{"id":23719,"date":"2020-10-08T12:22:04","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T16:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=23719"},"modified":"2020-10-08T12:22:06","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T16:22:06","slug":"1965-immigration-bill-impact-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/10\/08\/1965-immigration-bill-impact-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Assessing the Impact of the 1965 Immigration Act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fifty-five years ago \u2013 on October 3, 1965 \u2013 President Lyndon B. Johnson (D) signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart\u2013Celler Act. While to some 1965 may seem like a very long time ago, that year\u2019s immigration legislation<\/a> opened up the flood gates, leading to decades of sustained mass immigration, almost tripling the foreign-born share<\/a> of the U.S. population between 1970 (4.7 percent) and 2018 (13.7 percent).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the INA of 1965<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The INA of 1965 replaced the national origins quote system, which had been the core of U.S. immigration policy since the early 1920s. Following the First World War and the late-19th\/early-20th-century \u201cGreat Wave\u201d of immigration, the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 pegged immigration to America\u2019s ethno-cultural makeup in 1890, thereby favoring Northwestern Europeans while excluding Asians and significantly reducing overall immigration. It should be noted that, as the Center for Immigration Studies points out<\/a>, legal immigration from the Western Hemisphere (i.e. Latin America) was left \u201cunrestricted \u2014 a gesture of hemispheric solidarity that also served the cheap-labor interests of American employers.\u201d Overall, however, as immigration historian John Higham argued<\/a>, \u201ca very rapid and widespread assimilation went forward\u201d as the foreign-born share of the U.S. population went down from 14.7 percent in 1910 to 5.4 percent in 1960.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasing Immigration Numbers Since 1965<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1965 legisl<\/a>a<\/a>tion<\/a> that replaced this system was in many ways influenced by the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Thus, the new INA condemned and scrapped the national origins quota system as racist and discriminatory, which they were. The annual admissions ceiling was almost doubled, from 150,000 to 290,000, with 170,000 visas per year being allocated to Eastern Hemisphere countries and 120,000 to those in the Western Hemisphere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those numbers may seem relatively small compared to the approximately 1 million per year the U.S.<\/a> has been admitting for decades. However, the INA of 1965 paved the way for further expansions of mass immigration. For instance, the Immigration Act of 1990<\/a> built, in many ways, on the 1965 legislation by significantly increasing the annual admission numbers (to 700,000) and also introducing the controversial \u201cdiversity\u201d visa lottery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChain Migration\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the major aspects of the 1965 law was that is\nbased immigration to the United States on family reunification, also referred\nto as family-based preferences. What this meant in practice was that immigrants\ncould sponsor not only their wives and children, but also other relatives, to\njoin them in their new homeland. Frequently referred to as \u201cchain migration,\u201d\nthis flood of relatives endlessly sponsoring other relatives, now accounts for\nalmost two-thirds of all immigrant admissions to the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, in 2018, 700,000 immigrants<\/a> \u2013 out of a total of 1.1 million admissions that fiscal year \u2013 were \u201cfamily-sponsored\u201d immigrants. In addition, 4 percent of admissions that year were diversity visa recipients, and 17 percent were refugees or asylees. Less than 13 percent of all immigrants in FY2018 were employment-based admissions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is what that means in practice: most immigrants\nare selected by other immigrants, based on who they are related to<\/em>, not what\nthey know<\/em>. As someone who came to the U.S. after being sponsored by my\nfather, I certainly understand why many are so attached to this cornerstone of\nthe 1965 INA. However, there is a big difference between allowing immigrants to\nsponsor spouses and minor children, and endless \u201cchain migration.\u201d Moreover, one\nneed not be an \u201cimmigration hawk\u201d to recognize that the post-1965 immigration\nsystem has been heavily skewed towards the needs and wants of foreign\nnationals, while the needs of the U.S. or the desires of Americans often have\nto take a back seat (all too often, bringing them up actually opens one up to\naccusations of \u201cxenophobia\u201d or \u201cselfishness\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changing Demographics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many on the left and within the pro-mass-immigration lobby celebrate the INA of 1965 as leading to a more diverse America<\/a> (while often also bemoaning that it didn\u2019t go far enough). Whether this was the original intention of the law\u2019s drafters is debatable. Nevertheless, while the law certainly allowed more Southern and Eastern Europeans to enter the United States, the vast majority<\/a> of the beneficiaries of the post-1965 system have emigrated from Latin America, Africa, or Asia. The reason is that, by 1965, Western Europe \u2013 having been rebuilt after the ravages of the Second World War \u2013 was enjoying a wave of prosperity and there was not a great demand to emigrate. Central and Eastern Europe, meanwhile, was under the red yoke behind the Iron Curtain and people were largely prevented from emigrating by communist regimes. Thus, immigration quotas were filled by non-European immigrants whose relatives did have a desire to move to the U.S. Thus, an immigration system that discriminated in favor of certain nationality groups by design was replaced by one that discriminates in favor of other nationalities by default.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, one paradoxical aspect of the immigration system created by the 1965 INA is the quasi-monopolizing of this flow by certain countries, such as Mexico, China, and India<\/a> (this holds true even if one excludes illegal aliens). This is largely the result of \u201cchain migration\u201d coupled with the large populations of the top sending countries. The diversity visa program was introduced in part as an attempt to remedy this problem, thereby showing that for the advocates of mass immigration the only acceptable solution to the problems of mass immigration is to further increase mass immigration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misleading Americans Into Accepting\nUnending Mass Migration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last but not least, an important thing to remember about the 1965 INA is that its promoters and defenders consistently denied that the legislation would radically change the U.S. immigration system or the country itself. For instance, Sen. Edward Kennedy<\/a> (D-Mass.) claimed that \u201cour cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. (\u2026) the present level of immigration remains substantially the same (\u2026) the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset (…). Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill]will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area,\u201d and \u201cwill not cause American workers to lose their jobs.\u201d Needless to say, everything that Kennedy assured us would not happen in the wake of the 1965 INA has indeed come to pass, sooner or later, as a result of the trajectory established by the floodgate-opening legislation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sustained mass immigration resulting from the INA\nof 1965 has often been compared to the Great Wave (1880 \u2013 1920), mainly to calm\nmainstream Americans\u2019 potential concerns about excessive levels of unchecked\nmigration (\u201crelax, we already went through this before, and everything turned\nout OK!\u201d). Of course the second Great Wave (1965 \u2013 2020) has already lasted\nlonger than the first wave, not to mention other factors that make it an apples\nand oranges comparison (e.g. greater pressure to assimilate immigrants and\nquite different economic conditions during the 1880 \u2013 1920 period). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, after 55 years of unending high levels of mass immigration, the United States needs a lull to successfully integrate the numerous immigrants that are already here, particularly at a time when COVID-19 continues to undermine our economy and job market. That is why we need to make the immigration flow to the U.S. much more merit-based while also reducing it, at least temporarily. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifty-five years ago \u2013 on October 3, 1965 \u2013 President Lyndon B. Johnson (D) signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart\u2013Celler Act. While to some 1965 may seem like a very long time ago, that year\u2019s immigration legislation opened up the flood gates, leading to decades of<\/p>\n

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