This chapter examines immigration policy in the United States from the end of World War II through the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act, or Hart-Celler Act, of 1965. Hart-Celler wiped away a half century of race- and nationality-based admissions policy, abolishing the national origins quota system. The Act is rightly viewed as a watershed in immigration history, and marked an end to Europe’s dominance as the primary sending region of immigrants to the U.S. At the time of its passage, though, the bill was not intended as a revolutionary change. Instead policymakers attempted to devise a new system of exclusion that would eliminate racial discrimination without changing the character or flow of immigrants to the country. Though Hart-Celler ultimately failed to regulate immigration as intended, the system of family and labor preferences it mandated became the standard for future policy debates.
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The quotas limited immigration proportionately to 2% of the population of each nationality living in the United States in 1920. Through this system restrictionists privileged northern and western European nations, whose citizens had arrived earlier than those of southern and eastern Europe, the latter considered to be undesirable. The system exempted the nations of the Western Hemisphere from quota limitations, and excluded Asians outright.
See, for example: King (2005, pp. 78 and 108–109, Gerstle), (2001) and Dudziak (2000).Civil Rights scholars have begun to examine the influence of foreign policy on civil rights reform. Continued domestic racial tension increasingly clashed with the United States’ image as a leader of worldwide democracy. But even as the Cold War engendered the possibility of an end to racial discrimination, the geopolitical situation limited the scope of reform, and legislators pursued only those changes that would allay international concern, rather than promote full equality. Applying this understanding of expansion and limitation during the Cold War to immigration and refugee policy further illustrates the quandaries faced by contemporary policymakers. In immigration and refugee policy, as with civil rights, egalitarian impulses operated only in the most politically expedient form. See: Dudziak (2000), Fousek (2000), Layton (2000) and Von Eschen (1997).
In this chapter, I refer to conservatives and liberals as the two major groups debating immigration and refugee reform (I use conservative and restrictionist interchangeably). Conservative politicians generally, but not exclusively, came from the Southern Democrat-Northern Republican alliance, and represented areas with few immigrants. Senator Pat McCarran (D-NV), the most prominent restrictionist of the period, represented a state with few eastern European settlers. Congressman Francis Walter (D-PA), an equally famous conservative, came from a district with a greater number of eastern Europeans. Because of these constituents, Walter supported limited admissions policies such as emergency refugee relief, even while opposing major changes to immigration law. On the other side of the debate, liberals generally represented areas with larger immigrant populations, such as Senator Herbert Lehman (D-NY) and Representatives Emmanuel Celler (D-NY) and Joseph Farrington (R-HI). See, for example, on McCarran: Ybarra (2004), on Walter: Davis (1996), and on Celler: Lemelin (1994).
Scholars of immigration have given only cursory attention to the legislative battles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, believing that although much occurred during this time, little was accomplished. Those that have examined the postwar era fall into three main camps with regard to immigration and refugee policy. The first, led by scholars, such as Daniels, Genizi, Gerstle, and Reimers, see the era generally as one of restriction and conservative dominance. The gains made by Asians (the ability to naturalize and immigrate) and refugees (to be allowed in over and above the quota system) however, mitigated this dominance and signaled a shift toward liberalization. On the other side of the debate, scholars such as Divine, Hing, and King tend to see only renewed discrimination during this period. Far from signaling liberalization, emergency refugee policies did not challenge the larger structure of immigration law, and the comprehensive ‘reform’ as part of the McCarran-Walter Act created only further structures of racism and discrimination. While not fully aligning with either group, Zolberg and Tichenor view this period as the last in which the nativists would control immigration policy. See: Daniels (2004), Genizi (1993), Gerstle (2001), Reimers (1985), Divine (1957), Hing (1993), King (2000), Zolberg (2006), and Tichenor (2002).
Asian immigrants had been subjected to limitations on admission since as early as 1875 (with the Page Laws,) and had been excluded from immigration and naturalization with the Immigration Act of 1924. Triadafilopoulos has portrayed the policy process with regard to postwar immigration in liberal-democratic nation-states as following a three-step process: first policymakers ‘stretched’ existing procedures to fit new normative contexts. These initial attempts at retaining the underlying structure of policy gave way to their ‘unraveling’, and finally a ‘shifting’ toward new policy. See Chap. 2 in this volume and Triadafilopoulos (2012).
There are almost as many opinions to the contributing factors for change as there are students of the process. At the risk of oversimplifying, all cite most or all of the following: the fight against Nazism and the discrediting of race science; international decolonization; the creation of the United Nations and the increasing voice of third world nations in the international sphere; and the Cold War and fight against Communism. The Civil Rights Movement facilitated changing ideas about immigrants and minorities, and as scholars such as Skrentny have pointed out, it is not surprising that Hart-Cellar arrived concurrently with the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Scholars such as Tichenor have also singled out the work of strong presidents such as Kennedy and Johnson, an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress after 1964, and the death of a staunch restrictionist, Congressman Francis Walter, as factors driving change. See: King (2000), Loescher and Scanlan (1986), Tichenor (2002), Zolberg (2006), and Skrentny (2002). See also: Graham (2004), Hing (2004), Davis (1996), and Borgwardt (2005).
