para-3: 1915 changed to 1917Immigration Law. As early as 1798, the Alien and Sedition Acts provided for the deportation of enemy aliens and imposed a fourteen‐year residency requirement for U.S. citizenship. In general, however, early Congressional oversight of immigration was slight. The Steerage Act of 1819 directed ship captains to present lists of arriving passengers, and an 1855 law required that these rosters distinguish permanent immigrants from visitors. State laws relating to immigration were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as infringements of Congress's power to regulate foreign commerce. In 1849, for example, the Court voided New York and Massachusetts laws that taxed arriving passengers to cover the costs of caring for indigent immigrants.

Congress's first direct control of immigration came in 1875, when it barred criminals and prostitutes. The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), a response to native‐born workers' complaints of job competition, suspended for ten years the immigration of Chinese laborers. The exclusion became permanent in 1904. The Immigration Act of 1882 established a system of immigration control under the secretary of the treasury. Congress subsequently barred numerous “undesirables,” including lunatics, beggars, persons with contagious diseases, and advocates of political violence. To identify such persons, officials conducted interviews and medical examinations at New York's Ellis Island and other entry points.

In 1907, as San Francisco prepared to segregate Japanese and other Asian schoolchildren, President Theodore Roosevelt averted an international incident by negotiating the so‐called Gentlemen's Agreement by which Japan reaffirmed a 1900 pledge to bar Japanese laborers from emigrating to America. That same year, amid rising anti‐immigrant sentiment, Congress created a Joint Commission on Immigration, popularly called the Dillingham Commission. Its 1911 report, reflecting contemporary assumptions about innate ethnic differences, found the recent wave of southern and eastern European immigrants generally inferior to the northern and western European immigrants of earlier eras. In 1917, culminating a long campaign, Congress passed over President Woodrow Wilson's veto a literacy requirement for immigrants.

As immigration resumed after World War I, Congress imposed the first numerical limits. The Quota Law of 1921 restricted annual immigration to approximately 350,000 persons. To reduce immigration from southern and eastern Europe, this law limited annual immigration from any one nation to 3 percent of the number of foreign‐born persons from that country living in America in 1910. The Immigration Act of 1924, while imposing even stricter and more discriminatory temporary restrictions, provided that, beginning in 1927, annual immigration by the end of the decade would be permanently limited to approximately 150,000, to be distributed proportionately to the ethnic composition of the U.S. population in 1920. The law also excluded Asians entirely.

Immigration from the Western Hemisphere, left largely unregulated by the 1924 law, was restricted by U.S. officials during the Great Depression of the 1930s under a provision barring persons “likely to become a public charge.” In 1943, however, responding to wartime labor shortages, Congress permitted the recruitment of temporary agricultural workers from Mexico and other Latin American nations. This bracero (farmworker) program continued until 1964.

In the 1930s, U.S. immigration laws were intepreted strictly to exclude all but a handful of Jewish and other victims of Nazi persecution. World War II and its aftermath brought some relaxation of immigration policies, however. In 1943, to counter Japanese propaganda about American racism, the United States granted China an annual quota of 105 visas. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948, extending a policy inaugurated by President Harry S. Truman in 1945, authorized the annual admission of 205,000 persons displaced by the war. In 1950, Congress raised the total to 415,744.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (the McCarren‐Walter Act), passed over Truman's veto, removed the ban on Asian immigration but retained the discriminatory national‐quota system. (This Cold War measure also barred “subversives” and authorized the deportation of immigrants who joined “Communist and Communist‐front” organizations, even if they were U.S. citizens.) Amid mounting criticism, the McCarren‐Walter Act was amended in 1965 to end, after more than forty years, the system that set different immigration quotas for people of different nations. After a further amendment in 1976, annual immigration from the Eastern and Western Hemispheres was set at 170,000 and 120,000 respectively, with a maximum total from any one nation of 20,000.

The issue of admitting refugees loomed large during the Cold War. Soviet dissidents, victims of Russia's suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, anti‐Castro Cubans, and Hmong and others allied with U.S. forces during the Vietnam War were at various times admitted by presidential action. While Congress chafed at this broad presidential power, refugee advocates urged a more inclusive approach to the problem. The Refugee Act of 1980, sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy, set at 50,000 the number of refugees who could be admitted annually and provided for consultation between the president and Congress regarding adjustments to that figure. This law also accepted the United Nations' nonideological definition of a refugee as a person in flight from persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, politics, or social class.

Illegal or undocumented immigration captured congressional attention in the 1980s. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 made it illegal for employers knowingly to hire aliens not authorized for employment in the United States. As a concession to employers of alien workers, the law granted legal residence to certain aliens who had labored in U.S. agriculture during recent growing seasons and, in a onetime amnesty, to undocumented aliens who had arrived before 1982 and had lived in the United States continuously thereafter.

