On October 3rd, 1965 in Liberty Island, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered an address at the signing of the Immigration and Nationality Act, framing the bill as a repair for “a very deep and painful flaw in the fabric of American justice” and a correction of “a cruel and enduring wrong.” The “wrong” Johnson outlined was the national origins quota system, a pre-1965 U.S. immigration policy which prioritized immigrants from Northern and Western Europe and heavily restricted, or completely barred, immigration from Asian, African, and Latin American nations. In the early 1960s, the bill began facing public criticism as part of a broader public push for reform known as the Civil Rights Movement, which centered around ideals of equality and inclusion and argued that America’s preexisting discriminatory quotas violated American values of diversity and acceptance. As a result, in January of 1965, representative Emmanuel Celler proposed the first edition of an equitable immigration act in the House of Representatives. After it underwent a series of debates and amendments, President Johnson signed the act into law on October 3rd. The 1965 legislation followed the ethos of exact equality intrinsic to Civil Rights movements at the time, eliminating the restrictive national origins quota system and implementing a new, numerically-equitable system which shifted focus to preferences like family reunification and qualification over national origin or race. While the act was intended to be an entirely equitable, nondiscriminatory reform, its adherence to the idea of exact numerical equality would ultimately reveal critical flaws. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 enacted equitable immigration reform by granting marginalized groups expanded visa access. However, in the long term, the act also created a more restrictive immigration system by failing to account for disparities in nations’ demand and ignoring the impact of prior migratory relationships. Thus, overall, the legislation set the precedent for inadvertent discrimination through instating numerically equal yet inherently uneven policy, ultimately catalyzing a modern immigration crisis.
Through eliminating discriminatory national origins quotas and implementing family reunification, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 granted marginalized groups expanded visa access, improving the equity of America’s immigration system. Prior to the 1965 legislation, America’s visa allocation procedure centered around restrictive quotas based on national origin. The federal government first imposed national origin quotas on immigration in the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, establishing that the annual immigration quota for each nation be three percent of that nationality’s U.S. residents as of 1910. This system served to preserve America’s cultural homogeneity through allocating visas predominantly to Western European nations, discriminating against or entirely excluding Asian, African, and Eastern European groups. Further, the act upheld the longstanding, complete exclusion of Asian immigrants in the “Asiatic Barred Zone,” which included India, East Asia, and the surrounding islands. However, when Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, it eradicated the preexisting national origins quota system and established a new visa allocation apparatus based on seven preference categories, preeminently emphasizing family reunification and skilled labor over discriminate factors like nationality and race.
The 1965 legislation’s elimination of national origins quotas resulted in a more diverse immigrant pool as previously-excluded nations gained unprecedented access to immigrant visas. Most notably, the number of preference and non-preference visas issued to Asian immigrants skyrocketed following the act’s passage in 1965, climbing from 1,665 in 1964 to 25,326 in 1968. African immigration also experienced a sizable surge, with numbers increasing from 891 in 1964 to 2,204 in 1968. Contrastingly, European immigration stayed roughly consistent despite the new legislation, increasing marginally from 96,732 to 99,377 over the same period. This shift in immigration demographics post-1965 demonstrates how the elimination of nationality-based quotas and restrictions in 1965 engendered a rise in visa access for formerly marginalized migrant groups like Asia and Africa, increasing the diversity of the immigrant pool as a whole. Additionally, within European immigration, a demographic shift occurred as Southern and Eastern Europeans, who faced significant discrimination during the height of the nation origins quota system, gained newfound access. For example, from 1964 to 1965 the number of visas issued to Greece, a Southern European nation, increased from 224 to 9,550. Italian immigration also experienced a sizable surge, increasing from 5,390 to 16,530 over the same period. On the other hand, immigration from Ireland, a Northern European nation favored pre-1965, significantly decreased from 6,256 to 3,264, demonstrating a shift in European immigration from the discriminatory hierarchy of the pre-1965 system to a more equitable framework.
In conjunction with the elimination of restrictive, discriminatory national origins quotas, the act also established an emphasis on family reunification, allowing formerly marginalized groups increased opportunities for immigration and resettlement. In the framework of the new legislation, Congress established family reunification as the primary preference for prospective immigrants, setting aside up to 74% of each hemispherical cap for family-based migration. Further, the act exempted all immediate relatives, including spouses, children, and parents, from any national or hemispherical numerical restrictions, creating a direct, easy pathway for family unification. This shift in emphasis to family reunification over national origin created a phenomenon known as “chain migration,” in which individuals — most commonly from Asian or Latin America nations – obtained visas, immigrated to the United States, and then petitioned for the arrival of family members or relatives. Through chain migration, formerly marginalized groups with no prior familial ties were able to establish roots in the U.S. and create self-sustaining migration networks, increasing visa access for subsequent migrants from the same regions. For example, Filipino immigration increased from approximately 5,000 in 1966 to over 45,000 in 1985: during that period, family reunification accounted for between 55% and 97% of total immigration in any given year. Thus, in the decades following 1965, family reunification preferences accounted for a sizable majority of Filipino migration, demonstrating the new policy’s role in facilitating heightened migration from previously marginalized populations. Ultimately, by both establishing family reunification and abolishing national origins quotas, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 increased the diversity of the immigrant pool, and thus, created a less discriminatory immigration system.