Chin (1996) has argued that legislators in fact knew from the beginning that these changes would open the doors to renewed immigration, but set aside the knowledge in the fight to pass the bill. I agree that legislators had the pertinent information, but considering that they attempted to curb immigration from Latin America while not doing the same for Asia, I doubt they expected such drastic changes.
Genizi (1993) states that the public remained wary of refugee admissions because they felt “the problem was basically a Jewish one, since most of the refugees were Jews” (8).
Representative William Stratton (R-IL) introduced a bill to admit 400,000 DPs into the country over a period of 4 years. This number was estimated to be the number of unused quota slots during wartime. Throughout 1947 the House Judiciary Committee sat on the bill, issuing a report that, in the words of historian Robert A. Divine, labeled the refugee crisis a “planned migration organized by Jewish agencies in the United States and in Europe” (Neuringer 1980, p. 284; Divine 1957, p. 112).
The Refugee-Escapee Act of 1957 repealed quota mortgaging, but the immediate effects of this policy served to limit immigration from the already overtaxed countries of eastern and southern Europe. Roger Daniels argues that although mortgaging was a concession to nativists in Congress, arguing “Congress pretended that these mortgages would be paid off. It is difficult to believe that any but the most naïve members of Congress thought that this would occur. To take an extreme case, within 4 years, the tiny Latvian annual quota of 286 persons had been mortgaged to the year 2274” (Daniels 2004, p. 109). Daniels thus concludes that refugee legislation did in fact poke holes in the national origins system.
“From the point of view of Jewish immigration,” according to John Slawson, Executive Vice President of the American Jewish Committee, the bill “is a calamity. From a tactical point of view it is worse than no immigration at all, because it is designed to discriminate against Jews.” Quoted in: Genizi (2001), p. 81. See also: Dinnerstein (1982).
Section 2(c)(3), Displaced Persons Act of 1948. Public Law 774, 80th Congress. As Calavita (1984) points out, even from the beginning, the Anti-Contract Labor Law of 1885 contained a number of loopholes that allowed its provisions to be circumvented by skilled laborers and other groups, such as secretaries and servants. A number of Acts in the twentieth century, most notably the 1924 Immigration Act contained a similar preference and exemption for agricultural workers. Still, the shift away from a system of barring, even symbolically, migrant with job offers, to requiring employment assurances prior to entry, is significant.
The classic study of the repeal of Chinese exclusion is Riggs (1950). See also: Zolberg (2006), King (2000), Torok (1995), and Reimers [1985](1992).
Judd first proposed the Triangle in 1949 as a revision of the Asiatic Barred Zone (H.R. 199, 1949). Each country inside of the Triangle received a quota of 100 (save for countries like China that had previously been given slightly larger quotas,) with an additional 100 spots reserved for the Triangle as a whole. These final slots were allocated to persons with parents from two different Asian countries, or to those born in a colony within the Triangle.
Scholars are divided on the final analysis of the McCarran-Walter Act. Historians such as Daniels, Gerstle, and Davis believe that the Act contained both liberal and conservative features. These scholars view the legislation optimistically, regarding it as a first step toward liberalization. A second group, led by King, Zolberg, Divine, and Hing, portray the Act as intrinsically conservative and discriminatory, mainly because of its racial components. See: ( Daniels 2004), Davis (1998), Divine (1957), Gerstle (2001), King (2000), Hing (1993), and Zolberg (2006).
King (2005) puts the problem succinctly: “In 1952, Congress enacted legislation over President Truman’s veto, affirming national origins. But as an expression of membership, the national origins system looked embarrassing after a war in which participants sought to end the use of such distinctions in politics. It took twenty years to abandon” (127).
Pooling of quotas would allow the unused slots of larger quota countries, such as Britain, to be used by smaller quota countries, such as Italy. See: Hutchinson (1981).
Second preference, with 30% of all visas went to parents of adult citizens; third preference, with 20% of the visas to spouses and children of resident aliens; any remaining visas were allotted fourth preference, for siblings and adult children of citizens.
Legislators brought these restrictions one step forward in the 1965 Act, when they reversed the system of labor preferences, establishing a system whereby labor migrants could enter the U.S. only with positive certification from the Secretary of Labor (Hutchinson 1981). The 1952 Act also set the stage for the modern system of temporary labor visas, defining a class of nonimmigrants in Section 101(a)(15)(H) as “an alien having a residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning (1) who is of distinguished merit and ability and who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform temporary services of an exceptional nature requiring such merit and ability; or (2) who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform other temporary services or labor, if unemployed persons capable of performing such service or labor cannot be found in this country; or (3) who is coming temporarily to the United States as an industrial trainee.” Public Law 414, 82nd Congress.
