen as an embarrassment.
At the time of the act's passing, many high-ranking politicians favored this bill to be passed, including President Lyndon B. Johnson. However, the public did not reciprocate these feelings, which can be seen in a Gallup Organization poll in 1965 asking if they were in favor of getting rid of the national quota act, and only 51 percent were in favor. The act was pressured by high-ranking officials and interest groups to be passed, which it was passed on October 3, 1965.
[Hatton. (2015). United States immigration policy: The 1965 act and its consequences. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 117(2), 347–368. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12094] President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
signed the 1965 act into law at the foot of the
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''; French: ''La Liberté éclairant le monde'') is a List of colossal sculpture in situ, colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the U ...
, ending preferences for white immigrants dating to the 18th century.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 did not make it fully illegal for the United States government to discriminate against individuals, which included members of the
LGBTQ+
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is ...
community to be prohibited under the legislation.
The
Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor from 1933 to 1940 and the U.S. Department of Justice from 1940 to 2003.
Referred to by some as former INS and by others as legacy INS, ...
continued to deny entry to prospective immigrants who are in the LGBTQ+ community on the grounds that they were "mentally defective", or had a "constitutional psychopathic inferiority" until the
Immigration Act of 1990
The Immigration Act of 1990 () was signed into law by George H. W. Bush on November 29, 1990. It was first introduced by Ted Kennedy, Senator Ted Kennedy in 1989. It was a national reform of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. It increase ...
rescinded the provision
discriminating against members of the LGBT+ community.
Legislative history
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 has a long history of trying to get passed by Congress. This act has been introduced a number of times to the Senate between March 14, 1960, when it was first introduced, to August 19, 1965, which was the last time it was presented. It was hard to pass this law under Kennedy's administration because Senator
James Eastland (D-MS), Representative
Michael Feighan (D-OH), and Representative
Francis Walter (D-PA), who were in control of the immigration subcommittees, were against immigration reform.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson became president on January 8, 1964, he pressured Congress to act upon reform in immigration.
[Marinari, M. (2014). Americans must show justice in immigration policies too": The passage of the 1965 immigration act. Journal of Policy History, 26(2), 219-245. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0898030614000049] However, this president's support did not stop the debate of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 until January 4, 1965, when President Johnson focused his inaugural address on the reform of immigration, which created intense pressure for the heads of the congressional immigration subcommittees.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 in the 89th Congress
With the support of President Johnson's Administration, Representative
Emanuel Celler
Emanuel Celler (May 6, 1888 – January 15, 1981) was an American politician from New York who served in the United States House of Representatives for almost 50 years, from March 1923 to January 1973. He served as the dean of the United States H ...
(D-NY) introduced the Immigration and Nationality bill, H.R. 2580.
Emanuel Celler was a senior representative, as well as the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. When Celler introduced the bill, he knew that it would be hard for this bill to move from the committee to the floor successfully; the bill's committee was the Immigration and Nationality subcommittee.
The chair of the subcommittee was Representative Feighan, who was against immigration reform. In the end, a compromise was made where immigration based on familial reunification is more critical than immigration based on labor and skilled workers.
Later, Senator
Philip Hart
Philip Aloysius Hart (December 10, 1912December 26, 1976) was an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, he served as a United States Senator from Michigan from 1959 until his death from cancer in Washington, D.C. in 1976. He was known as ...
(D-MI) introduced the Immigration and Nationality bill, S.500, to the Senate.
Congressional Hearings
During the subcommittee's hearing on Immigration and Naturalization of the
Committee in the Judiciary United States Senate, many came forward to voice their support or opposition to the bill. Many higher-ranking officials in the executive and legislative branches, like
Dean Rusk
David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the second-longest serving Secretary of State after Cordell Hull from the F ...
(Secretary of State) and
Abba P. Schwartz (Administrator, Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State), came forward with active support.
[Immigration. Part 1, 89 Cong. (1965). https://li.proquest.com/legislativeinsight/LegHistMain.jsp?searchtype=DOCPAGE&parentAccNo=PL89-236&docAccNo=PL89-236&docType=LEG_HIST&resultsClick=true&newTitle=Immigration%20and%20Nationality%20Act%20Amendments&id=1633903972825] Also, many cultural and civil rights organizations, like the
Order Sons of Italy in America
The Order Sons of Italy in America ( it, Ordine Figli d’Italia in America, OSIA) is the largest and the oldest Italian American Benefit society, fraternal organization in the United States. A similar organization exists in Canada.