However, through not accounting for disparities in different nations’ migratory demands, the act created a system which rendered immigration more difficult for the countries with the highest immigration needs, demonstrating how a formally equal allocation system translated into unequal practical access. For example, as part of its reform, the legislation placed numerically identical immigration caps of 20,000 on each nation in the Eastern Hemisphere, aiming to achieve the ideals of equality championed in the Civil Rights ethos of the time. Consequently, once a certain nation received 20,000 visas, disregarding those used for immediate family reunification, they were unable to receive more until the next calendar year. In Table VI of the 1968 Report of the Visa Office, a figure documents the visa allocation statistics for each country in the Eastern Hemisphere. The report states that, altogether, European countries only utilized 83,494 visas of the 149,472 available based on the 1965 act’s preferential framework. On the other hand, Asian countries like China, India, and the Philippines maxed out on their preferential allotments completely, and with additional inputs from the hemispherical pool for non-preference migration, readily approached or met their national ceilings of 20,000. As demonstrated by the visa allotments of 1968, while most European countries fit their immigration needs neatly within the confines of the new system and even underutilized available visas, Asian countries struggled to satisfy their population’s heightened demand and consistently reached or approached allotted maximums. Thus, the numerically equitable system established by the 1965 legislation placed more competitive pressure on citizens aiming to obtain visas in countries with a fundamentally higher migratory demand by subjecting them to the same numerical quotas as countries with a fundamentally lower demand. Ultimately, this disparity demonstrates a critical flaw in the equivalent distribution of visas and national ceilings outlined in the 1965 legislation: in striving for absolute equality in supply, the act failed to account for nuance in demand, leading to an inadvertently inequitable system. Eventually, this uneven migratory strain manifested in disproportionate visa backlogs for certain nations.
The disproportionate pressure on countries with a fundamentally higher demand — a function of the act’s numerically equitable premise — eventually engendered mass visa backlogs for citizens of the affected nations, rendering immigration increasingly difficult. For example, in July 1978, just ten years after the act’s reforms fully took effect, the act’s disproportionate impact on visa backlogs in high-demand countries had already materialized. For example, applicants from all European nations could apply for immediately-available visas in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th preference categories. In addition, for non-preference visas, they faced a waiting period of roughly two-and-a-half years. On the other hand, Chinese applicants faced year-long waiting periods for visas of both the 5th and 6th preferences categories while non-preference visas were entirely unavailable. Filipino applicants faced similar waits, with years-long backlogs for all preference categories but the 1st and 7th and an eight-year-long backlog in the nonpreference division. Accordingly, based on such backlogs, in July 1968, an applicant from France looking to receive a 3rd preference visa could receive one immediately, while an applicant from the Philippines could face a waiting period of over eight years. Thus, although applicants in European nations experienced either minimal backlogs or immediate access, applicants in China, the Philippines, and other oversubscribed, high-demand East Asian nations faced years-long waiting periods and even complete unavailability, depending on the preference category. This disparity demonstrates how the prescription of uniform national caps for countries of both low and high demand resulted in a disparity in visa access for their citizens, highlighting the inequity engendered by the act’s failure to consider migratory demand in its framework.
The legislation also created a more restrictive immigration system by constraining legal avenues to entry in nations with which the U.S. had prior migratory relationships, revealing the fundamental flaw in formal equity without nuance. Prior to the implementation of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, immigration from Mexico to America consisted primarily of authorized contract labor facilitated through an agreement known as the Bracero Program. From its inception in 1942 until its termination in 1964, the Bracero Program sponsored over four-and-a-half million temporary labor contracts for Mexican workers, allowing them to enter the U.S. and provide manual and agricultural labor, bolstering both economies. However, Congress ultimately terminated the program on December 31, 1964, ending the labor agreement and leaving thousands of Mexican citizens without their primary source of employment and income. Just over nine months later, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. For the first time ever, Congress placed an annual cap on immigration from the Western Hemisphere (120,000), an effort to standardize policy given the Eastern Hemisphere’s annual limit, and enforced more regulated labor certification requirements.
