A Nation of Immigrants

10 “A Nation of Immigrants”
1965–1994

In 1958, Senator John F. Kennedy published a slim volume, A Nation of Immigrants, which set out the case for reforming U.S. immigration policies. He argued that the national origins quotas “violated the spirit expressed in the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are created equal.’” Kennedy did not live to see legislation enacted, but, in the spirit of the civil rights movement, the 1965 Amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act tried to revive the Pennsylvania model of immigration, attempting to put in place a universalistic vision of immigration.

This chapter discusses the new wave of immigration that followed the legislative changes. The 1965 Amendments eliminated the national origins quotas and exclusions that had restricted immigration from certain countries and regions. In their place were overall hemispheric caps on visas. At first, there were different caps for the Eastern (170,000) and Western (120,000) Hemispheres, but in 1978 a global cap of 290,000 was established. To ensure that no one country dominated, a per-country limit of 20,000 visas was instituted. Eligibility criteria broadly mirrored the 1952 law in giving priority to those sponsored by family members and employers. However, the 1965 amendments changed the employment categories and opened the door for a sizable increase in family reunification visas. Originally, only “highly skilled immigrants whose services are urgently needed in the U.S.” could apply for admission. The 1965 law, however, permitted applications from skilled and unskilled workers in occupations with labor shortages. A “nonpreference” category was also established to admit applicants not covered under the other categories. Over time, this last category was eliminated because of growing backlogs in the other preferences.

The greatest growth in immigration was seen in the family categories, as the immigrants admitted for employment and other reasons petitioned for admission of their immediate families and, under numerically limited categories, their adult children and siblings. The 1965 law also paved the way for a shift in permanent immigration from its largely European roots (excepting slaves from Africa and temporary workers from Mexico) to a largely Asian and Latin American composition. By the time that the new law went into effect, few western Europeans felt the need to apply for admission to the United States. In fact, many western European countries had become importers of workers. Moreover, the Iron Curtain succeeded in stemming the flow of potential immigrants from eastern Europe.

The chapter focuses particularly on the recommendations of the U.S. Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy in 1981 and the two major legislative initiatives that followed. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) and the Immigration Act of 1990 expanded immigration, the former via its legalization program and the latter via its reform of the legal immigration system. Although IRCA was also intended as a way to curb the growing illegal immigration that followed the end of the Bracero program, it failed to provide adequate controls. This enabled the earlier two-track system of legal and illegal movements to continue.

The End of National Origins Quotas

Despite growing dissatisfaction with the national origins quotas, the McCarran-Walter Act retained most of the 1924 provisions. The 1952 law set the annual quota for an area at one-sixth of one percent of the number of inhabitants in the continental United States in 1920 whose ancestry or national origin was attributable to that area. All countries were allowed a minimum quota of 100 per year, with a ceiling of 2,000 for natives of countries in the Asia–Pacific triangle. It also set separate quotas on colonies, which had the greatest effect on residents of the British West Indies, who had been entering through the under-utilized British quota. Spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens could still enter outside the quotas. The law removed some of the gender-based constraints of earlier law, allowing husbands as well as wives of U.S. citizens to use this category.

A new category under the quota included highly skilled immigrants with skills urgently needed in the United States. Up to half of the quota was assigned to this group. Also, within the quota, preference was given to parents and adult children of citizens (up to 30 percent plus unused visas from the highly skilled category), spouses and unmarried children of permanent residents (up to 20 percent plus unused visas), and brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens (50 percent of the visas unused by the higher preferences). It also included a nonpreference category, which received the other 50 percent of visas unused by higher preferences plus any not required for siblings. In this way, a guaranteed number of visas was made available for family and skilled workers, while unused visas could go to other immigrants.

After the legislation was passed over President Truman's veto, he established a presidential commission to recommend a way forward. The commission was led by former Solicitor General Philip B. Perlman and included members from the American Friends Service Committee, Catholic Charities, and a Lutheran seminary. In its report, Whom We Shall Welcome, the commission took a decidedly different position on immigration than had previous commissions and committees. Recognizing the contributions the “new” immigrants had made to the country, the commission raised serious questions about the McCarran-Walter Act. They concluded that “the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 injured our people at home, caused much resentment against us abroad, and impairs our position among free nations, great and small, whose friendship and understanding is necessary if we are to meet and overcome the totalitarian menace” (Commission on Immigration and Naturalization 1953).

The commission recommended the abolition of national origins quotas. Instead, a unified quota of 251,000 (about 100,000 more than under existing law) would be allocated on the basis of principles such as the right of asylum, family reunification, and labor needs of the United States. It proposed that foreign policy implications should be taken into account in allocating visas because perceptions about U.S. immigration policies abroad affect the well-being of U.S. citizens. A separate quota for refugees was recommended to allow their admission without “mortgaging” quotas. The decisions on allocation of visas within the unified quota would be made by an independent commission whose members would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The commission also recommended that an independent Board of Immigration Appeals hear deportation cases so that immigration officials would not be “investigator, prosecutor, and, finally, judge,” as one contemporary commentator described (Puttkammer 1953: 244).

Shortly after the commission released its report, Dwight D. Eisenhower became president. Although Eisenhower had also criticized the McCarran-WalterAct, reform was not high on his agenda. The Republican-controlled Congress generally ignored the report but did implement some of the recommendations, particularly a separate quota for refugees, as found in the Refugee Relief Act of 1953.

When John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency, the opponents of the national origins quotas felt they would have strong backing, not least because Kennedy published A Nation of Immigrants while he was in the Senate. His brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, later wrote about the circumstances in which President Kennedy became interested in immigration: “They reflected a deep personal conviction of the President, formed in part through the counsel given him by his grandfather, the late Representative John Francis Fitzgerald of Massachusetts. Grandfather believed that fair and just immigration policies, for the people of all nations, were very important to our country, and often expressed this to his grandchildren” (Kennedy 1966: 138).

Kennedy saw immigration as a key contributor to the country's success but acknowledged the challenges: “Immigration plainly was not always a happy experience. It was hard for the newcomers, and hard as well on the communities to which they came. When poor, ill-educated, and frightened people disembarked in a strange land, they often fell prey to native racketeers, unscrupulous businessmen and cynical politicians.…But the very problems of adjustment and assimilation presented a challenge to the American idea – a challenge which subjected that idea to stern testing and eventually brought out the best qualities in American society” (Kennedy 1964). Kennedy concluded that “Immigration policy should be generous; it should be fair; it should be flexible. With such a policy we can turn to the world, and to our own past, with clean hands and a clear conscience. Such a policy would be but a reaffirmation of old principles” (Kennedy 1964).

Moving from Kennedy's rhetoric to actual reform was more difficult. During the first two years of Kennedy's administration there was no progress on immigration reform. Francis Walter, of McCarran-Walter fame, controlled the House immigration committee and James Eastland from Mississippi controlled the Senate committee. Neither was prepared to move on elimination of the national origins quotas.

After the mid-term elections, in a press conference early in 1963, Kennedy indicated that he would be giving higher priority to immigration reform. Six months later, in a letter to Congress, he proposed elimination of the national origins quotas: “The most urgent and fundamental reform I am recommending relates to the national origins system of selecting immigrants.…the use of a national origins system is without basis in either logic or reason. It neither satisfies a national need nor accomplishes an international purpose. In an age of interdependence among nations, such a system is an anachronism, for it discriminates among applicants for admission into the United States on the basis of accident of birth.”¹ He recommended “that there be substituted for the national origins system a formula governing immigration to the United States which takes into account (1) the skills of the immigrant and their relationship to our needs, (a) the family relationship between immigrants and persons already here, so that the reuniting of families is encouraged, and (3) the priority of registration.” The president could reserve up to 50 percent of unallocated quota numbers for issuance to “persons disadvantaged by the change in the quota system and up to 20 percent to refugees whose sudden dislocation requires special treatment.”

Francis Walter's death in May 1963 provided the opportunity for the reconsideration of immigration in Congress, but the efforts of the new chair, Emanuel Cellar, a long-time advocate of liberalized immigration policy, and of Philip Hart in the Senate, came to no avail. President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963 spelled the end to legislation during the remaining session.

Daniels (2004: 132) argues that the Kennedy approach would not likely have remained intact because it shifted too much authority from Congress to the president. The president would be advised, in using up to 50 percent of unallocated visas, by a seven-member immigration board appointed by the Speaker of the House (two members), president pro tem of the Senate (two members) and the president himself (three members), but the authority for allocating the numbers would rest with the president, not Congress. This process marked a distinct departure from precedent and would have reduced congressional authority over the allocation of immigration quotas.

After Kennedy's assassination, the future of immigration reform was unsettled. President Johnson had voted while in Congress to overturn Truman's veto of the McCarran–Walter Act, thereby supporting the retention of national origins quotas. As president, however, he saw an advantage to supporting legislation that would reverse the discriminatory features of immigration law, particularly as he sought political support from the very ethnic groups that made up the “new” immigration of the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth centuries.

In his 1964 State of the Union message, Johnson outlined an ambitious legislative program that came to be called “the Great Society” and made clear his commitment to advancing civil rights in America: “Let me make one principle of this administration abundantly clear: All of these increased opportunities – in employment, in education, in housing, and in every field – must be open to Americans of every color. As far as the writ of Federal law will run, we must abolish not some, but all racial discrimination. For this is not merely an economic issue, or a social, political, or international issue. It is a moral issue.” Johnson went on to place immigration reform squarely in this category: “We must also lift by legislation the bars of discrimination against those who seek entry into our country, particularly those who have much needed skills and those joining their families.”