It has more ...
, and the Grand Council of Columbia Association in Civil Service, supported the act.
[Immigration. Part 2, 89 Cong. (1965). https://li.proquest.com/legislativeinsight/LegHistMain.jsp?searchtype=DOCPAGE&parentAccNo=PL89-236&docAccNo=PL89-236&docType=LEG_HIST&resultsClick=true&newTitle=Immigration%20and%20Nationality%20Act%20Amendments&id=1633903972825] Many of the bill's supporters believed that this future would outlaw racism and prejudice rhetoric that previous immigration quotas have caused; this prejudice has also caused other nations to feel like the United States did not respect them due to their low rating in the previous immigration quotas.
Many also believed that this act would highly benefit the United States’ economy because the act focused on allowing skilled workers to enter the United States.
On the other hand, many lobbyists and organizations, like
the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Baltimore Anti-Communistic League, came to the hearing to explain their opposition.
Many of the opposition believed that this bill would be against American welfare. The common argument that they used was that if the government allowed more immigrants into the United States, more employment opportunities would be taken away from the American workforce.
While the farmers' organizations, like the
American Farm Bureau Federation
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), also known as Farm Bureau Insurance and Farm Bureau Inc. but more commonly just the Farm Bureau (FB), is a United States-based insurance company and lobbying group that represents the American agri ...
and the National Council of Agricultural, argued that this legislation would be hazardous for the
agricultural industry
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
due to the section regarding a limit of immigration of the Western Hemisphere.
Before this act, there was no limitation with the immigration of the Western Hemisphere, which allowed many migrant workers in the agricultural industry to easily move from countries in the Western Hemisphere to farms in the United States during critical farming seasons.
These agricultural organizations believed that this act could cause issues for migrant workers to enter the United States.
The voting of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
Once the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed in the subcommittees and brought to floors of Congress, it was widely supported. Senator
Philip Hart
Philip Aloysius Hart (December 10, 1912December 26, 1976) was an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, he served as a United States Senator from Michigan from 1959 until his death from cancer in Washington, D.C. in 1976. He was known as ...
introduced the administration-backed immigration bill, which was reported to the Senate Judiciary Committee's Immigration and Naturalization Subcommittee.
Representative
Emanuel Celler
Emanuel Celler (May 6, 1888 – January 15, 1981) was an American politician from New York who served in the United States House of Representatives for almost 50 years, from March 1923 to January 1973. He served as the dean of the United States H ...
introduced the bill in the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
, which voted 320 to 70 in favor of the act, while the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
passed the bill by a vote of 76 to 18.
In the Senate, 52 Democrats voted yes, 14 no, and 1 abstained. Among Senate Republicans, 24 voted yes, 3 voted no, and 1 abstained.
In the House, 202 Democrats voted yes, 60 voted no, and 12 abstained, 118 Republicans voted yes, 10 voted no, and 11 abstained.
In total, 74% of Democrats and 85% of Republicans voted for passage of this bill. Most of the no votes were from the
American South
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
, which was then still strongly Democratic. During debate on the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
floor, Senator
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
, speaking of the effects of the Act, said, "our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. ... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset."
Sen.
Hiram Fong
Hiram Leong Fong (born Yau Leong Fong; October 15, 1906 – August 18, 2004) was an American businessman, lawyer, and politician from Hawaii. Born to a sugar plantation Cantonese immigrant worker, Fong became the first Chinese-American and first ...
(R-HI) answered questions concerning the possible change in the United States' cultural pattern by an influx of Asians:
Democrat Rep.
Michael A. Feighan (OH-20), along with some other Democrats, insisted that "family unification" should take priority over "employability", on the premise that such a weighting would maintain the existing ethnic profile of the country. That change in policy instead resulted in
chain migration
Chain migration is the social process by which immigrants from a particular area follow others from that area to a particular destination. The destination may be in another country or in a new location within the same country.
John S. MacDonal ...
dominating the subsequent patterns of immigration to the United States. In removing racial and national discrimination the Act would significantly alter the demographic mix in the U.S.
When the act was on the floor, two possible amendments were created in order to impact the Western Hemisphere aspect of the legislation. In the House, the MacGregor Amendment was debated; this amendment called for the Western Hemisphere limit to be 115,000 immigrants annually. This amendment was rejected in a 189–218 record vote.
Then the act was pushed to the Senate, where a similar amendment was proposed (possibly creating a cap of 115,000 immigrants annually from the Western Hemisphere), but this was also never passed.
Enactment
On October 3, 1965, President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
officially signed the Immigration and Nationality Act. Because his administration believed that this was a historic legislation, he signed the act at
Liberty Island
Liberty Island is a federally owned island in Upper New York Bay in the United States. Its most notable feature is the Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''), a large statue by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi that was dedicated in ...
, New York.
Upon signing the legislation into law, Johnson said, "this
ldsystem violates the basic principle of American democracy, the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man. It has been un-American in the highest sense, because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to these shores even before we were a country."
Provisions
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 amended the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (), also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (), governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. It came into effect on June 27, 1952. Before ...
(known as the McCarran–Walter Act). It upheld some provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924, while at the same time creating new and more inclusive immigration regulations. It maintained per-country limits, which had been a feature of U.S. immigration policy since the 1920s, and it developed preference categories.
One of the main components of the act was aimed to abolish the national-origins quota. This meant that it eliminated national origin, race, and ancestry as a basis for immigration, making discriminating against obtaining visas illegal.
[Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, 8 U.S.C. § 1101 (1965)]
It created a seven-category preference system. In this system, it explains how visas should be given out in order of most importance. This system prioritized individuals who were relatives of U.S. citizens,
legal permanent resident
Permanent residency is a person's legal resident status in a country or territory of which such person is not a citizen but where they have the right to reside on a permanent basis. This is usually for a permanent period; a person with su ...
, professionals, and/or other individuals with specialized skills.
* The seven-category preference system is divided by family preferences and skill-based preferences. The family preferences include unmarried children of United States citizens, unmarried children and spouses of permanent residents, married children and their dependents of United States citizens, and siblings and their dependents of United States citizens. At the same time, the skilled preferences include individuals and their dependents who have extreme knowledge in arts and science, individuals and their dependent who are workers if there were a labor shortage. Lastly, skilled-based preferences include the preferences for refugees.
Immediate relatives and "special immigrants" were not subject to numerical restrictions. It defined immediate relatives as children and spouses of United States citizens while also parents of United States citizens who are 21 years or older.
While also defining "special immigrants" in six different categories, which includes:
*An immigrant and dependent of the immigrant from the Western Hemisphere if the approved.
*An immigrant who traveled abroad for a short period of time.
*An immigrant who was considered a United States citizen or applying for citizenship.
*An immigrant and dependents of the immigrant who is conducting religious practices and are needed by a religion sector to be in the United States.
*An immigrant and their dependent who is/was a United States government employee abroad. They must have served 15 or more years to be considered a special immigrant. This category is only given if the Foreign Service Office recommended this specific immigrant to be qualified for this categorization.
*An immigrant who is 14 years or younger has been considered an immediate relative of a U.S. citizen. However, their parent(s) cannot take care of them for multiple reasons, including death, abandonment, and so on.
It added a quota system for immigration from the Western Hemisphere, which was not included in the earlier national quota system. This was for the first time, immigration from the Western Hemisphere was limited, while the Eastern Hemisphere saw an increase in the number of visas granted.
It added a labor certification requirement, which dictated that the Secretary of Labor needed to certify labor shortages.
It explained how immigrants who are not immediate relatives of citizens and are considered special immigrants would apply and get approved to immigrate into the United States. Most approvals will need to be approved by the Attorney General, Congress, and Secretary of Labor.
Refugees were given the seventh and last category preference with the possibility of adjusting their status. However, refugees could enter the United States by other means, such as
seeking temporary asylum.
Immediate impact on quota immigrant admissions
![1964-1965-1966 Quota Immigrants Admitted to the USA by Country (1966 INS Report Table 7)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/1964-1965-1966_Quota_Immigrants_Admitted_to_the_USA_by_Country_%281966_INS_Report_Table_7%29.jpg)
The Act of October 3, 1965 phased out the
National Origins Formula
National Origins Formula is an umbrella term for a series of qualitative immigration quotas in America used from 1921 to 1965, which restricted immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere on the basis of national origin. These restrictions included l ...
quota system set by the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (), also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (), governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. It came into effect on June 27, 1952. Before ...
in two stages:
*Effective December 1, 1965, during a transition period covering fiscal years ending June 30 of 1966–1968, national quotas continued, but any unused quota spots were pooled and made available to other countries that had exhausted their quota, on a first-come, first-serve basis.
