- During the 1960s, the outside conceived level of the U.S.
population hit its lowest levels, drifting around just five
percent, as per the U.S. Census Bureau. Still, the decade would lay
the seeds of a lasting change in the nature of U.S.migration.
- Since the 1920s, U.S. immigration policy had focused on a quota
system that strongly preferred northern European residents. In the
mid 1960s, residents of Ireland, Germany, and the United Kingdom
got almost 70 percent of accessible quota visas.
The migration and
Naturalization Act of 1965 changed all
that.
- Sponsored by Representative Emanuel Celler of New York and
Senator Philip Hart of Michigan and signed by President Lyndon B.
Johnson at a function on Liberty Island,
- the Act abolished the quota system for a system that
established immigration preferences by categories.
- The 1965 law reserved
- 6% of visas for refugees,
- 10% for professionals, scientists, and artists,
- 10% for required workers, and
- 74% for relatives of naturalized U.S. citizens.
- This policy preferring family reunification would result in
significant segment changes over the coming decades, as immigration
from Europe declined and the U.S. invited an increasing progression
of migrants from Asia and Latin America.
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