As the 1965 reform measures took effect, critics worried about a rising tide of immigration, and particularly about the proliferation of “family‐reunification” visa requests—a loophole, they charged, that unfairly benefited recent arrivals from Latin America and Asia while disadvantaging European applicants. In response, the Immigration Act of 1990 set an annual limit of 675,000 immigrants but restricted in various ways the family‐reunification provision. This law also increased the number of visas available for skilled workers and set aside 55,000 “diversity” visas for applicants from nations underrepresented in recent immigration. As the twenty‐first century dawned, issues of immigration policy would clearly remain on the national agenda.
See also Anticommunism; Asian Americans; Immigrant Labor; Industrialization; Labor Markets; Migratory Agricultural Workers; Nativist Movement; Progressive Era; Twenties, The.

Bibliography

Robert A. Divine , American Immigration Policy, 1924–1952, 1957.
Edward Prince Hutchinson , Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798–1965, 1981.
Gil Loescher and and John A. Scanlan , Calculated Kindness: Refugees and America's Half‐Open Door, 1945 to the Present, 1986.
John Higham , Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativeism, 1860–1925, 2nd ed., 1988.
Stephen Yale‐Loehr, ed., Understanding the Immigration Act of 1990, 1991.

Thomas J. Archdeacon

IMMIGRATION ACT OF 1965

IMMIGRATION ACT OF 1965. Although technically just a group of amendments to the existing Immigration and Nationality Act, the Immigration Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, in actuality fundamentally reshaped American immigration for the remainder of the twentieth century and beyond. It abolished the national origins system set up in the Immigration Act of 1924 and modified by the Immigration Act of 1952. While seeming to maintain the principle of numerical restriction, it so increased the categories of persons who could enter "without numerical limitation" as to make its putative numerical caps—170,000 annually for the Eastern Hemisphere with a maximum of 20,000 per nation plus 120,000 annually for the Western Hemisphere with no national limitations—virtually meaningless within a few years. Its expansion and modification of the existing preference systems is shown in the Sidebar. Although little noticed at the time and virtually ignored in most general histories of the period, it can be seen as one of three major legislative accomplishments of 1965, the high-water mark of late-twentieth-century liberalism, along with the Voting Rights Act and the establishment of the Medicare and Medicaid system.

The final passage of the 1965 act was somewhat anticlimactic. The struggle to scrap the 1924 national origins formula had been going on in earnest since the end of World War II. Liberal immigration policy goals were established by President Harry S. Truman's Commission on Immigration and Naturalization in its 1953 report, Whom We Shall Welcome. That report was highly critical of the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, which was passed over Truman's veto. The reforms it urged and all attempts at systemic change were frustrated in Congress, although a number of statutes and executive branch actions added groups of immigrants, largely refugees, to the admissible mix.

The personnel changes in Congress accompanying President Lyndon Johnson's sweeping 1964 victory and the gradual diminution of religious, ethnic, and even racial prejudices in the nation at large made immigration reform an idea whose time had come. To be sure, a few restrictionist die-hards, such as Senator Sam Ervin (Democrat from North Carolina), tried to maintain the status quo. Ervin insisted that the McCarran-Walter Act was not discriminatory but was instead "like a mirror reflecting the United States, allowing the admission of immigrants according to a national and uniform mathematical formula recognizing the obvious and natural fact that those immigrants can best be assimilated into our society who have relatives, friends, or others of similar background already here." What Ervin never admitted was that the "mirror" was badly distorted, like those at amusement parks, and reflected not the population of the 1960s but that recorded in the 1920 census. But most in Congress simply acquiesced. The final passage of the bill in the Senate was by voice vote, while in the House it was approved overwhelmingly, 326 to 69.

Many scholars have characterized the 1965 act as a prime example of "unintended consequences," and it is clear that even its most influential advocate, President Johnson, seems not to have understood what its effects would be. In the signing ceremony staged on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, Johnson remarked: "This bill that we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives, or really add importantly to our wealth or our power." The president was not indulging in un-characteristic understatement. He and his advisers saw the 1965 act as redressing injuries done in 1924 and 1952, what he called the wrong done to those "from southern and eastern Europe."

In practice the law has worked quite differently from the ways in which any of its sponsors expected. Looking backward and expecting the future to resemble the past, they ignored the evidence of data available to them. As Table 1 shows, growing numbers of Latin Americans and Asians had been coming to the United States since World War II, and once such persons had permanent resident status, a whole cohort of relatives became eligible to enter the country as second preference immigrants. And as soon as these immigrants became U.S. citizens, as unprecedented numbers of them did in the minimum five-year waiting period, more persons became eligible as first, fourth, and fifth preference immigrants, while others could enter exempt from numerical preference. After the 1965 act went into effect, this kind of chain migration, in which related immigrants follow one another as links in a chain, accounted for a preponderance of all nonrefugee migration.