See: Bennett (1963). Zolberg (2006) also points out that since unused visas from the top preference categories could not be transferred to the others, labor preferences served to further limit the number of possible immigrants.
Very little has been written about the Hungarian Refugee Crisis. The most comprehensive reviews are Bon Tempo (2008), Markowitz (1973), and Davis (1996). See also: Loescher and Scanlan (1986), Bennett (1963), Konnyu (1967) and Weinstock (1969).
The President had to seek Congressional approval to adjust the status of parolees to permanent residents, but as Congress was not in session at the time of the crisis, it could not stop him from exercising his authority.
Most telling of the move toward the international arena, in 1958 the United States offered 1,500 visas to the victims of natural disaster in the Azores.
The Bracero program has been implemented in 1942 as a way of recruiting needed temporary workers. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s policymakers in Mexico and the United States, as well as employers, fought a protracted battle over numbers, wages, and worker rights. The negotiation of continued Bracero agreements throughout the period hinged on an ever-fluctuating demand for workers, and on relations between the two countries. In the wake of ‘Operation Wetback’ from 1954 to 1955, which rounded up and deported over a million people, the program gained renewed strength, but continued to garner critiques of exploitation and depression of wages and opportunities for citizens.
According to Daniels (2004), Eisenhower viewed immigration mainly as a tool for foreign policy while Kennedy identified himself with immigrants and their interests.
The rest of the world received a limit of 170,000 slots, for a total of 290,000. Congressional Record, 89th Congress, 1st Session, 1965: 24,225 and 21,590 respectively. Congressional Record, 89th Congress, 1st Session, 1965: 24,467 and 21,589 (emphasis added). See: Schwartz (1968).I do not mean here to downplay the ways in which the Hart-Celler Act also facilitated skilled migration. For some countries, particularly those within the Asia-Pacific Triangle, the 1965 reforms can be seen as labor-centric, even while the system as a whole stressed family over skills. After 1965, countries such as India and China, which had been previously allotted miniscule quotas, could now send a far greater number of highly skilled migrants per year than their total annual migration had been previously. I am indebted to Vibha Bhalla for this line of thinking.
The fact that legislators exempted the Western Hemisphere from the preference system (thereby limiting family unification possibilities for these immigrants, and checking the potential for explosive growth,) and subjected them to harsh labor certification, while not doing the same for other non-European groups, further attests to the lack of Congressional concern over Asian immigration.
See, for example: the statement of Dr. Dudley Kirk, who told a Congressional committee that “with or without immigration restrictions there is little prospect of mass migration to the United States from Western Europe in any way comparable to the great migrations before the First World War” (U.S. Congress 1963, p. 27).
Congressional Record, 89th Congress, 1st Session, 1965: 21,594, 21,758, and 24,780, respectively. The Japanese American Citizens League lamented this fact as well, in a letter entered into the Congressional Record. Since the new laws would privilege family unification, and only a small number of Asians resided at the time in the United States, “it would seem that, although the immigration bill eliminates race as a matter of principle, in actual operation immigration will still be controlled by the now discredited national origins system.” Ibid., 24,503.
Demographic growth, according to Reimers ( [1985]1992) did spur legislators into some action, prompting them to curb Western Hemisphere admissions.
The study had been commissioned by Francis Walter, but the committee failed to produce a final report. Still, many of the Congressmen involved would play pivotal roles in the fight for and against Hart-Celler. See: Statement of Mrs. Helen F. Eckerson, Statement of Nathan L. Whetten, Statement of T. Lynn Smith, (U.S. Congress 1963).
U.S. Congress (1963) “Asian Populations: The Critical Decades,” 1962, 14 and 19. See: Congressional Record, 89th Congress, 1st Session, 1965: 21,573. As stated above, legislators like Poff pressed for a Western Hemisphere ceiling but remained unconcerned about Asian immigration. Emanuel Celler echoed this point, stating “there is no danger whatsoever of an influx from the countries of Asia and Africa. If there were, the AFL-CIO would breathe their hot breath down our necks…but they have no objections to the terms under which Asians and Africans can come in” Ibid., 21,758.
Congressional Record, 89th Congress, 1st Session, 1965: 21,573 and 25,661, respectively. Congressional Record, 89th Congress, 1st Session, 1965: 21,585 and 24,554, respectively.On the controversies surrounding temporary labor visas, see, for example: Papademetriou et al. (2009), Hahamovitch (2009), AFL-CIO (2003). See also: Gimpel and Edwards (1999). On recent reform attempts, see: Freeman, Leal, Onyett (this volume).