[U.S. Census Bureau (2081). Immigration and Naturalization. Retrieved from https://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1981-03.pdf] While still granting first priority to European countries according to the National Origins Formula, immigration from countries with high quotas had slowed to far below maximum allotments. In 1965, 296,697 immigrants were admitted out of a total quota of 158,561.
*Effective July 1, 1968, the national quota system was fully abolished, and the broad hemispheric numerical limitations took effect. All nation-level quotas were dropped and replaced by a limit of 170,000 immigrants from the
Eastern Hemisphere
The Eastern Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth which is east of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and west of the antimeridian (which crosses the Pacific Ocean and relatively little land from pole to pol ...
on a first-come, first-serve basis, but while setting cap of no more than 20,000 from any one country.
For the first time, immigration from within the
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term We ...
was also restricted, legally capped at 120,000 annually.
Listed below are quota immigrants admitted from the
Eastern Hemisphere
The Eastern Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth which is east of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and west of the antimeridian (which crosses the Pacific Ocean and relatively little land from pole to pol ...
, by country, in given fiscal years ended June 30, for the final National Origins Formula quota year of 1965, the pool transition period 1966–1968, and for 1969–1970, the first two fiscal years in which national quotas were fully abolished.
Wages under Foreign Certification
As per the rules under the Immigration and Nationality Act, U.S. organizations are permitted to employ foreign workers either temporarily or permanently to fulfill certain types of job requirements.
The
Employment and Training Administration
The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is part of the U.S. Department of Labor. Its mission is to provide training, employment, labor market information, and income maintenance services. ETA administers federal government job training and ...
under the
U.S. Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the United States federal executive departments, executive departments of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of fede ...
is the body that usually provides certification to employers allowing them to hire foreign workers in order to bridge qualified and skilled labor gaps in certain business areas. Employers must confirm that they are unable to hire American workers willing to perform the job for wages paid by employers for the same occupation in the intended area of employment. However, some unique rules are applied to each category of visas. They are as follows:
*H-1B and H-1B1 Specialty (Professional) Workers should have a pay, as per the prevailing wage – an average wage that is paid to a person employed in the same occupation in the area of employment; or that the employer pays its workers the actual wage paid to people having similar skills and qualifications.
*H-2A Agricultural Workers should have the highest pay in accordance to the (a) Adverse Effect Wage Rate, (b) the present rate for a particular crop or area, or (c) the state or federal minimum wage. The law also stipulates requirements like employer-sponsored meals and transportation of the employees as well as restrictions on deducting from the workers' wages.
*H-2B Non-agricultural Workers should receive a payment in accordance with the prevailing wage (mean wage paid to a worker employed in a similar occupation in the concerned area of employment).
*D-1 Crewmembers (longshore work) should be paid the current wage (mean wage paid to a person employed in a similar occupation in the respective area of employment).
*Permanent Employment of Aliens should be employed after the employer has agreed to provide and pay as per the prevailing wage trends. It should be decided on the basis of one of the many alternatives provisioned under the said Act. This rule has to be followed the moment the Alien has been granted with permanent residency or the Alien has been admitted to the United States to take the required position.
Legacy
![Chart of foreign born in the US labor force 1900 to 2007](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Chart_of_foreign_born_in_the_US_labor_force_1900_to_2007.png)
The proponents of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 argued that it would not significantly influence United States culture. President Johnson said it was "not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions."
[Johnson, L.B., (1965). President Lyndon B. Johnson's Remarks at the Signing of the Immigration Bill. Liberty Island, New York October 3, 196]
transcript at lbjlibrary
. Secretary of State Dean Rusk
David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the second-longest serving Secretary of State after Cordell Hull from the F ...
and other politicians, including
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), asserted that the bill would not affect the U.S. demographic mix.
However, following the passage of the law, the ethnic composition of immigrants changed, altering the ethnic makeup of the U.S. with increased numbers of immigrants from Asia, Africa, the West Indies, and elsewhere in the Americas. The 1965 act also imposed the first cap on total immigration from the Americas, marking the first time numerical limitations were placed on immigration from Latin American countries, including Mexico. If the bill and its subsequent immigration waves since had not been passed, it is estimated by Pew Research that the U.S. would have been in 2015: 75%
Non-Hispanic White
Non-Hispanic whites or Non-Latino whites are Americans who are classified as "white", and are not of Hispanic (also known as "Latino") heritage. The United States Census Bureau defines ''white'' to include European Americans, Middle Eastern Amer ...
, 14%
Black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
, 8%
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
and less than 1%
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
.
