The Immigration and Naturalization Services Act of 1965 (also known as the Hart-Celler Act or the INS Act of 1965) abolished the national-origin quotas that had been in place in the United States since the Immigration Act of 1924. It was proposed by Representative Emanuel Celler and heavily supported by Senator Ted Kennedy partly in response to the Civil Rights Movement.

An annual limitation of 170,000 visas was established for immigrants from Eastern Hemisphere countries with no more than 20,000 per country. By 1968, the annual limitation from the Western Hemisphere was set at 120,000 immigrants, with visas available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Floor Debates

Supporters of the legislation assured Congress that the law would bring insignificant change. President Lyndon Johnson said at the signing of the Hart-Celler act:

• "This bill we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not restructure the shape of our daily lives."

Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-NY), a sponsor of the bill, said:

• "With the end of discrimination due to place of birth, there will be shifts in countries other than those of northern and western Europe. Immigrants from Asia and Africa will have to compete and qualify in order to get in, quantitatively and qualitatively, which, itself will hold the numbers down. There will not be, comparatively, many Asians or Africans entering this country. .. .Since the people of Africa and Asia have very few relatives here, comparatively few could immigrate from those countries because they have no family ties in the U.S." (Congressional Record, Aug. 25, 1965, p. 21812.)

Attorney General Robert Kennedy told House immigration subcommittee members:

• "I would say for the Asia-Pacific Triangle it [immigration] would be approximately 5,000, Mr. Chairman, after which immigration from that source would virtually disappear; 5,000 immigrants would come the first year, but we do not expect that there would be any great influx after that." (U.S. Congress, House, 1964 hearings, p. 418.)

And in a letter to The New York Times, he called for repeal of the national origins system:

• "The time has come for us to insist that the quota system be replaced by the merit system...It deprives us of able immigrants whose contributions we need...It would increase the amount of authorized immigration by only a fraction." (The New York Times, Aug. 24, 1964, p. 26.)

Senate immigration subcommittee chairman Edward Kennedy (D-MA.) reassured Congress and the nation with the following:

• "First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same ... Secondly, 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, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia ... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think... The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 1-3.)

In 1965, new Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach stated:

• "This bill is not designed to increase or accelerate the numbers of newcomers permitted to come to America. Indeed, this measure provides for an increase of only a small fraction in permissible immigration." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965, p.8.)

Secretary of State Dean Rusk, when asked about the number of people from India who would want to immigrate, responded:

"The present estimate, based upon the best information we can get, is that there might be, say, 8,000 immigrants from India in the next five years ... I don't think we have a particular picture of a world situation where everybody is just straining to move to the United States ... There is not a general move toward the United States." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington D.C., Feb. 10, 1965, p.65.)

[Note: There were actually 27,859 Indian immigrants over the five years following passage of the bill, three times Secretary Rusk's predicted level. From 1965 through 1993, immigration from India totaled 558,980.]

Senator Hiram Fong (R-HI) answered questions concerning the possible change in our cultural pattern by an influx of Asians:

• "Asians represent six-tenths of 1 percent of the population of the United States ... with respect to Japan, we estimate that there will be a total for the first 5 years of some 5,391 ... the people from that part of the world will never reach 1 percent of the population .. .Our cultural pattern will never be changed as far as America is concerned." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965, pp.71, 119.)

[Note: From 1966 to 1970, 19,399 immigrants came from Japan, more than three times Sen. Fong's estimate. Immigration from Asia as a whole has totaled 5,627,576 from 1966 to 1993. Three percent of the American population is currently of Asian birth or heritage.]

Rep. Sidney Yates (D-IL) supported the bill as a reaffirmation of "our devotion to the principle of equal justice for peoples previously subject to discrimination," but did not see it as ushering in a new era of mass immigration:

• "I am aware that this bill is more concerned with the equality of immigrants than with their numbers. It is obvious in any event that the great days of immigration have long since run their course. World population trends have changed, and changing economic and social conditions at home and abroad dictate a changing migratory pattern." (Congressional Record, August 25, 1965, p. 21793.)

Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-RI) asserted:

• "Contrary to the opinions of some of the misinformed, this legislation does not open the floodgates." (Congressional Record, Sept. 20, 1965, p. 24480.)

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Rep. William E. Miller of New York wrote:

• "We estimate that if the President gets his way, and the current immigration laws are repealed, the number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more ... shall we, instead, look at this situation realistically and begin solving our own unemployment problems before we start tackling the world's?" (The New York Times, Sept. 8, 1964, p. 14.)

[Note: Although immigration did increase as dramatically as Rep. Miller predicted, it took longer than he thought. By 1968 — when the law fully took effect — the 1965 level of 290,697 had increased to 454,448, with a 56 percent increase.]

Myra C. Hacker, Vice President of the New Jersey Coalition, testified at a Senate immigration subcommittee hearing:

• "In light of our 5 percent unemployment rate, our worries over the so called population explosion, and our menacingly mounting welfare costs, are we prepared to embrace so great a horde of the world's unfortunates? At the very least, the hidden mathematics of the bill should be made clear to the public so that they may tell their Congressmen how they feel about providing jobs, schools, homes, security against want, citizen education, and a brotherly welcome ... for an indeterminately enormous number of aliens from underprivileged lands."

• "We should remember that people accustomed to such marginal existence in their own land will tend to live fully here, to hoard our bounteous minimum wages and our humanitarian welfare handouts ... lower our wage and living standards, disrupt our cultural patterns ..."

• "Whatever may be our benevolent intent toward many people, [the bill] fails to give due consideration to the economic needs, the cultural traditions, and the public sentiment of the citizens of the United States." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 681-687.)

Passage

In the Democratic controlled Congress, the House of Representatives voted 326 to 69 in favor of the act while the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 76 to 18. President Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation into law.

Legacy

Prior to the act the United States was primarily a nation comprised of Europeans and had a minority of African Americans. Increasing numbers of Asian immigrants began arriving after the INS Act raised the number of immigrants allowed by the Magnuson Act, renewing Asian communities that had nearly died out as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The major source of immigration to the United States since 1965 has shifted from Europe to Latin America and Asia, reversing the trend since the founding of the nation. Hispanics have replaced African Americans as the largest ethnic minority in the U.S. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Europe accounted for 50 percent of U.S. immigration during the decade fiscal years 1955 to 1964, followed by North America at 35 percent, and Asia at eight percent. In fiscal year 1988, Asia was highest at 41 percent, followed by North America at 39 percent, and Europe at 10 percent. In order, the countries exceeding 20,000 immigrants in fiscal year 1988 were Mexico, the Philippines, Haiti, Korea, India, mainland China, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and Jamaica.

See also

• List of United States Immigration Acts

External links

• Asian-Nation: 1965 Immigration Act & Its Effects on 000 Asian Americans
• Ancestors in the Americas: The Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act
• Federation for American Immigration Reform