Although Senator Eastland, chair of the immigration committee, remained personally opposed to lifting the national origins quotas, he stood aside, allowing the young Senator Edward Kennedy to serve as acting chair of the immigration committee and shepherd legislation introduced by Philip Hart of Michigan through the Senate.² In the House, Emanuel Cellar, still chair of the Judiciary Committee, also introduced legislation, but he clashed with Michael Feighan of Ohio, chair of the Immigration Subcommittee, who threatened to prevent any new legislation from passing through the subcommittee.³ Feighan eventually yielded to pressure from the White House and became a supporter of reform, claiming the eventual bill as a major part of his legislative legacy.

The resulting legislation adhered to the basic principles laid out by presidents Kennedy and Johnson, in eliminating national origins quotas in favor of more universal admissions criteria. As Senator Hart stated in testimony in support of his bill, “We should discriminate – but not with irrational concepts founded on the theories of ethnic superiority. Congress must enact a statute that will be discriminatory in the best meaning of the word – on the grounds of security and economic and scientific benefit; on the principles of family unity and asylum to the homeless and the oppressed” (quoted in Kennedy 1966).

The 1965 immigration bill represented a compromise on a number of other issues in order to gain broad support. Senator Edward Kennedy summarized the main areas of debate in a 1966 review of the legislative process (Kennedy 1966). First, members of Congress were concerned that the pending legislation gave too much authority to the president to allocate visas, a concern expressed earlier with regard to President Kennedy's proposal. Second, there was significant debate over setting a quota on immigration from the Western Hemisphere. The absence of a quota was a matter of concern to conservatives who feared that there would be a significant increase in migration from Mexico, now that the Bracero program had ended. There were also concerns about increased migration from the English-speaking Caribbean if Western Hemisphere migration was not subject to numerical restrictions; the former British colonies had been subject to quotas as colonies, but with independence, their citizens would be free to enter the United States with no restrictions. The administration opposed a quota, however, arguing that it would negatively affect foreign relations with countries in the Western Hemisphere that from the time of the Monroe Doctrine had a special relationship with the United States. Finally, labor unions expressed general support for the legislation but believed there were insufficient provisions to ensure that foreign workers did not compete unfairly with American workers.

In addressing these concerns, the 1965 legislation (Amendments to the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act) placed responsibility for allocating visas squarely in Congress, eliminating any presidential discretion even in the area of refugee admissions. The immigration board that President Kennedy proposed was also eliminated from the final legislation. Instead, Congress established an overall annual quota of 290,000, with the exception of the nonrestricted admission of immediate family (spouses, minor children, and parents) of U.S. citizens.

For the first time, a subquota was established for the Western Hemisphere of 120,000 visas; the Eastern Hemisphere was given 170,000 visas. Based on an amendment offered by Senator Ervin, the new Western Hemisphere quota would go into effect in 1968 unless a presidential commission recommended otherwise and Congress acted to remove it.⁴ The administration dropped its opposition, recognizing that this provision was necessary to passage of the legislation by a wide majority of Congress. Separate hemispheric quotas remained in effect until 1978, when a worldwide quota was adopted.

The Eastern Hemisphere quota was subject to two additional requirements that were initiallly not imposed on the Western Hemisphere. In 1965, per-country limits were placed on Eastern Hemisphere visas, with no one country, regardless of size or demand, able to receive more than 20,000 of the quota visas. Per-country quotas were subsequently imposed on the Western Hemisphere in legislation adopted in 1976.

The 1965 amendments also established seven preferences for admission within the annual Eastern Hemisphere quotas (imposed on the Western Hemisphere in 1976). Four of the preferences were for family reunification and three were for employment purposes: First preference: unmarried adult children of U.S. citizens (20 percent); second preference: spouses and unmarried children of permanent resident aliens (20 percent); third preference: members of the professions and scientists and artists of exceptional ability (10 percent); fourth preference: married children of U.S. citizens (10 percent); fifth preference: brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens (24 percent); and sixth preference: skilled and unskilled workers in occupations for which labor was in short supply (10 percent). Refugees from Communist or Communist-dominated countries received 6 percent of the visas in a seventh preference. There was also a nonpreference category in case all of the visas were not used, a provision used in the early years of the new system until the growth in family reunification caused all available visas to be allocated to the preference categories.

The preference system was heavily tilted towards family reunification, with 74 percent of the visas allocated according to family relationship. Reflecting lingering concerns of labor about competition from immigrant workers, only 20 percent of the visas were allocated on the basis of employment and half of those went to professionals, scientists, and artists of exceptional ability. Also, to address the concerns of labor, the Department of Labor was given responsibility for certifying that an American worker was not available and that the admission of the foreign worker would not have adverse effects on the wages and working conditions of similarly employed American workers.

After almost 45 years of national origins immigration legislation, and only 13 years after McCarran Walter reaffirmed them, Congress passed the 1965 Amendments, eliminating them by a large margin in both houses. What had changed? Certainly, the general atmosphere for considering immigration reform had shifted in the context of the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 marked major steps in addressing long-standing racial discrimination in the United States. Rejection of national origins quotas further reaffirmed that the country valued individual contributions over racial or ethnic criteria. As President Johnson said in signing the bill, the national origins “system violated the basic principle of American democracy – the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man” (Johnson 1965).

Moreover, the mid-1960s was a more optimistic era than either the early 1920s or early 1950s. In Senator Kennedy's words, national origins quotas had been adopted and confirmed in a “radical period of our history – a period when bigotry and prejudice stalked our streets, when fear and suspicion motivated our actions toward the world around us” (Kennedy 1966). The Soviet Union had blinked in the Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam War was not yet a matter of controversy. The country could move toward eliminating what was seen by then as an anachronistic part of our history.

Equally important, by the mid-1960s, the ethnic groups that had been most adversely affected by the national origins quotas had come to amass political power. Now in their second and third generations, the “hyphenated-American” voters of eastern and southern Europe – many of nationalities that had been oppressed by the Nazis – rejected the eugenics arguments that supported the national origins quotas on immigration. Ethnic and religious organizations – such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which urged John Kennedy to write A Nation of Immigrants – played an important role in laying the framework for immigration reform.

Passage was also supported by what was seen as the very limited nature of the reforms that were adopted. With the exception of the elimination of the national origins quotas, the legislation preserved much of what had been in previous immigration laws. The qualitative restrictions on immigration remained much as they had been in McCarran-Walter. The legislation was actually more restrictive than McCarran-Walter had been in imposing a quota on Western Hemispheric migration. The main additional change was a shift away from priority toward highly skilled immigrants (from 50 percent of the quota visas in the 1952 law to 10 percent in 1965) to family-based immigrants (from 50 percent to 74 percent). This would have ramifications that the drafters of the legislation did not anticipate.

At the signing ceremony in 1965, President Johnson made clear that he believed the legislation had more symbolic than real importance. On Liberty Island in New York, with an already decaying Ellis Island in the background, he stated: “This bill that we will 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 either our wealth or our power” (Johnson 1965). As the next sections will demonstrate, Johnson was wrong on all of these counts. He was more prescient in the second part of his pronouncement, that the legislation repaired “a very deep and painful flaw in the fabric of American justice. It corrects a cruel and enduring wrong in the conduct of the American Nation” (Johnson 1965). The 1965 amendments restored the Pennsylvania model by reopening immigration to those who sought to make the United States their permanent home. Although the country fully rejected neither the Virginia model nor the Massachusetts model, as will be discussed in later sections on undocumented migration and refugee admissions, the period after 1965 saw a resurgence in the immigration of legal permanent residents.

The Fourth Wave of Immigrants

Senator Kennedy noted in his 1966 article on immigration reform that some concerns had been raised about whether the legislation would affect the racial

Table 10.1.

Source: INS Statistical Yearbook.

and ethnic composition of immigration to the United States. Kennedy gave scant attention to the issue, focusing instead on the more contentious issues discussed earlier. Because the legislation favored the admission of family members of people who were already in the United States (at that time, largely those of European roots), there was little reason to believe it would significantly affect either the numbers or distribution of immigrants. If anything, the new legislation was designed to place restrictions on movements of people in the Western Hemisphere, which had been growing since the end of European migration. Less clear was the impact on Asia. Emigration pressures might increase, but it seemed unlikely that many Asians would meet the new admission criteria that were so heavily weighted toward family reunification.

The reality was different. Total immigration gradually increased in the aftermath of the 1965 Amendments, growing from almost 2.5 million in the 1950s to 3.2 million in the transitional decade of the 1960s. It increased by another million, to 4.2 million in the 1970s (a little more than a 30 percent increase) and then jumped almost 50 percent to 6.2 million in the 1980s (see Table 10.1). As in earlier waves of immigration, the immigrants tended to settle in a relatively small number of states, making the growth appear even more concentrated. Between 1975 and 1979, more than 68 percent of immigrants stated their intention to live in one of six states: California, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois, and Texas.

During the 1970s, admissions under the permanent resident system began to shift noticeably toward immigrants from the Western Hemisphere and from Asia.⁵ Although the intention of the drafters of the legislation was to reopen immigration to eastern and southern Europeans, events in Europe worked against this. Western European countries experienced rapid economic growth in the 1960s and many opened large-scale guestworker programs that recruited actively in the poorer European countries that might otherwise have resumed emigration to the United States. For many Italians and Yugoslavs, working in Germany or Switzerland proved far more convenient than migrating across the Atlantic. Per capita GDP in Switzerland ($17,953) by 1973 exceeded the United States ($16,607) and Germany's was not far below ($13,152).⁶ At the same time, other turn of the nineteenth- to twentieth-century countries of emigration (for example, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia) had closed their borders to new emigration, effectively keeping their people behind the Iron Curtain. Other than the occasional refugee who managed to escape into Western Europe, by the mid-1960s, there were few eastern Europeans who could benefit from the lifting of the national origins quotas.

One of the characteristics of post-1965 immigration in the United States was its diversity, not its concentration in new sources. Just looking at the proportion of total immigration that the top five source countries represented makes the case.⁷ During the period from 1841 to 1860, five countries (Ireland, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada) provided more than 93 percent of the country's immigrants. In the first decade of the twentieth century, five countries (Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Germany) provided more than 75 percent of the immigrants. By contrast, in the 1970s, the top five countries (Mexico, the Philippines, Cuba, Korea, and Taiwan) provided 40 percent of the immigrants.

The increase in immigration from Asia was particularly steep and steady. In 1964,⁸ the quota for all of Asia was 2,290. By contrast, in 1969, the first full year of implementation of the new amendments, 54,176 Asian immigrants entered under the Eastern Hemisphere quota. More than 100,000 Asians entered under the same quota in 1978, with an even larger number (more than 142,000) entering under the numerically exempt family reunification categories. In 1978, several Asian countries were close to the 20,000 per-country limit – India (17,467), Korea (18,528), and the Philippines (18,746).

Under the new preference-driven system, countries differed in the categories under which immigrants tended to enter the United States. Overall, occupational preferences constituted 20 percent of admissions. In 1969, however, 58 percent of numerically restricted admissions from the Philippines and 52 percent from India were in the occupational categories, most of them under the third preference (immigrants in the professions). These countries had had such low levels of immigration previously that there were few relatives in the United States to sponsor their family members.⁹ The pattern began to shift during the 1970s (see Table 10.2). By 1975, the majority of both Philippine and Indian immigrants entered under the family reunification categories.¹⁰ The shift occurred largely because immigrants who arrived in the employment categories thereafter sponsored their family members for admission, who sponsored their family members in turn.

The imposition of the Western Hemisphere quota did not cause a significant reduction in admissions during the first decade of its operation. Mexican immigration averaged almost 60,000 per year during the 1970s. In 1978 alone, more than 90,000 Mexicans were admitted, 67,143 under numerical restrictions and 25,538 under the exempt immediate relative categories.¹¹ The Mexican number exceeded that of all of Europe (76,156) and was more than four times that of any other single country. By contrast, less than 40,000 Mexicans obtained permanent resident status in 1965, before the new measures went into effect. Jamaica (15,869) and the Dominican Republic (16,418) also had significant levels of immigration under the Western Hemisphere quotas. Cuba's numbers exceeded those of these other Caribbean countries, but the vast majority (26,365 out of 27,539) counted against various refugee classes of admission. Legislation enacted in 1976 and 1978 that brought Western Hemisphere migration into line with the requirements imposed on the Eastern Hemisphere led to a reduction in Mexican immigration, as the per-country limits brought its numerically restricted numbers into line with other countries.

A number of Caribbean countries also benefited from the changes in U.S. immigration law. The McCarran-Walters Act had imposed a quota of 100 visas per colony even in the Western Hemisphere, limiting immigration from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the other British West Indies colonies. The advent of large-scale migration from the West Indies colonies to England is credited, at least in part, to the restrictions on access to the American labor market. In the 1960s, however, the British began to impose restrictions of their own. With independence and the lifting of the colonial quota, immigration to Britain closed down just as immigration to the United States became a possibility.

When the preference system was imposed on the Western Hemisphere, almost 60 percent of those from North America entered under the family categories (1978). Very few (4 percent) entered under the occupational preferences, with only 783 workers and their families coming in under the third preference, for professionals and 2,185 entering under the sixth preference, for

Table 10.2.

* includes individuals who are granted permission to remain in the United States on humanitarian bases.

Source: Immigration and Naturalization Service.

other workers. Even though there was substantial employment of workers from Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America, these workers were employed in sectors, such as agriculture, in which their employers would have been unlikely to go through the new labor certification requirements to demonstrate that there were no American workers willing and able to do the job at the prevailing wage. By contrast, a significant proportion of North American, Caribbean, and Central American immigrants entered in 1978 under the nonpreference category (38 percent). By comparison, only 4 percent of Asians entered under the nonpreference category.

Temporary work and study in the United States were routes to permanent migration in both the occupational and family categories, especially for Asians. In 1965, 2,696 foreign students were admitted ¹² from Taiwan and 2,558 from India, with the number growing to 4,976 and 3,904, respectively in 1978. Although more than 1,200 students came to the United States from the Philippines in 1978, up from 777 in 1965, the Philippines had developed a domestic educational system mirrored on the U.S. curriculum in such areas as nursing and medicine. Already trained in the Philippines, Filipino nurses and physicians entered under the occupational categories until the United States restricted the entry of medical personnel in 1976.

The other major source of permanent, legal admissions continued to be refugees. Although the 1965 amendments included a small quota for refugees, most came into the country under various emergency provisions, usually under the authority of the attorney general. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations tried to introduce a flexible process for setting refugee admissions that would have given the president emergency powers to respond to refugee crises, but this proposal for executive branch authority failed along with the immigration board. In the meantime, refugees entered the country in numbers that exceeded those available in the seventh preference of the immigration quota system. In 1966, the Cuban Adjustment Act was passed, which permitted Cubans paroled into the country to adjust their status to permanent resident alien one year later. In 1975, the attorney general used his parole authority to admit about 130,000 Indochinese refugees who fled the Communist takeover of South Vietnam. Special legislation was passed to adjust the status of these refugees as well. The recurrent use of the parole authority eventually led Congress to reconsider the earlier proposal for a more flexible system of refugee admissions, as is discussed later.

Although the changes in U.S. policies were important, immigration patterns during this period were also affected by economic and political factors in home countries. The three major sources of East Asian immigration –Taiwan, Korea, and, to a lesser extent, the Philippines – were experiencing rapid economic growth, leading to an expansion of resources and opportunities for the middle class. Because of the low level from which their economic growth began, however, it was still difficult for the educated population to reap the same financial rewards at home that emigration offered. Taiwan's GDP experienced an average annual growth rate of 9 percent in real terms between 1952 and 1980. South Korea's growth rate was comparable. Per capita GDP increased in South Korea from $876 in 1950 to $2,840 in 1973 and in Taiwan from $922 to $3,669 during the same period. The Philippines did not experience the same sustained economic growth, beginning at a higher per capita GDP in 1950 ($1,293) and lagging behind South Korea and Taiwan in 1973 ($1,956). Even with the increase in per capita GDP, these Asian countries had far less wealth than the United States, with a per capita GDP of $9,573 in 1950 and $16,607 in 1973.

Liu (1992) explains that expanding access to education was a key goal in the reconstruction of selected Asian countries after World War II and the Korean War. The investment in primary and secondary education led to increasing numbers of students who sought university education in the professions. In Liu's analysis, “as highly educated persons crowded the domestic labor market, both credential inflation and underemployment occurred. Many professionals and technically skilled people were underemployed (1992: 676–77).” Emigration served three purposes, according to Liu (1992). First, it served as a safety valve, reducing protests from discontented professionals. Second, immigration allowed professionals to keep up their skills, which might have been lost had they become unemployed at home. Finally, the immigrants became a reserve source of labor who could help the source countries in their development when they returned with skills acquired in the United States.

These skilled migrants were welcomed in the United States, which was building up its own capabilities in science and engineering. After the Russian launch of Sputnik, the United States feared it was falling behind in scientific achievements. The Kennedy administration's pledge to put a man on the moon within 10 years furthered the commitment to rebuild the country's scientific capacities. Demand for health professionals also grew in the period immediately after the 1965 amendments, especially with the enactment of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Health professionals from India, the Philippines, and other countries provided what was considered needed labor, at least until 1978, when concerns about the qualifications of foreign physicians and nurses, combined with fears of competition, led to a tightening of admissions criteria.

Networks were also at work in stimulating migration from selected Asian countries. The Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan, in particular, had special ties to the United States that created opportunities for immigration. Philippine links to the United States may have been the strongest. Even after the Philippines achieved independence in 1946, it remained closely allied with the United States, providing air and sea bases for the American military. The United States also had a strong military presence in South Korea during this period, following the Korean War. Until the Nixon administration established diplomatic ties with mainland China, the United States recognized Taiwan as the legitimate government of China, also maintaining military bases to protect the island from attack by the mainland forces. Even during the period of national origins quotas, many spouses of members of the U.S. military immigrated as immediate relatives, outside the numerical restrictions.

Economic and political conditions at home and ties to the United States also help explain growing migration from Latin America and the Caribbean. The situations in the three largest sources of labor and family immigration – Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica – highlight similarities and differences in the push-and-pull factors. As we have seen, Mexican migration into the United States had been significant in the period leading up to the 1965 amendments, but most Mexican migration was through the Bracero Program or else undocumented. Although undocumented migration continued after the Bracero program ended, as will be discussed in the next section, Mexico also became a source of permanent immigration, especially through family reunification. Although most Mexicans entered as temporary workers, some had established permanent residence, mostly in the border states and Chicago. With no numerical quotas, the main constraint on larger permanent immigration from Mexico had been the financial requirements imposed on visa applicants. By the 1970s, though, many Mexican-Americans had amassed sufficient resources to sponsor their families.

As was true for the Asian countries discussed earlier, this immigration accelerated during a period of economic growth in Mexico. The 1960s are sometimes described as the Mexican Miracle, when the economy grew at a rapid rate. Gutierrez (2004), however, writes that economic growth did not keep pace with population growth, leading to high levels of underemployment. This resulted in “an increasingly unstable and economically polarized situation in Mexico in which the already wide gap between the rich and the poor steadily increased” (Guttierez 2004: 63). The networks that would allow migration to take place were already well established, permitting thousands of Mexicans to migrate legally to join family members in the United States, where the demand for low-wage workers continued. The Mexican economy faltered in the 1970s and fell into crisis in the early 1980s, so northward migration became attractive to an increasing number of Mexicans.

After the Communist takeover of Cuba, U.S. foreign policy focused on ensuring that its Caribbean neighbors did not follow suit. The Dominican Republic was of particular concern since it too was run by an authoritarian regime. Following the 1961 assassination of Trujillo, the strongman who had ruled the country since the 1930s, a pent-up demand for visas to the United States supported what the American ambassador saw as the potential for riots (Mitchell 2004: 96). Trujillo had restricted emigration, fearing that a diaspora would organize opposition to his rule (Guttierez 2004: 234). Long lines of Dominicans seeking visas formed around the U.S. embassy. Some had the intent to travel and return and others were hoping to escape political and economic instability. The embassy responded by approving a backlog of applications that had been pending, seeing access to the U.S. labor market as a safety valve. In the aftermath of the U.S. military intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965, the process accelerated. Although immigration was not a prominent part of the agenda of either the United States or the new administration in the Dominican Republic, “northward migration provided both real and symbolic assistance to President Balaguer's regime and to its successors, while gradually creating strong ties linking the Dominican Republic to the society and economy of the United States” (Mitchell 2004: 104). In a familiar pattern, the Dominican Republic experienced rapid economic growth in the late 1960s but failed to produce sufficient jobs for its growing population.

In the case of Jamaica, emigration pressures remained relatively constant during the period from 1950 to 1980, but the destination of most migrants shifted considerably during this period (Cooper 1985). In the early period, the large majority of Jamaican immigrants went to the United Kingdom, benefiting from their colonial ties to the motherland. With independence and new restrictions imposed by the British on immigration from former colonies, Jamaican emigration declined significantly from 1963 through 1965 but it resumed in 1966, with a majority now heading to the United States. The early 1960s saw an expansion of Jamaica's economy, when it became the largest exporter of bauxite and alumina (Encyclopedia of the Developing World, p. 889) and built a robust tourism industry. However, the 1970s saw economic decline, with the collapse of the sugar industry, Jamaica's other major export. Violence and environmental problems during the same decade also reduced Jamaica's tourism industry. As unemployment grew, Jamaican migration increased. Middle-class professionals especially sought opportunities abroad when they were unavailable at home, leading to significant concerns about a Jamaican “brain drain.”

In examining the shifting origins of the post-1965 immigration, it becomes apparent that neither of the “new” immigration streams was truly new. Rather, Asia and North America had been largely seen as the source of temporary workers – Asians (from China, Japan, and the Philippines, in particular) in the mid-nineteenth century and North Americans (Mexicans in particular, but also some 100,000 British West Indians admitted between 1956 and 1965) in the mid-twentieth century. The 1965 amendments differed in that they provided the opportunity for would-be immigrants from Asia and the Americas to settle permanently in the United States.

This transformation was achieved primarily by the priority given to family reunification in both the nonquota system and the preference system. What was seen as potentially restrictive in the drafting of the legislation, in that it favored the ethnic groups already in the United States, turned out to be expansive in practice. Asians, having been excluded for decades, resumed immigration largely through the occupational categories, but, having settled, many of the immigrants brought their families to join them. Many would-be Western Hemisphere immigrants had more recent relatives in the United States but others, who had no family members to join, used the nonpreference categories.

Table 10.3. Apprehensions of Migrants: 1961–1979

* TQ is third quarter (July–September). The fiscal year shifted from July–June to October–September.

Source: Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The expansiveness of the family categories allowed a single immigrant to sponsor his or her spouse and children, and, upon naturalization, parents, siblings, and members of their immediate families. The siblings’ spouses could in turn sponsor their own parents, children, and siblings who could in turn bring their families, setting off a chain migration that soon increased the numbers of applicants from a core of Asian countries that included China and Taiwan, India, Korea, and the Philippines. Others came initially as refugees (e.g., from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) and then sponsored their families for admission through the refugee resettlement program and, later, the family admissions categories.

Undocumented Migration and Temporary Workers

After the Bracero program came to an end, undocumented migration from Mexico accelerated. Although the numbers apprehended are an imperfect measure of unauthorized migration, since they are affected not only by the number of persons attempting illegal entry but also the human and financial resources directed to catching them, the steady growth in the numbers apprehended in the 1960s and 1970s point to increased pressures at the border. Apprehensions were less than 90,000 per year on average during the last years of the Bracero Program; they were more than 200,000 by 1968 and more than half a million by 1972. In the second half of the 1970s, apprehensions were averaging more than 1 million per year. See Table 10.3.

As was discussed in Chapter 9, the Bracero program itself did not stop unauthorized immigration, but in combination with tighter enforcement and incentives for employers to hire legal temporary workers, it had reduced what had been a growing phenomenon in the 1950s. Ngai (2004) attributes the regrowth of unauthorized migration not only to the end of the Bracero program but also to the imposition of Western Hemisphere and per-country quotas. She argues that the 1965 amendments were restrictive with regard to Mexican migration as well as to migration from other countries in the Americas. However, Mexico represented the largest country of legal permanent admissions at the same time that it dominated the unauthorized migration flow. As in the 1950s, both legal and illegal migration occurred in tandem.

Demand for low-wage labor remained in the post-bracero period, but many employers of Mexican and other foreign workers were unwilling to participate in the temporary worker programs that succeeded the Bracero program. In part, the reluctance was related to the labor standards included in the new programs. A series of bills enacted during this period evidenced a shift in attitudes and policies regarding workers’ rights. In 1961 and again in 1966, minimum-wage provisions were extended to new industries, including many that had hired braceros, such as agriculture, nursing homes, laundries, and the construction industry. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 protected men and women who perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination. Individuals who are 40 years of age or older are protected against employment discrimination in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. In 1970, legislation was passed to enforce occupational health and safety provisions. Although foreign workers were not specifically targeted in these laws, they provided a framework for acceptable practices with regard to all workers.

Given the climate that supported passage of these laws, employers in the mid-1960s and 1970s were unlikely to win the kinds of concessions that were critical parts of the Bracero program in the 1950s. In fact, the 1965 amendments tightened labor standards for both the permanent and temporary admissions programs. The McCarran-Walter legislation had authorized admission of temporary workers under Section 101(H): “an alien having a residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning (i) who is of distinguished merit and ability and who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform temporary services of an exceptional nature requiring such merit and ability; or (ii) who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform other temporary services or labor, if unemployed persons capable of performing such service or labor cannot be found in this country; or (iii) who is coming temporarily to the United States as an industrial trainee.” The 1965 Amendments required that admissions under the H (ii) (better known as H-2) program, as in the permanent occupational preferences, be permitted only upon “certification from the Secretary of Labor…that qualified persons in the United States are not available and that the employment of the beneficiary [of the visa] will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed.” The resulting regulations required employers to file an application with the state employment service that included a job offer for U.S. workers and certified that the employer met wage, working conditions, housing, transportation, and other provisions of the program. Wages were determined by an “adverse effect rate” published annually by the U.S. Department of Labor. The state employment service would notify the federal Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration, which made the final decision on the application. The attorney general, delegating his authority to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, would make the determination as to whether the worker was admissible. If the application was approved, a visa could be issued (Congressional Research Service 1980).

During the late 1960s, about 50,000 persons were admitted each year under the H-2 program. The largest group (with the exception of Canadians working in the logging industry along the United States–Canada border) was from the West Indies. The workers were spread across several occupations. In 1969, 13,800 were farm workers, 10,564 were laborers, 8,255 were craftsmen, and 7,514 were professionals (mostly artists, athletes, and musicians). Smaller numbers came as service workers, private household workers, and operatives. By the late 1970s, the number of H-2 workers had been cut in half. The largest group remained from the West Indies. In 1978, H-2 workers were employed as professionals (8,400), farm workers (8,300), laborers (1,580), and craftsmen (2,845).

Most of the farm workers who entered under the H-2 program were employed on the east coast of the United States. They were employed disproportionately in the apple harvest and in sugarcane cutting. A Vermont apple grower explained the dependence on the H-2 program: “southern domestic migrants and local groups have been tried, but we have never been able to successfully pick a crop without the use of H-2 workers for a substantial period of time” (Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy 1981c: 268). Sugar cane workers had been coming into the country on temporary visas since 1943 when a program began with the Bahamas and was extended to the other British West Indies.

Western growers never utilized the H-2 program to any sizable degree, even after the end of the Bracero program. A Congressional Research Service report in 1980 concluded: “The limited number of Mexican H-2's has been the result of administrative determinations by the U.S. Labor Department, either that domestic workers have been available in the areas and occupations for which Mexican workers have been requested, or that employers have failed to meet the requirements of the regulations governing the importation of H-2's” (Congressional Research Service 1980: 62).

Initially, in the absence of a secure temporary foreign workforce, Western growers agreed to concessions demanded by the United Farm Workers union, ushering in what agricultural economist Philip Martin (2001) terms “the golden age for farm workers.” The expectation was that farm workers, without competition from braceros, would be able to negotiate on the basis of other seasonal occupations, such as construction work, and provide hiring halls that would ensure that workers received just compensation. According to Martin (2001), “Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers seemed to prove this theory of inevitable and desired labor market evolution true when in 1966 the union won a 40 percent wage increase for grape pickers, raising their wages from at least $1.25 to $1.75 an hour.” A combination of factors undermined this progress, however. The United Farm Workers, after having successfully led a national boycott against table grapes, were unable to sustain contracts they won with the grape producers. Internal disputes undermined the united leadership that the union had provided and growers invited the Teamsters Union to represent their workers, leading to conflicts between the two unions. A change in leadership in California state politics in the early 1980s brought in Republican governors who were less sympathetic than their Democratic predecessors to the plight of farm workers.

Perhaps most important, however, was the resurgence of undocumented migration in providing a supply of workers who were willing to pick crops and do other 3D (dirty, dangerous, and demeaning) jobs at the wages and under the working conditions offered. With this ready supply of labor, often drawn from the same communities and sometimes including the same people who had been braceros, there was little need to hire domestic workers or to use the H-2 program. The president of the Association of General Contractors testified at a federal hearing in San Antonio in 1979 about undocumented migrants: “Employers would dislike being deprived of willing [illegal] workers who generally exhibit a very high attitude” (SCIRP 1981c: 269). A California farm manager claimed that domestic workers do not want the jobs that undocumented workers hold while “undocumented workers need the jobs and do not feel exploited” (SCIRP 1981c: 269).

In 1980, the Census Bureau estimated there were between 3.5 and 5 million, and no more than 6 million, undocumented immigrants in the United States (Siegel et al. 1980) based on a review of more than a dozen relevant studies of the issue. About half of the undocumented population was estimated to be from Mexico. On the basis of apprehensions and survey data, it appeared that the majority came from the Mexican states that had contributed most heavily to the bracero Program – Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacan, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas in central Mexico (SCIRP 1981b). The remaining undocumented migrants mainly came from other parts of Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia, especially the Philippines (SCIRP 1981b). The undocumented were believed to settle in the same locations as those residing legally. Mexicans tended to go to the southwestern United States and non-Mexicans to urban areas throughout the country. By the late 1970s, evidence also supported the growing movement of Mexicans out of agricultural work and into urban areas (SCIRP 1981b). The demographic profile of the average undocumented migrant was male and young, between the ages of 15 and 45. North and Houston (1976) argued, however, that these profiles were often based on apprehensions data and that a higher proportion of the undocumented migrants was female than was estimated by border apprehensions. An INS study of visa abuse indicated that women were more likely to enter and then overstay their visas. Undocumented immigrants came, overwhelmingly, for employment. Studies of apprehensions and surveys conducted in Los Angeles and New York determined that unemployment and, particularly, underemployment in source countries accounted for the majority of the undocumented population. Wages in the United States were low relative to U.S. standards but high relative to home country opportunities.¹³

Labor and Hispanic groups opposed any return to the Bracero program or expansion of the H-2 program to address unauthorized migration. In the words of a representative of the United Farm Workers, “H-2 undermines equal opportunity for domestic workers and violates civil rights to organize a strong labor movement (SCIRP 1981c: 270).” In 1978, the Hispanic Ad Hoc Committee on Immigration stated unequivocally its opposition “to any and all proposals that would, in effect if not name, reestablish the Bracero program” (SCIRP 1981c:270). David North and Marion Houston's 1976 report to the Department of Labor summarized the problem: “Thus, like the de facto admission of illegals, not only would the de jure admission of significant numbers of nonimmigrants provide cheap labor at the cost of depressing the labor standards in the secondary market and displacing the nation's most disadvantaged workers, their role in the nation would similarly contravene its democratic values, despite the fact that in this instance it represented a policy enacted in law. At bottom, a decision to use aliens – nonimmigrants or illegals – as a supply of cheap, low-skill labor is an attempt to acquire that labor and to adjure its economic and its social costs. That is, of course, a form of exploitation, the de jure or de facto institutionalization of inequities” (quoted in CRS 1980: 115).

These groups were less sure what should be done about undocumented migration and eventually split over the issue. Labor unions generally supported the imposition of sanctions against employers who hired unauthorized workers, a position long held by labor and endorsed by the United Farm Workers as late as 1980. Hispanic groups were divided in opinion. Although the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement supported employer sanctions, most of the Latino organizations opposed them because of potential discrimination against Hispanics. The lynchpin of effective sanctions would be a requirement that employers verify employment authorization, probably by looking at an identity document. The president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund summarized the concern: “[W]e know that employers will not question everyone. Only those who look ‘foreign’ will be asked to present an ID card” (SCIRP 1981c: 254).¹⁴

There was greater agreement between labor and Hispanic groups on the need for some type of legalization that would enable undocumented workers to press for their rights. On this front, they were joined by civil rights groups and representatives of religious organizations. Opposition to any “amnesty” came from a nascent immigration restrictionist movement, led by the new Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), under the leadership of Roger Conner, an avowed environmentalist who opposed population growth in the United States. Joining the opposition to amnesty were such groups as the American Legion, which argued that it would induce a surge in illegal immigration and would provide legal status to an excessive number of people (see SCIRP 1981c and Tichenor 2002). Business reiterated that its sole interest was in ensuring access to workers and that any program of employer sanctions would have to be reasonable in its administrative requirements and hold harmless employers who inadvertently hired unauthorized workers (SCIRP 1981c). Business representatives also emphasized that a tightening of undocumented migration would necessitate the introduction of a new temporary worker program to fill likely shortages arising from the enhanced enforcement.

The Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy

Congress met the same impasse in determining what should be done about illegal immigration into the country. President Carter pushed the issue by advancing a plan in 1977 that included employer sanctions, the use of the Social Security card as identification for determining employment eligibility, and an amnesty for undocumented migrants who had entered prior to 1970. Reflecting the views of Secretary of Labor Raymond Marshall, who steadfastly opposed any large-scale guestworker program, the proposal notably included no expansion of the H-2 program.

Congressional Democrats were in a quandary. With some of their major constituencies (labor, Hispanic groups, environmentalists) in disagreement over immigration reform, they found a time-honored way to delay action while setting the stage for change – the establishment of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy (SCIRP). Even more high-powered than the Dillingham Commission had been, SCIRP was composed of four Cabinet officers, four Senators, four members of the House of Representatives, and four members of the public. The commission was first chaired by Reuben Askew, former governor of Florida, and then the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame University, after Askew resigned to be the U.S. Trade Representative. As head of the Civil Rights Commission for its first fifteen years, Hesburgh was committed to a nondiscriminatory immigration policy, and as a university president, he made clear that he wanted the best research to guide the commission's deliberations. Askew set the tone for the commission by ruling that only members – not delegated representatives – could vote on commission recommendations. This provision, endorsed by Hesburgh, ensured the active participation of the Cabinet officers and members of Congress.¹⁵

The Commission staff director was Lawrence Fuchs, Professor of American Studies at Brandeis University. Fuchs brought together a staff drawn from government agencies, academia, and interest groups whose knowledge of the administrative intricacies of immigration, as well as the politics of the issue and the experiences and impacts of immigrants, enabled the development of a concrete set of options for the commission's consideration.¹⁶ Fuchs himself came to his expertise on immigration through his study of ethnic group politics. He had written books on The Political Behavior of American Jews (1955) and American Ethnic Politics (1968). In his early years at Brandeis, he had team-taught courses with Eleanor Roosevelt and had become an advisor to John Kennedy when he was still in the Senate. Fuchs’ understanding of politics was summarized in the first sentence of an article he wrote in 1956: “The understanding of American politics rests upon two facts of American life: ideological unity and group pluralism” (Fuchs 1956: 270). Continuing this theme, he wrote that the “historic American policy of welcoming immigrants has shaped the pluralistic character of American politics” and advocated a liberalization of immigration as a way to “sustain the contribution which ethno-religious group interests have made in shaping the American party system” (Fuchs 1956: 270). He pointed to the historical consistency with which immigration groups adopted the ideological unity of the country (that is, respect for constitutional principles) in arguing that there was no reason to fear increased immigration.

SCIRP differed significantly from its predecessor, the Dillingham Commission, in the ethnic composition of its members. Whereas all of the Dillingham Commission's members were descendents of longer-term British immigrants, SCIRP's members were of more diverse ethnic makeup, including children and grandchildren of Italian, Irish, German, Japanese, and Mexican immigrants. The public members included Rose Matsui Ochi, whose parents had been interned in Japanese camps during World War II, and Judge Cruz Reynosa, whose father had been deported in one of the mass expulsions of Mexicans in the 1930s.

As Tichenor (1992: 250) points out, “the SCIRP report…helped frame policymakers’ basic assumptions about the effects of international migration on the United States.…” Chairman Hesburgh described the basic tenets of the commission's recommendations: “The emphasis in our recommendations, which are themselves complex, can be summed up quite simply: we recommend closing the back door to undocumented/illegal migration, opening the front door a little more to accommodate legal migration in the interests of this country, defining our immigration goals clearly and providing a structure and mechanism to implement them…” (SCIRP 1981a).

In reconciling the diverging views of its own members and the public interest groups who testified, the commission voted 14–2 in favor of employer sanctions but split on the type of identification to be required – a new identification card or a combination of existing forms of identification.¹⁷ Some commissioners opposed any identification requirement as a potential infringement on civil rights and civil liberties, fearing that employers would discriminate against foreign-appearing or foreign-sounding persons who had the right to work in the United States. The majority agreed that some form of identification was necessary but were reluctant to recommend a specific document. Commission member and Secretary of Health and Human Services Patricia Roberts Harris, who headed the federal agency that included the Social Security Administration, was strongly against using the Social Security card as a national identifier: “Anything that makes it desirable to counterfeit or duplicate the social security number will make it very difficult to maintain the integrity of our records for people whose benefits depend on payments made in their behalf” (SCIRP 1981c). The staff recommended the development of a single-purpose work eligibility card that would be used in the hiring process but failed to convince a majority of the commissioners that this would be a good approach (SCIRP 1981b).

