More than five decades after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, many immigrants in the United States still follow the foundations of this immigration law. Also known as the Hart-Cellar Act, the legislation introduced a new age of mass immigration and impacted the lives of millions of new Americans. The fundamentals of this act are family reunification and employment preferences, which are still maintained in any reform efforts. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act replaced the National Origins System that privileged immigrants from northern and Western Europe, implemented in 1924 as the first United States comprehensive set of immigration regulations. (Boundless)
Calls to reconsider the United States immigration policy rose with …show more content…
The American’s isolationist stance could no longer be maintained with a new dynamic of globalization, new obligations, and new concerns around the globe. Both internal and external powers led the United States to make modifications regarding restrictive policies of the National Origins System to emulate their new political position and looming leadership on an international level. However, the United States did not see effective change in policy until three presidencies later in John F. Kennedy. …show more content…
(Le)
Over the next five decades, the policies set in place in 1965 would have a large impact on the demographic composition of the United States’ population. Immigrants entering America under the newly-passed legislation came increasingly from many countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, rather than Europe as it had been before the law passed. A crucial cornerstone of the legislation was family reunification, and with the new immigration policy more and more families were allowed to be entire as they uprooted from other countries and begin their new lives in the United States.
In the immediate five years following the passage of the bill, immigration to the America from Asian countries, chiefly those leaving war-torn nations in southeast Asia such as Vietnam and Cambodia, would more than quadruple. Past immigration policies effectively barred Asian immigrants from entry. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, other conflicts of the Cold War era saw millions fleeing poverty or adversity of communist regimes in Cuba, Eastern Europe, and abroad and seeking future prosperity on American soil. All in all, in the three decades subsequent to the passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, more than 18 million legal immigrants came to America. This number is more than three times the amount admitted over the previous 30 years.
Calls to reconsider the United States immigration policy rose with …show more content…
The American’s isolationist stance could no longer be maintained with a new dynamic of globalization, new obligations, and new concerns around the globe. Both internal and external powers led the United States to make modifications regarding restrictive policies of the National Origins System to emulate their new political position and looming leadership on an international level. However, the United States did not see effective change in policy until three presidencies later in John F. Kennedy. …show more content…
(Le)
Over the next five decades, the policies set in place in 1965 would have a large impact on the demographic composition of the United States’ population. Immigrants entering America under the newly-passed legislation came increasingly from many countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, rather than Europe as it had been before the law passed. A crucial cornerstone of the legislation was family reunification, and with the new immigration policy more and more families were allowed to be entire as they uprooted from other countries and begin their new lives in the United States.
In the immediate five years following the passage of the bill, immigration to the America from Asian countries, chiefly those leaving war-torn nations in southeast Asia such as Vietnam and Cambodia, would more than quadruple. Past immigration policies effectively barred Asian immigrants from entry. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, other conflicts of the Cold War era saw millions fleeing poverty or adversity of communist regimes in Cuba, Eastern Europe, and abroad and seeking future prosperity on American soil. All in all, in the three decades subsequent to the passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, more than 18 million legal immigrants came to America. This number is more than three times the amount admitted over the previous 30 years.