The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was established into law because there was a prominent issue in the immigration system. The odds of a European immigrant receiving a visa were greater than those in African and Asian countries which caused there to be a minimal amount of immigration at the beginning of the 20th century.
“What can you do for your country? But we should not be asking, in what country were you born?”-Lyndon B. Johnson
The three men in congress who were willing to challenge the conservative law were Phillip Hart, Emanuel Celler, and Ted Kennedy. These men invested most of their time in Congress fighting for civil rights. Because the previous act was very discriminatory, some objectives they wanted to reinforce were to prioritize immigrants with a special skill set, have a proportionate amount of immigration from each country, and to prevent family separation.
Emanuel Celler Phillip Hart Ted Kennedy
“I have come here to thank personally each Member of the Congress who labored so long and so valiantly to make this occasion come true today, and to make this bill a reality.”
A difficulty these men faced during their fight to reform the immigration law was that there were a lot of nativist* groups in congress which made it hard to find allies supporting a reform. Another asset to the group for immigration was Michael Feighan an Ohio Representative, after being compelled by President Johnson to have a say in the act. Following this, he complied and had the initial idea to have visas given more easily to immigrants concerned with reuniting with their families.
At the time there were a lot of nativists in our country who believed that having immigrants coming into our country was changing America's "bloodstream" for the worse. Many of the people in congress who voted Nay for the passage of the Immigration Act were nativists.
"If this bill becomes law, we will see only a 13% reduction in illegal immigration into America, and in the next 20 years we will have another 8.7 million illegals in our country. How can that be reformed? I submit this would be a disaster."- Sherrod Brown
All of these factors created the final immigration act which completely changed the course of our immigration system. Initially, there wasn’t much hope for the bill to be passed because of the immigration opinions in our government. After a lot of convincing, failures, and other difficulties, the bill was voted for by the House of Representatives and the Senate. The final Immigration Act was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson on October 3rd 1965.
"Now, under the monument which has welcomed so many to our shores, the American Nation returns to the finest of its traditions today."
-Photo Credits- Photo of Emanuel Celler- history.house.gov - -Photo of Phillip Hart- foundation.lssu.edu- -Photo of Ted Kennedy- pbs.org-
-Immigration Act document- senate.gov- -Bar graph of immigration demographics- migrationpolicy.org-
-Photo directly above- The immigration laws -Photo directly above- President Johnson speaking at the -Photo directly above- A copy of the public
being discussed- npr.org- act's signing ceremony- lbjlibrary.org- enforced by the act- history.house.gov
*relating to or supporting the policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants.