The Immigration Act of 1965

Abstract

For more than forty years, the national-origins quota system dominated·United States immigration policy. It was not until Congress overrode President Truman's veto of the Immigration Act of 1952 that concerted effort to eliminate the quota system began, with the work of President Truman's Commission on Immigration and Naturalization. President Kennedy, long an active supporter of this effort, forwarded his legislative recommendations for immigration reform to Congress on July 23, 1963. The heart of President Kennedy's bill lay in its provisions to eliminate the national-quota system. Committee hearings on the bill were delayed until January 13, 1964, and, as no further action was taken, the bill expired with the adjournment of the Eighty-eighth Congress. On January 13, 1965, President Johnson sent his Message to Congress reiterating the recommendations of the Kennedy bill. Hearings began on February 10, 1965. A substantial part of the ensuing Congressional debate centered on a proposed numerical limitation of Western Hemisphere immigration, which was opposed by the Administration and its supporters. The Immigration Law of 1965, as finally passed, provides for a Select Commission on Western Hemisphere Immigration to look into the matter and report to Congress no later than January 15, 1968. If not provided otherwise by Congress by July 1, 1968, a numerical limitation of 120,000 annually will go into effect on Western Hemisphere immigration. The Law, however, does eliminate the national-origins system, which was conceived in a period of bigotry and reaffirmed in the McCarthy era. A nation's willingness to reform past errors of judgment by reforming public policy is a measure of its greatness.—Ed.