SCIRP rejected a large-scale guestworker program but recommended that the H-2 program be streamlined to address some of the objections of business and labor. In particular, SCIRP voted 14–2 in favor of improving the timeliness of decisions regarding the admission of H-2 workers. The commission recommended streamlining the application process; removing the economic disincentives to hire U.S. workers by requiring that employers pay Social Security and other taxes and unemployment insurance for H-2 workers; maintaining the labor certification process in the Department of Labor; and providing incentives for government, employers, and labor to cooperate to end the dependence of any industry on a constant supply of H-2 workers. The commissioners made clear that their recommendations did not preclude a “slight expansion” of the program, but they were clearly opposed to a major expansion in numbers.

The commission was unanimous in recommending legalization of those who were in the country illegally. Avoiding the term “amnesty,” SCIRP Chair Hesburgh argued that legalization would have many benefits for the country, not the least of which was because it would help bring immigration under control (SCIRP 1981c). In combination with the enforcement measures recommended by the commission, legalization would enable the government to redirect its attention to curbing future illegal migration.

The second component of SCIRP's recommendations was to “open the front door,” but in Father Hesburgh's terms, using a cautious approach: “This is not the time for a large-scale expansion in legal immigration…because the first order of priority is to bring illegal immigration under control while setting up a rational system for legal immigration” (SCIRP 1981c). The commission recommended a modest expansion in numbers, to 350,000 numerically limited visas plus 100,000 per year to clear the more than 1.1 million backlogged applications (SCIRP 1981b: 377). The commissioners rejected (by a 9–6 vote, with one commissioner not voting) the idea of establishing an immigration advisory committee to assess domestic and international conditions and recommend changes in the visa levels. They recommended instead that the House and Senate subcommittees, with input from the executive branch, provide an annual report on conditions affecting immigration.

The commission recommended a three-pronged approach to legal admissions, one not too dissimilar to the provisions of the 1965 Amendments. Priority would be given to family reunification, to what the commission called “independent” admissions, and to refugees. Within the family reunification category, the relatives not subject to numerical restrictions would be expanded to include adult unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens (a heavily backlogged preference, approved 14–2) and grandparents of adult U.S. citizens (a group not covered by the 1965 law, approved 13–3).

It was proposed that the largest number of numerically restricted preference visas be reserved for spouses and unmarried children of legal permanent residents, with no per-country limits applied to this category (9 votes in favor plus 4 votes for shifting them into the numerically exempt category). Married adult children would also be admitted under the preference system. Most divided was the vote on siblings of U.S. citizens (9 votes to maintain it, 7 votes to include only unmarried siblings) but the commission unanimously rejected the proposal to eliminate this category.

The independent category would substitute for the occupational categories in the 1965 Amendments, which were also badly backlogged by the time of the SCIRP review. Small, numerically limited preferences would be established for those with exceptional qualifications and for investors. The remainder of the category would be determined by labor market requirements, but the commission split on whether to use a streamlined labor certification procedure with a job offer (7 votes) or a new process in which applicants would be admitted unless the Secretary of Labor ruled that their admission would be harmful to the U.S. labor market (7 votes). Two commissioners voted for a point system, similar to the mechanism used in Canada and Australia, which would consider a broader set of criteria. Refugees would be admitted under the terms of the new Refugee Act (discussed later).

The commission thus affirmed the Pennsylvania model, stating clearly that legal immigration was in the national interest of the United States while firmly rejecting illegal immigration as an acceptable response to the demand for low wage labor.¹⁸ The commission's research (twenty-two reports undertaken by outside experts, research commissioned from executive branch agencies, and in-house research) supported its conclusions on the benefits of immigration to the country. Of particular concern was the labor force adaptation of immigrants. Research by the economist Barry Chiswick, quoted in the commission's staff report (SCIRP 1981b),¹⁹ found a U-shaped pattern of occupational mobility and earnings, with immigrants initially experiencing downward mobility but catching up and often surpassing native-born workers over time. Julian Simon, in research commissioned for SCIRP, found that it took only two to six years for immigrant families to catch up to and then surpass the earnings of the native-born. David North found that immigrants entering in the occupational categories generally did better economically than those entering as family members or refugees (SCIRP 1981b). Economic success was clearly related to education and English-language ability, as demonstrated in research presented by Tienda and Niedert (SCIRP 1981b). Research on the children of immigrants showed that after an initial period of educational disadvantage, children of immigrants tend to accumulate more years of schooling than did native-born Americans (Schultz referenced in SCIRP 1981b). Equally important, immigrant children soon adopted the civic culture of their new country. Fuchs spoke of no incident during the commission's field hearings and site visits that affected him more than his encounter with a Vietnamese-American child who had been in the country for only six months, but identified George Washington as “the father of our country.”²⁰

Some of the commission research addressed the concerns of environmentalists and groups interested in population stabilization as to the likely fertility patterns of immigrants. Recognizing that immigrants generally came from countries with higher fertility, demographer Frank Bean and his colleagues found that Mexican women initially had more children than native-born American women but that their fertility lowered with time in the country, to levels well below that of Mexicans remaining at home. Therefore, although immigration might increase the U.S. population, it would reduce worldwide population growth (SCIRP 1981b).

The commission's staff report concluded that “the extent of…adaptation seems to [be] more closely related to a combination of rising socioeconomic status, usually measured by education, and length of exposure to U.S. society than it is to the immigrant's country of origin” (SCIRP 1981b: 328). The 1965 Amendments might have changed the geographic origins of immigration, but they did not necessarily change the capacity of immigrants to adapt to life in the United States. Regarding broader impacts, the commission's final report concluded: “Immigrants, refugees and their children work hard and contribute to the economic well-being of our society; strengthen our social security system and manpower capability; strengthen our ties with other nations; increase our language and cultural resources and powerfully demonstrate to the world that the United States is an open and free society” (SCIRP 1981a: 6).

In contrast, the commission concluded that illegal immigration had pernicious effects on the country. It rejected the Virginia model's argument that illegal immigration should be tolerated, even encouraged, because undocumented workers did jobs that Americans were unwilling to do, although the commission did recognize that the immigrants themselves were often “hard working, highly creative people who, even if they remain in this country, aid rather than harm US society” (SCIRP 1981a). In detailing the problem with illegal immigration, SCIRP noted that “[s]ome U.S. citizens and resident aliens who can least afford it are hurt by competition for jobs and housing and a reduction of wages and standards at the workplace. The existence of a fugitive underground class is unhealthy for society as a whole and may contribute to ethnic tensions. In addition, widespread illegality erodes confidence in the law generally, and immigration law specifically, while being unfair to those who seek to immigrate legally” (SCIRP 1981a: 40).

Toward New Legislation

SCIRP made its recommendations in January 1981 before the change in administration resulting from Ronald Reagan's election to the presidency. When it issued its final report in March 1981, four new Cabinet members had assumed their responsibilities as commissioners without having been actively involved in the commission's deliberations. After receiving the report, the new administration formed an inter-agency taskforce to review the recommendations and develop a considered response.

Other political changes occurred as well. Representative Romano Mazzoli, who had not been on the commission, was the new Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee in the House, taking over from Elizabeth Holtzman, who had lost her bid for a Senate seat. Mazzoli was a graduate of Notre Dame and clearly held Father Hesburgh, the president of his alma mater, in high regard. Although he was not an official member of SCIRP, he sat in on its deliberations, knowing that he would be assuming the chairmanship.

Senator Alan Simpson, who had served on SCIRP, was the new Republican chair of the Senate immigration subcommittee. Simpson's experience on SCIRP had influenced his decision to assume the chairmanship from Senator Edward Kennedy, who remained on the subcommittee as ranking minority member. Rounding out the team that would move the SCIRP recommendations toward enactment, Senators Dennis DeConcini and Charles (Mac) Mathias remained on the Senate immigration subcommittee, as did Representatives Peter Rodino, Robert McClory, and Hamilton Fish in the House.

Omnibus legislation to reform the immigration system was introduced by Simpson and Mazzoli in 1982.²¹ The provisions related to illegal migration were faithful to the commission's view but the ones related to legal admissions departed considerably from SCIRP's recommendations. Simpson had been in the minority in the vote on elimination of the siblings category but included provisions toward that end in the bill. He and Mazzoli also agreed on a cap on all family admissions, including immediate relatives who had been numerically exempt. Their numbers would have been subtracted from an annual quota, leading to reductions in other family admissions if the immediate relative numbers increased.

The only serious debate in the Senate revolved around legalization of those who were residing illegally in the country. Simpson blocked amendments to remove legalization and to add a large-scale guestworker program. The major dissenter to other provisions was Senator Kennedy, who had grown concerned about employer sanctions and the potential for discriminatory actions against foreign-sounding and foreign-appearing workers. He regretfully joined the minority in both the subcommittee vote and the final Senate vote of 81–19 (Fuchs 1983).

The House debate saw far greater opposition to the bill. An unlikely coalition of business groups, Hispanic and other ethnic organizations, and civil liberties groups came together under the umbrella of the National Immigration Forum to work toward stopping employer sanctions and the changes in the legal admissions system. The White House did little to support the legislation, wary of the impact employer sanctions might have on business interests. The administration introduced its own plan, which had a weakened form of employer sanctions and a large-scale temporary worker program. With other legislative priorities awaiting action, immigration reform died in the House.