Table 1

Perhaps the most misleading aspect of the law involves the presumed twenty thousand cap on entries from any one nation. That cap, which never affected Western Hemisphere nations, applies only to those entering from the Eastern Hemisphere who are subject to "numerical limitation." In 1985, for example, forty-eight thousand Filipinos and thirty-five thousand Koreans entered legally, to list only the two largest national groups from the Eastern Hemisphere entering in that year. The twenty thousand cap has been chimerical.

If scholars ignored or downplayed the 1965 law for a long time, by the 1980s, when immigration had become a major issue in American public life, many of the discussions, whether in blame or praise, overstated its influence. For example, a 1989 Rand study reported: "After a lull lasting more than 40 years, immigration to the United States began to increase considerably in the late 1960s after the passage of the 1965 Act." The two great changes that took place in American immigration in the second half of the twentieth century—the steady increase in the number of immigrants and the steady reduction of the once dominant share taken by European immigrants—were clearly in evidence before the enactment of the new law in October 1965, as Table 1 shows.

One can only speculate whether or not, had Congress understood what the results of its actions would be, the 1965 act would have been passed in anything like the form that it finally assumed. Most of the few scholars who have addressed this question have answered it in the negative.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barkan, Elliott R. "Whom Shall We Integrate? A Comparative Analysis of the Immigration and Naturalization Trends of Asians before and after the 1965 Immigration Act (1951–1978)." Journal of American Ethnic History 1, no. 3 (Fall 1983): 29–57. Documents naturalization as a factor in chain migration.

Bean, Frank D., Georges Vernez, and Charles B. Keely. Opening and Closing the Doors: Evaluating Immigration Reform and Control. Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1989. A social science study.

Gillon, Steven M. "That's Not What We Meant to Do": Reform and Its Unintended Consequences in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Norton, 2000. Chapter 4 deals with the 1965 Immigration Act.

Kennedy, Edward M. "The Immigration Act of 1965." Annals 367 (September 1966): 137–149. A contemporary account by a leading advocate of immigration reform.

Reimers, David M. Still the Golden Door: The Third World Comes to America. 2d ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. The best account of post–World War II immigration.

RogerDaniels

See alsoImmigration Restriction .

Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983), argued 22 Feb. 1982, reargued 7 Dec. 1982, decided 23 June 1983 by vote of 7 to 2; Burger for the Court, Powell concurring, White in dissent, Rehnquist in dissent. Born in Kenya of Indian parents and holding a British passport, Jagdish Chadha had come to the United States to study in the mid‐1960s. When his student visa expired, neither Great Britain nor Kenya would let him return so Chadha applied for permanent residency in the United States. After a lengthy hearing process his application to stay was approved by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Then, two years later the U.S. House of Representatives voted to “veto” the INS decision and Chadha faced deportation.

The legislative veto was a simple concept, originally “invented” by Congress in the 1930s as a way to retain some control over power delegated to the president to reorganize executive branch agencies. In the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, the legislative veto became especially attractive as a tool for controlling presidential excesses (see Delegation of Powers).

At the same time it became apparent that the legislative veto might be a means for exercising congressional control over administrative regulations. By the mid‐1970s a tidal flood of regulations to implement all the environmental, consumer, and other social legislation that had passed over the previous decade was pouring out of Washington bureaucracies. Legislative vetoes offered members of Congress a way to respond to the complaints of powerful business and industrial interests subject to these regulations. Public interest groups that had fought long and hard to get legislation passed to accomplish their goals were faced with the prospect of losing regulation by regulation. Alan Morrison, chief litigator for consumer activist Ralph Nader, seized the opportunity to strike out at the legislative veto by taking over Chadha's case.

Department of Justice attorneys in both the Carter and Reagan administrations joined the case on behalf of the immigration service arguing with Morrison against the constitutionality of the legislative veto. Congress was forced to intervene to defend the constitutionality of its legislative veto. Chadha's small case had turned into a battle of Titans: Congress versus the president.

Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote the Court's opinion. The Constitution provides, Burger pointed out, “a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered procedure” (p. 951) for exercise of the legislative power of the federal government. “Explicit and unambiguous provisions of the Constitution prescribe and define the respective functions of the Congress and of the Executive in the legislative process” (p. 945). Any actions taken by either house of Congress if “they contain matter which is properly to be regarded as legislative in character and effect” must conform with the constitutionally designed legislative process that includes bicameral passage and presentment to the president (p. 952). He then went on to spell out what the Court meant. “Legislative in character and effect” includes any action that has the “purpose and effect of altering the legal rights, duties, and relations of persons outside the legislative branch” (p. 952). Legislative vetoes represent efforts by one or both houses of Congress to subvert the “step‐by‐step, deliberate and deliberative process” (p. 959) for legislation set out in the Constitution and are thus unconstitutional.