The act first established new, stringent labor certification requirements for Mexican visa applicants, favoring those who demonstrated possession of a “needed skill” and almost entirely precluding unskilled or semiskilled laborers like the Braceros. Thus, within the framework of the 1965 legislation, no alternative labor program was implemented to accommodate for the thousands of temporary workers whose contracts had expired, subjugating Mexican laborers to the same immigration process as any other applicants from the Western hemisphere. However, a fundamental disconnect materialized between the new system’s numerical threshold and historical Bracero demand. For example, in 1968, the first year in which the hemispherical quota was fully enacted, the number of immigrant visas issued to Mexico was 43,510, representing a slight increase from the 31,324 issued in 1964. Yet, in 1964, the Bracero Program also sponsored 179,298 temporary visas for Mexican workers, representing a steady, sizable stream of temporal migration. Thus, the total capacity for formal immigration from Mexico in 1968 represented, at a maximum, only 21.76% of the capacity for migratory work and contracts in 1964. Consequently, the act created a system which, at its core, precluded the majority of Bracero laborers from obtaining visas, demonstrating how the legislation fundamentally failed to consider or accommodate for the legacy of America and Mexico’s longstanding migratory relations in its new framework.
The 1965 legislation’s failure to account for the U.S. and Mexico’s prior migratory relationship ultimately materialized in the restriction of migration pathways for Mexican citizens as Mexico accumulated a growing visa backlog. In a hearing from the Board of Immigration Appeals on March 30, 1972, the Board stated that no visas were available for Mexicans citizens with an application date past November 22, 1970, meaning a minimum backlog of nearly a year-and-a-half had already accrued. By October 1976, that backlog reached nearly three years. Thus, former migratory laborers hoping to enter the system and obtain visas faced burgeoning lines and years in waiting, presenting a sizable migratory barrier and further constraining their access to legal pathways for entry. On January 1, 1973, Congress convened to address the delays engendered by the post-1965 Western Hemisphere immigration framework. By the convention date, the backlog list for Mexico had already accumulated 84,097 individuals. Further, that backlog figure was more than three times greater than that of any other nation in the Western Hemisphere, demonstrating the disproportionate effect of the new legislation on Mexican migration as a result of its failure to acknowledge their former migratory connections. Thus, by failing to provide any means of immigration for former Bracero laborers and implementing new hemispherical maximums, the act engendered the disproportionate restriction of Mexican immigration through extensive visa backlogs and waits.
These restrictive policies and mounting backlog pressures culminated in an illegal immigration crisis as those excluded from legal pathways sought alternative means of entry. In a graph published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security which demonstrated the breakdown of Mexican migrants from the years 1955 to 1995, the number of temporary migrants was shown hitting near-zero shortly after 1965 while the number of illegal immigrants inversely skyrocketed. On the other hand, the number of legal immigrants stayed fairly consistent for the entirety of the period. This influx in illegal migration further demonstrates the 1965 legislation’s failure to account for prior migratory relationships between Mexico and the U.S. and provide alternative pathways for labor-based migration, ultimately forcing thousands of outcast workers to resort to illegal means. Further, it displays the fundamental inequity in applying the same hemispherical quotas to a hemisphere with Mexico, a longstanding source of migratory labor, and its Eastern counterpart. Thus, ultimately, the hemispherical restrictions imposed on the Western hemisphere, though intended as an equitable extension of the Eastern hemisphere quotas, resulted in the inadvertent restriction of Mexican immigration and the resultant illegal immigration crisis, demonstrating the flaws in an immigration system which championed exact quantitative equality over true, nuanced equity.
Ultimately, while the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 did enact equitable change through granting previously marginalized groups improved visa access, in the long term, the act only further constrained legal avenues to entry and engendered an eventual spike in illegal immigration as a result of its numerically equitable yet one-dimensional, and thus, practically discriminatory policy. Today, the equitable yet uneven premise established by the act continues to contribute to mass visa backlogs and waits that make immigration from large, high-need countries practically inaccessible. Further, the illegal immigration initially catalyzed by the act’s failure to acknowledge Mexico’s unique migration conditions has only compounded, forming the modern border crisis faced today. The act’s inadvertent contribution to discrimination demonstrates the fundamental flaw in considering equity in the absence of nuance — rather than taking the time to understand the countries the act fundamentally affected, Congress opted to assume exact equity, leading to a system which allotted Latvia the same visa cap as China. Fixing today’s immigration crisis thus requires taking the time to consider equity through a lens which observes and adjusts rather than blindly assumes, taking a step from equality for the sake of equality to true reform and representation.
By Bella Dodig
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