The legislation was reintroduced in the next Congress. Again, it passed the Senate with relatively little debate. And, again, passage through the House was more problematic. By now, though, the coalition in opposition to the bill was coming apart as the various different interests pursued their own objectives. Agricultural growers proved willing to compromise if some of their priorities were addressed in the legislation. The Senate passed an amendment requiring that warrants be issued before raids could take place in open fields. Representatives from western states proposed a new seasonal agricultural workers program. Committees other than the immigration subcommittee added provisions designed to make the legislation more palatable to civil rights and ethnic and religious groups, including new antidiscrimination protections and services for legalized migrants. Negotiations continued into 1984, when the House narrowly approved the measure by a vote of 216–211. The bill died in conference committee before it could be enacted. Simpson was dejected but vowed to reintroduce the legislation in the next Congress.²²

When the bill was reintroduced in 1985, the dynamics in the Senate had shifted somewhat. Senator Wilson of California gained sufficient backing to pass an amendment establishing a temporary agricultural workers program that would have admitted 350,000 such workers per year. Simpson had opposed such a plan but now saw it as essential to ensure passage of the bill in the Senate. Opposition to legalization continued but he had the votes to overcome any attempt to delete it from the bill. The changes in legal admissions had been dropped from the bill, with agreement that they would be considered only after the illegal immigration issue was addressed.

In the House, Peter Rodino, chair of the Judiciary Committee, assumed a more important role in the legislation that would eventually bear his name along with Simpson's. He authorized two younger members, Charles Schumer of New York and Howard Berman of California, to negotiate a substitute plan that would address agricultural growers’ interests without instituting a new Bracero-style program. An unlikely pair who represented districts in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Schumer and Berman produced a plan that would give permanent residence to farm workers who had been engaged in seasonal agricultural work and provide for replacement workers if the newly legalized left agriculture. Termed the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) and Replacement Agricultural Worker (RAW) programs, the new provision passed muster among the agricultural interests as well as among Hispanic and labor groups opposed to a guestworker program. The attraction to the former was having a continuing source of labor and to the latter of providing labor mobility to workers who could more easily assert their rights.

When the bill went to conference committee in October 1986, the House measure on agricultural workers prevailed over the Senate version. Two other major differences led to compromises. First, the House and Senate agreed that the General Accounting Office would investigate any discriminatory effects of employer sanctions and report on them to Congress. Then, Congress could act by joint resolution to end the program. This provision replaced a three-year automatic sunset provision that had been in the House bill. Second, in response to administration concerns about the costs of the legalization program, as well as concerns of states and localities that they would be left with the financial burden, the conferees agreed to restrict the access of the newly legalized to a range of public benefits while providing State Legalization Impact Assistance Grants (SLIAG) to help them in dealing with state and local costs attributable to legalization.

On November 6, two days after the election, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was signed into law. It largely followed the SCIRP recommendations but with some notable differences. As in the SCIRP report, the intent was to reduce future illegal immigration through a combination of improved border enforcement and sanctions against employers who knowingly hired persons without a work authorization, while bringing those who were illegally in the country out of the shadows and onto a path to citizenship. For the first time, IRCA made it illegal to hire an illegal alien but imposed sanctions only if the employer knew the worker was in the country illegally. Employers would be required to ascertain their workers’ legal status by checking two forms of documentation – one that showed identity and one work authorization. The legislation named a number of acceptable documents. Passports issued to citizens and “green cards” issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to legal immigrants would show both identity and work authorization. To establish identity, new hires could show a driver's license or, as stated in the IRCA, “similar document issued for the purpose of identification by a state, if it contains a photograph of the individual or such other personal identifying information relating to the individual.” To establish work authorization, the new hire could show a Social Security card, a birth certificate, or other documents authorized by the attorney general. IRCA authorized pilot programs to test more secure forms of employment eligibility, but the default program effectively offered a “ Chinese menu” of possible documentation. Interestingly, it was this approach that the SCIRP staff warned against as too likely to lead to the use of fraudulent documents (which was just what happened, as discussed in Chapter 11).

To address concerns about discrimination, IRCA authorized a new office within the Justice Department to investigate “unfair immigration-related employment practices.” IRCA prohibited employers from discriminating “against any individual (other than an unauthorized alien) with respect to the hiring, or recruitment or referral for a fee, of the individual for employment or the discharging of the individual from employment (A) because of such individual's national origin, or (B) in the case of a citizen or intending citizen (as defined in paragraph (3)), because of such individual's citizenship status.” It was considered an unfair practice to seek different or additional documents from any newly hired employees, a provision designed to dissuade employers from setting up special procedures for foreign-appearing workers.

The legalization provisions included two separate programs. One program focused on undocumented immigrants who had been in the country since January 1, 1982. Initially, they obtained conditional legal status upon demonstrating their continued presence in the United States. After eighteen months, they could apply for legal permanent resident status upon showing that they had successfully completed a course in the English language and civics or had passed an examination that was comparable with the naturalization test. To be legalized, the immigrants also had to demonstrate they were not otherwise excludable under U.S. law. The second program was the SAW program. Under its terms, persons who could demonstrate that they had worked unlawfully in agriculture for ninety days during the twelve-month period ending on May 1, 1986, were eligible to be legalized. After demonstrating that they continued to work in agriculture during the following three years, they could become permanent residents.²³ For both programs, the legislation authorized the attorney general to designate qualified voluntary organizations to receive applications, a measure taken to encourage those who feared government authorities to come forward and be legalized.

IRCA barred the newly legalized from most public benefit programs for the first five years after they received legal status. Exceptions were made for education and training programs, especially those, like Head Start, that helped children. A program of assistance to states was authorized in the amount of $1 billion. Some of the funds could be used to provide the language and civics training required for adjustment to permanent residence.

While the major provisions of IRCA related to illegal immigration and legalization, it also reorganized the existing temporary work programs. It enacted an H-2A program specifically designed for agriculture. As in earlier legislation, IRCA required the Department of Labor to certify “(A) there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, and qualified, and who will be available at the time and place needed, to perform the labor or services involved in the petition, and (B) the employment of the alien in such labor or services will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed.” Housing and transport requirements were also codified.

A final provision in IRCA authorized a new Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development (referred to as the Ascencio Commission after its chair, former Ambassador Diego Ascencio). This commission was to focus on the source countries of undocumented migrants. More specifically, IRCA specified that “in consultation with the governments of Mexico and other sending countries in the Western Hemisphere, [the Commission] shall examine the conditions in Mexico and such other sending countries which contribute to unauthorized migration to the United States and mutually beneficial, reciprocal trade and investment programs to alleviate such conditions.” Although Congress had rejected proposals for a bilateral admissions program, as in the Bracero program, or any special consideration for Mexico and other Western Hemisphere countries, the Ascencio Commission recommended a provision that would gain traction in the 1990s – a free-trade agreement with Mexico that would build its economy and, in the long term, reduce emigration pressures (Commission for the Study of International Migration 1990).

In the years after enactment of IRCA, 1.6 million immigrants who were in the United States illegally were found eligible for legalization under the pre-1982 program and 1.1 million were found eligible under the SAW program. These numbers represented 90 percent of pre-1982 applicants and 86 percent of SAW applicants. About half a million changed to permanent residence status in 1989, with another 881,000 in 1990 and 1.13 million in 1991. The number of pre-1982 applicants was consistent with estimates of the eligible population. The number of SAW applicants, on the other hand, greatly exceeded expectations. The number of applications far exceeded estimates of the seasonal agricultural workforce. Several explanations have been offered for the wide discrepancy. SAW applications could be made from outside the country, meaning that people who had worked previously in agriculture (perhaps not during the period included in the law) could apply even if they had left the country. More seriously, there appeared to be many fraudulent applications by people who had never worked in agriculture but found someone to provide an affidavit or counterfeit documents showing that they had put in ninety days in the fields.

Among the pre-1982 applicants, males accounted for almost 54 percent of the applicants. More than three-quarters were between the ages of 15 and 44, and about half were married. By 2001, about one-third of those legalized had been naturalized, with a higher proportion of pre-1982 applicants becoming citizens than was true of the SAWs. Mexicans had lower naturalization rates than did legalized immigrants from other countries, which is consistent with the pattern found among other permanent residents.

Two immediate issues were raised by the IRCA legalization program. First, it did not cover undocumented immigrants who had entered after January 1, 1982, unless they were seasonal agricultural workers. IRCA thus led to a large residual population that was still in the country illegally. Second, IRCA made no accommodations for the admission of the families of legalized immigrants. Once legalized immigrants had the opportunity, they began to petition for their spouses and children to obtain permanent residence. Some of these family members were in the home country while others were in the United States but did not meet the IRCA requirements for legalization or had entered after their “anchor” relative gained legalized status. Because the immigrants whose status was legalized under IRCA came from so few countries, and the per-country limits applied to immediate relatives of legal permanent residents, the backlog of applications began to grow exponentially.

IRCA made no significant changes in the legal permanent admissions system. Its only provision related to non-legalization-related admissions was a small program aimed primarily at the admission of European immigrants. At the urging of Irish-American lobbying groups, which recognized that would-be immigrants from Ireland generally did not meet the family reunification requirements of existing law (Tichenor 2002: 268), the legislation afforded 5,000 nonpreference visas in 1986 and 1987 “to qualified immigrants who are natives of foreign states the immigration of whose natives to the United States was adversely affected by the enactment of [the 1965 Amendments].” Labor certification requirements were waived for these visas.

In 1988, action began on reform of the legal admissions system.²⁴ Initially, the key members of Congress devising reform were Senators Kennedy and Simpson. Kennedy generally supported expansion of legal immigration, noting the benefits that SCIRP had found. He had also been instrumental in enacting the IRCA provision that provided additional visas for the Irish and other Europeans. Simpson wanted to enact an overall cap on admissions and, within the cap, redirect visas away from family and toward the highly skilled. They merged their interests in a new independent category (so named by SCIRP in its earlier recommendations) for which admissions would be based on a combination of education, job skills, English language fluency, and diversity of immigration source countries. To keep numbers within levels acceptable to Simpson (about 600,000 per year), the bill would have limited the number of family visas and restricted the admission of siblings to those who were never married.