In one fell swoop the Court in Chadha effectively overturned more congressional enactments than it had previously over its entire history. In Justice Lewis Powell's opinion the case should have been decided on far narrower grounds based on a balancing of the legislative veto's utility against its potential for intrusion into another branch's rightful domain. When Congress finds that a particular person does not satisfy the statutory criteria for permanent residence in this country, it has assumed, Powell argued, a judicial function, in violation of separation of powers. That, according to Powell, was the only issue raised by this case, and the only issue that should have been decided.

In a vehement dissent, Justice Byron White defended the legislative veto as “an important if not indispensable political invention that allows the president and Congress to resolve major constitutional policy differences, assures the accountability of independent regulatory agencies, and preserves Congress'[s] control over lawmaking” (p. 972). White's opinion attacked the rigidity of the majority's application of the constitutional lawmaking process as “irresponsible” in its failure to recognize the reality of the modern administrative state where much “law” is made outside the presentment clause process by unelected bureaucrats (p. 974).

It remains uncertain whether Chadha foreshadows an intention to apply constitutional requirements strictly to police the struggle of power between the branches. Bowsher v. Synar (1986) gives some evidence that the Court might be leaning in this direction, but two other decisions Morrison v. Olson, the 1988 challenge to the special prosecutor law, and *Mistretta v. U.S., the 1989 challenge to the sentencing commission law, suggests instead a Court retreat from a strict reading of separation of powers requirements. In a slightly different context, in Clinton v. New York (1998) the Court struck down the line‐item‐veto act. Notwithstanding Chadha, Congress has continued to enact laws containing legislative‐veto provisions.

Bibliography

Barbara Hinkson Craig , Chadha: The Story of an Epic Constitutional Struggle (1988).
Louis Fisher , Judicial Misjudgments about the Lawmaking Process: The Legislative Veto Case, Public Administration Review, Special Issue (November 1985): 705–711.

Barbara Craig

immigration legislation (Canada) The first Canadian census of 1871 gave the number of White Canadians as 3.7 million, of whom 2.1 million were English-speaking and 1.1 million French-speaking, the rest coming from diverse European nations. As Canada's territory expanded through the creation of new provinces in the west, it tried to attract more immigrants, whose numbers exploded during the Laurier government. There were 16,835 immigrants in 1896, compared to 331,288 in 1911, a number which rose to 400,000 just before World War I. Despite the open encouragement of immigrants, the influx of Chinese was restricted in 1885, owing to fears that they would undercut wages in the labour market. Immigration was restricted during World War I and because of the effects of the Great Depression and World War II during the 1930s and 1940s. A non-discriminatory policy was gradually introduced from 1962, while the 1978 Immigration Act sought further to refine guidelines for immigration. While aiming for 10 per cent of immigrants to be refugees, it encouraged the establishment of foreign businesses and capital in Canada, in order to create demand for immigrant labour. Immigration has been subject both to federal and provincial legislation. In 1968, Quebec established its own immigration policies which sought to encourage the influx of French-speakers, a need felt with particular urgency given its low birth-rate compared to the rest of Canada. Immigration was distributed unevenly in the different provinces, with Ontario and, since the 1970s, Alberta and British Columbia attracting disproportionate numbers of domestic and international immigration. By 2001, Canada accepted around 220,000 immigrants per year, with a total population of around 31 million.

immigration legislation (New Zealand) New Zealand had an estimated population of around 400,000 Maori people, and 1,000 Whites, in 1839. Immigration began in the 1840s as companies and settlers sought to make the country a viable White colony. The discovery of gold in 1861 attracted a large number of immigrants, including some from China. In order to restrict their entry, a poll tax was introduced for them in 1881, which was not repealed until 1944. Between 1945 and 1966, 17 per cent of those who immigrated did so with direct help from the New Zealand government. Until the 1964 Immigration Act, people born in the British Isles and wholly of European descent were admitted freely. Immigration policies focused on the United Kingdom and Australia, so that during the 1960s, over 80 per cent of the population were of British or Irish descent. In 1964, all immigrants were required to have entry permits, which were awarded generally without discrimination. In 1991, the criteria for immigration were changed. A points system giving preference to business and professional immigrants was introduced, as were yearly immigration targets.

immigration legislation (Australia), see White Australia Policy