No Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 - Effects?

[Mr_Fanboy]

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 had huge implications for American politics and society. By tearing down the old quota system that had restricted much non-European immigration to the United States, allowing many from Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere to come to the country. This has directly resulted in America being a much more diverse country today than it was in the 1960s.

But what if the act had never been passed and the quotas never removed? Okay, it's probably unlikely that something like the act would never get passed, even if it happens in a more piecemeal fashion here, with multiple bits of legislation. Furthermore, in the spirit of the Cold War, presidents will still offer refugee status to those fleeing communism (Cubans, Vietnamese if the communists still win, etc). Still, if the desire for immigration liberalization loses just a little bit of momentum going into 1965, it is almost conceivable that relative Republican success in 1966 and a GOP presidential victory in 1968 could lead to much more watered down immigration reform (say, finagling with the allocation of quotas by region). Let's say then, for the purposes of this scenario, that the quotas are only completely abolished in the 1990s or 2000s.

My question is, how would American politics and culture over the last several decades be different without much of the mass influx of Latin American, Asian, and other immigrants that resulted from the act? What other countries could benefit from a more restrictive United States - would European and Commonwealth countries admit more?

 

[David T]

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 had huge implications for American politics and society. By tearing down the old quota system that had restricted much non-European immigration to the United States, allowing many from Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere to come to the country.

Fun fact: There were no quota restrictions for Western Hemisphere immigrants under the 1921 and 1924 Acts. https://books.google.com/books?id=rrf_HrCTXdgC&pg=PA31

 

[Mr_Fanboy]

Fun fact: There were no quota restrictions for Western Hemisphere immigrants under the 1921 and 1924 Acts. https://books.google.com/books?id=rrf_HrCTXdgC&pg=PA31

Sure, but Latin American immigration still spiked as a result of the act - look at the composition of America's immigrant population by national origin in 1960 (overwhelmingly European or Canadian) versus today. http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/chapter-5-u-s-foreign-born-population-trends/

This is probably due to other provisions of the law, like making immigration to unite families either, for instance.

Put it this way - do you dispute that much of the post-1965 Latin American immigration to the United States was enabled by the act? If so, why?

 

[David T]

Put it this way - do you dispute that much of the post-1965 Latin American immigration to the United States was enabled by the act? If so, why?

At least one immigration scholar, Douglas S. Massey, disputes it:

"Actually, the transformation of American immigration had little to do with the 1965 amendments, and successive legislative acts did not—and could not—restore the conditions of the 1950s. The dramatic decline of immigration from Europe stemmed from changes there, not from anything that happened in the United States. After World War II Western Europe underwent a profound transformation that converted it from a region of emigration to one of immigration. By the mid-1960s labor shortages had grown so acute in northern and western Europe that governments there established formal programs to recruit immigrant workers. By the 1970s even the nations of southern Europe—Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece—had begun to attract immigrants. Europeans stopped coming to the United States because of structural shifts in European society itself, not because of changes in U.S. immigration policy.

"The 1965 amendments also had nothing to do with the expansion of Latin American immigration. On the contrary, they functioned to restrict entry from this region. Prior to 1965 immigrants from the Western Hemisphere were exempted from national origins quotas and could enter without numerical restriction. The 1965 amendments imposed the first-ever ceiling on immigration from the Western Hemisphere (120, 000 persons), and a quota of twenty thousand visas per country was applied in 1976. Contrary to popular belief, the upsurge in immigration from Latin America and the Caribbean occurred in spite of, not because of, the 1965 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act. Were these amendments never to have passed, immigration from the region would have been substantially greater that it actually was.

"The one change that can be traced directly to the 1965 amendments was opening the door to Asian immigration that had been slammed shut at the end of the nineteenth century. But immigration from Asia would have expanded anyway, even without the amendments. In the wake of South Vietnam's collapse the United States was reluctantly compelled to accept hundreds of thousands of "boat people" as refugees. Most of them were "paroled" into the United States by the attorney general for political and humanitarian reasons, outside of the numerical limits and entry criteria established under the 1965 amendments.

"Whereas only 335 Vietnamese entered the United States during the 1950s and 4, 300 arrived during the 1960s, 172, 000 were admitted during the 1970s; 281, 000 arrived during the 1980s; and 125, 000 entered during the first half of the 1990s. The U.S. misadventure in Indochina also led to the entry of thousands of Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong refugees, who collectively totaled 300, 000 by 1990. All told, about a third of Asian immigration after 1970 stemmed from the U.S. intervention in Indochina.