In the twenty years following passage of the law, 25,000 professional Filipino workers, including thousands of nurses, entered the U.S. under the law's occupational provision.Family reunification under the law greatly increased the total number of immigrants, including Europeans, admitted to the U.S.; Between 1960 and 1975, 20,000 Italians arrived annually to join relatives who had earlier immigrated. Total immigration doubled between 1965 and 1970, and again between 1970 and 1990. Immigration constituted 11 percent of the total U.S. population growth between 1960 and 1970, growing to 33 percent from 1970 to 1980, and to 39 percent from 1980 to 1990. The percentage of foreign-born in the United States increased from 5 percent in 1965 to 14 percent in 2016.
The elimination of the
National Origins Formula
National Origins Formula is an umbrella term for a series of qualitative immigration quotas in America used from 1921 to 1965, which restricted immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere on the basis of national origin. These restrictions included l ...
and the introduction of numeric limits on immigration from the
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term We ...
, along with the strong demand for immigrant workers by U.S. employers, led to rising numbers of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in the decades after 1965, especially in the Southwest. Policies in the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA or the Simpson–Mazzoli Act) was passed by the 99th United States Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act altered U.S ...
that were designed to curtail migration across the Mexico–U.S. border led many unauthorized workers to settle permanently in the U.S. These demographic trends became a central part of anti-immigrant activism from the 1980s, leading to greater border militarization, rising apprehension of undocumented immigrants by the Border Patrol, and a focus in the media on the criminality of undocumented immigrants.
The Immigration and Nationality Act's elimination of national and ethnic quotas has limited recent efforts at immigration restriction. In January 2017, President
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
's
Executive Order 13769
Executive Order 13769, titled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, labeled the "Muslim ban" by critics, or commonly referred to as the Trump travel ban, was an executive order by US President Donald Trump ...
temporarily halted immigration from seven majority-Muslim nations. However, lower
federal courts
Federal court may refer to:
United States
* Federal judiciary of the United States
** United States district court, a particular federal court
Elsewhere
* Federal Court of Australia
* Federal courts of Brazil
* Federal Court (Canada)
* Federal co ...
ruled that the executive order violated the Immigration and Nationality Act's prohibitions of discrimination on the basis of nationality and religion. In June 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court overrode both appeals courts and allowed the second ban to go into effect, but carved out an exemption for persons with "bona fide relationships" in the U.S. In December 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the full travel ban—now in its
third incarnation—to take effect, which excludes people who have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States. In June 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the travel ban in ''
Trump v. Hawaii
''Trump v. Hawaii'', No. 17-965, 585 U.S. ___ (2018), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case involving Presidential Proclamation 9645 signed by President Donald Trump, which restricted travel into the United States by people from sever ...
'', saying that the president's power to secure the country's borders, delegated by Congress over decades of immigration lawmaking, was not undermined by the president's history of arguably incendiary statements about the dangers he said some Muslims pose to the United States.
See also
*
Uniform Congressional District Act
The Uniform Congressional District Act is a redistricting bill that requires that all members of the United States House of Representatives in the 91st United States Congress and every subsequent Congress be elected from a single member constit ...
*
*
Luce–Celler Act of 1946
*
Remain in Mexico
Remain in Mexico (officially Migrant Protection Protocols) is a United States immigration policy originally implemented in January 2019 under the Presidency of Donald Trump, administration of President Donald Trump, affecting Immigration to the Uni ...
References
Further reading
* Chin, Gabriel J. "The civil rights revolution comes to immigration law: A new look at the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965." ''North Carolina Law Review'' 75 (1996): 273
online
* Chin, Gabriel J., and Rose Cuison Villazor, eds. ''The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965: legislating a new America'' (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
* LeMay, Michael C. ''The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965: A Reference Guide'' (ABC-CLIO, 2020).
* Orchowski, Margaret Sands. ''The law that changed the face of America: the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).
* Tichenor, Daniel. "The historical presidency: Lyndon Johnson's ambivalent reform: the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965." ''Presidential Studies Quarterly'' 46.3 (2016): 691-70
online
* Zolberg, Aristide R. ''A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America'' (2008)
External links
An Act to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act, and for other purposesText of Public Law 89-236 – October 3, 1965
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 in the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)Immigration Policy in the United States(2006), Congressional Budget office.
The Great Society Congress
{{Authority control
United States federal immigration and nationality legislation
1965 in American law
Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson
89th United States Congress