"Thus, none of the drop in European immigration, none of the expansion of Latin American immigration, and only a portion of the increase in Asian immigration can be traced to the 1965 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act. Whether or not this legislation had ever passed, immigration to the United States would have been transformed..." https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpres...nc808&chunk.id=ch08&toc.depth=1&brand=ucpress

BTW, one important thing that people often ignore is the end of the temporary programs for Mexican agricultural laborers (braceros). Many of the Mexicans who illegally entered the US after 1965 were former braceros or people who would have entered as braceros had the program continued. The combination of (1) ending temporary programs and (2) establishing quotas on legal immigration from Mexico and other Latin American countries almost guaranteed increased unauthorized immigration, at least in the absence of far more rigorous enforcement than the US was willing to undertake at the time.
https://books.google.com/books?id=oTqfCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA306

 

[History Learner]

We'd have a much larger Irish population:

On a recent evening in a basement in Woodside, Queens, half a dozen volunteers sat under defiant green-and-white posters that read, ''Legalize The Irish.''

The volunteers, working for the Irish Immigration Reform Movement, a lobbying and advisory group founded in Woodside last year, were answering calls on the hot line and talking about an amendment signed into law by President Reagan last week. The legislation, called an Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute for HR5115 and introduced by Congressmen Peter W. Rodino Jr. of New Jersey and Romano L. Mazzoli of Kentucky, could mean as many as 30,000 new visas for Irish immigrants.

Many of these immigrants will wind up in New York City, which already has the largest Irish community in the country and where about 70,000 Irish immigrants have recently settled. About 150,000 Irish immigrants came to New York as students or tourists over the last six years and stayed on as undocumented aliens.

''The fight isn't over; this is just the first step,'' said Pat Hurley, a founding member of the Movement. Mr. Hurley said the group would resume lobbying even before the new Congress convenes, working closely with established Irish-American organizations like the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Amnesty Is Sought

The Movement, which addresses day-to-day problems of Irish immigrants through its hot line, hopes above all to secure amnesty for all illegal aliens who were not covered by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. It also seeks ''corrective legislation'' to provide a large annual quota of immigrant visas on a nonpreference basis for the 36 countries, including Ireland, adversely affected by the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.

''The new legislation is a small victory but it has raised the hopes of undocumented Irish,'' said Linda Mc Evatt, a legal secretary and a volunteer in the organization who received a green card in 1986. ''Being illegal is nonexistence; you've got no job security, no medical insurance, no right to open a bank account and are an open target for landlords and employers.''

The Irish feel they have been doubly disfavored by recent United States immigration laws. The 1965 act raised quotas from countries that had been previously disadvantaged, namely those in Asia and Latin America, and established a system under which an immigrant with family in the United States was given preference.

This proved prejudicial to European countries like Ireland, whose emigration had slowed. Official statistics showed a drastic reduction in the number of legal Irish immigrants, with more than 70,000 coming to this country in the decade 1956-65, compared with only 10,000 plus in 1976-85. #36 Countries 'Disadvantaged'

The 1986 reform provided amnesty for illegal aliens who could prove they had stayed in the United States continuously since 1982, but again the Irish lost out because the new wave of immigration from Ireland came only after that year, spurred on largely by an economic crisis in Ireland.

The State Department listed 36 countries ''disadvantaged'' by the 1965 Immigration Act because they could not benefit from family preferences. Congressman Brian J. Donnelly of Massachusetts introduced a clause into the 1986 Immigration Act providing for a lottery to give these countries more visas. Under this scheme, 10,000 nonpreferential visas were allocated on a first-come, first-served basis to applications sent to a Washington post office box on Jan. 21, 1987.

Of a total of 1.5 million pieces of mail received in the lottery, 200,000 of the earliest applications came from Irish citizens, winning 4,161 of the 10,000 visas. The explanation given for this Irish ''luck'' is that the Irish felt the most pressing need to emigrate and were better organized, getting more applications in sooner than the others. #3 Parts to Legislation The new legislation, which was passed by the Senate on Oct. 5 and by the House of Representative on Oct 21, and signed by President Reagan on Nov. 15, contains three parts:

* A reactivation of the Donnelly project, Now under the new law, the Justice Department will allocate the first 30,000 visas to applicants remaining from the 1987 lottery. A reserve list of 15,000 names, 10,000 of them Irish, has already been established, and another reserve list of 15,000 names will come from the same pool.

* A new lottery that would allocate another 20,000 visas over a two years, starting October 1989, randomly rather than on a first-come, first-served basis. Under this measure, applicants may apply from 140 countries that are considered ''under-represented,'' - those with fewer than 25 percent of the visas that were available to them last year. Ireland is among this group.

* An extension to December 1989 of temporary H-1 visas for foreign nurses. Such visas expire this year. The measure was a short-term way to address the critical need for nurses in New York and many other cities. Ireland 'Pleased'

Daragh O' Criodain, a spokesman for the Irish Embassy in Washington, said the Irish Government was ''very pleased'' about the legislation after it was passed.

Gary Galanis, press secretary for Rep. Donnelly, said Mr. Donnelly would ''pursue his efforts for a more comprehensive reform next year. He called the Irish Immigration Reform Movement ''one of the better organized lobbying groups.''

The organization, which has 17 branches in other Irish communities around the country, has supported its lobbying action through fund-raisers and raffles. Recently, however, it won a $30,000 grant from the City of New York for its activities as an immigration advisory group.