The bill passed the Senate, but it ran into difficulties in the House. The coalition that had derailed Simpson-Mazzoli came together again in opposition to the Kennedy-Simpson approach. Although business was generally favorable toward the expanded skills-based admissions, they understood that a firm cap on admissions could end up being detrimental to their interests if the number of applications for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens increased to displace other categories. Ethnic and religious organizations were not only worried about the cap, but also about what they saw as an assault on family, particularly with the restrictions on the admission of siblings.

In 1989, Kennedy and Simpson reintroduced their bill in the Senate, indicating a willingness to negotiate key elements. Amendments in the Judiciary Committee restored the family preferences that had been reduced or eliminated. On the floor of the Senate, a number of liberalizing amendments were passed, including a mechanism by which the annual cap could be pierced if the number of immediate relative applications increased. The cap itself was increased to 630,000 visas per year. Recognizing the precarious situation of the immediate relatives of newly legalized immigrants, an amendment was passed to allow their spouses and minor children to remain in the country while their petitions were adjudicated, in the name of “family unity.”

Representative Bruce Morrison, the new chair of the House subcommittee on immigration, favored liberalization as well. The House bill that emerged from committee had no cap on overall admissions, instead expanding the number of family and employment visas. Morrison particularly promoted a diversity program, similar to one that had passed in the previous Congress, allocating visas on the basis of a lottery. While the principal constituency for such a program was European ethnic groups, the program was designed to allow immigration from other continents (notably Africa) with very low levels of immigration and therefore few family ties with immigrants already in the United States. The House bill was more liberal in other respects, particularly in its elimination of many of the exclusions to admissions based on ideological grounds and sexual preference.

The legislation that emerged from the conference committee between House and Senate generally expanded immigration. Under the Immigration Act of 1990, the flexible cap remained, but the number of visas was increased to 700,000 per year for the first three years and 675,000 per year thereafter. During the transition period, 55,000 visas per year were allocated to the spouses and minor children of legalized immigrants, who could enter outside the preferences. Family- and employment-based immigration each had its own quota. After 1994, the cap on family admissions would be set at 480,000. An estimated 254,000 immediate relatives would be admitted each year, but no restrictions were placed on their admission, so the number could be higher. Regardless of the number of visas for immediate relatives, no fewer than 226,000 visas would be available for the numerically restricted family admissions. Four family preferences received allocations: 1) unmarried adult children of U.S. citizens (23,400); 2) spouses and unmarried children of legal permanent residents (114,200); 3) married adult children of U.S. citizens (23,400); and 4) brothers and sisters of adult U.S. citizens (65,000). Although per-country limits would apply to the other family preferences, they would not apply to the spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents, which received a sub-allocation of 80,000 visas in the second preference.

Employment-based immigration received an annual quota of 140,000 visas. There were five preferences: 1) workers with extraordinary skills (sometimes called the Einstein visas) and executives and managers of multinational corporations (40,000); 2) workers with exceptional skills and those with advanced degrees (40,000); 3) professionals with bachelor's degrees and workers with needed skills (40,000) within which was a small sub-cap for other workers (10,000); 4) special immigrants and religious workers (10,000); and 5) investors (10,000). Unused visas in higher preferences would be carried to lower preferences. No labor certification was required for those entering under the first, fourth, or fifth preferences. Labor certification could also be waived for other applicants whose admission was deemed to be in the national interest. Most second- and third-preference workers were subject to a labor market test in which the employer had to demonstrate that there was no minimally qualified U.S. worker to take the job.

The final category was diversity immigration, which received a quota of 55,000 visas. After a transition period, the diversity program was restricted to natives of foreign states from which less than 50,000 immigrants had been admitted over the preceding five years, weighted by region. Generally, only countries in Europe and Africa qualified because of the high levels of immigration from Asia and the Americas. To be eligible for a diversity visa, an applicant had to have at least a high-school education or its equivalent or two years of work experience in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience. The most interesting aspect of the program was that visas were to be allocated through a lottery system. At first, applicants could send in as many applications as they wished (initially, a postcard sufficed), but after the State Department was inundated with millions of applications with many duplicates, the rules were changed and each applicant could submit only one postcard.

The 1990 legislation was more restrictive on temporary worker programs. It revamped what was then called the H-1B program for the admission of professionals with at least a bachelor's degree. While there was no recruitment requirement and employers could attest to meeting the wage requirements, Congress placed a numerical limit of 65,000 visas per year on admissions. The bill also allowed H-1B workers (and intracompany transfers under the L visa) to come into the country with dual intent (to stay or to return), thereby giving them a route to obtaining permanent residence. The labor certification requirements were maintained on the H-2 programs (H-2A for agriculture and H-2B for other temporary jobs) and a ceiling of 66,000 visas per year was placed on the H-2B program.

The bill also streamlined the naturalization process. The federal district courts had the final authority for naturalizing immigrants, after the Immigration and Naturalization Service approved the applications. There were long waits, however, for court action in many busy districts. The legislation conferred authority to naturalize upon the attorney general, allowing administrative ceremonies. It also provided an appeals process for those who were denied naturalization.

Finally, the bill addressed one of the gaps in humanitarian protection remaining after passage of the Refugee Act. It provided for temporary protected status for individuals if their countries were adversely affected by conflict or natural disasters. At the insistence of Representative Moakley, the legislation included a specific provision for Salvadorans displaced by the civil war in their country. It also included a more general authority for the attorney general to grant what was effectively a stay of deportation and work authorization to those affected by humanitarian crises.

Conclusion

The Immigration Act of 1990, and the massive legalization program under IRCA, effectively implemented the full set of SCIRP recommendations. With the Refugee Act of 1980, these developments culminated a 25-year period in which there was a substantial return to the Pennsylvania model of immigration. The 1965 Amendments reversed the discriminatory national origins quotas, but the architects of the reform did not extol the benefits of immigration. Rather, they argued that national origins quotas were an anachronism in a period in which civil rights were flourishing. Eliminating the discriminatory provisions would enhance American prestige around the world, but they would not necessarily open the United States to increased immigration. By contrast, the 1990 legislation was promoted precisely because its supporters thought an expansion in immigration was in the national interest. Even those who favored controls on overall numbers, such as Senator Alan Simpson, were persuaded by the need to expand highly skilled immigration to meet the needs of a global economy. Moreover, Congress chose permanent admissions over temporary workers. In the spirit of the Pennsylvania model, immigrants would be welcomed as proto-citizens rather than as indentured laborers. IRCA had legalized millions of undocumented immigrants, putting them on a road to citizenship if they learned English and civics.

The 1990 legislation was intended to facilitate family reunification, with family unity visas and the lifting of per-country limits on spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents. This is not to say that everything about the 1990 legislation should be seen within this context. The legislation also expanded the grounds for deportation, including the creation of a category of aggravated felons that would become problematic in later years. On balance, though, the Immigration Act of 1990 favored a form of immigration that valued family, skills, and humanitarian interests and provided immigrants the opportunity to join the American community.

The consensus that led to passage of the Immigration Act of 1990 was short-lived. Within a few years of its passage, the reemergence of illegal immigration and concerns about the fiscal impact of legal immigration challenged the Pennsylvania model, as discussed in Chapter 12. Before addressing those issues, however, Chapter 11 discusses the evolution of U.S. refugee policy from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s.

¹ http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9355&s=immigration&s1=Kennedy.

² Although some commentators have cited pressure from the White House as a factor in Eastland's decision, James Ziglar, an aide to Senator Eastland and later commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, noted that Eastland frequently gave younger Senators similar opportunities when he could not promote legislation pending in his committee (personal communication, August 31, 2009).

³ According to Lawrence O'Brien, then advisor to the president, “There's nothing worse than to have a subcommittee chairman, or committee chairman, get his nose out of joint. All bets are off in terms of common sense and judgment. It becomes a matter of principle, and he's not going to be very rational if you get into that kind of a situation. There may have been some merit to Mike's position, because whether it was overt or not, Mike at the outset and up front was not properly included in the proceedings, at least as he saw it” (http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/oralhistory.hom/OBrienL/OBRIEN12.pdf).

⁴ The commission did recommend against the imposition of the quota but Congress did not act on its recommendation.

⁵ See Reimers (1981, 1992) and Rumbaut (1994) for further discussion of the impact of the 1965 Amendments on the ethnic composition of immigration to the United States.

⁶ http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp_per_cap_in_197-economy-gdp-per-capita-1973.

⁷ This finding was already well known in the early 1980s when I constructed tables showing these data for the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy.

⁸ Data on admissions are reported by fiscal year (FY), not calendar year, in this and subsequent chapters.

⁹ See Boyd (1973) for a contemporary discussion of Asian immigration and occupational preferences.

¹⁰ See DeJong et al. (1986) for transformation from occupational to family categories among Filipino migrants.

¹¹ Only 16,000 counted against the preferences, although the preferences were imposed on the Western Hemisphere by the 1976 Amendments. The Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service notes that admissions differ from visa issuances because some people issued visas in one fiscal year are admitted in the next year. Because the legal requirements were due to change for the Western Hemisphere, it is likely that a large number of Mexicans sought visas under the old system but entered in subsequent years. As late as 1981, more than 100,000 Mexicans entered the country as permanent residents, with half coming under the Western Hemisphere quota that had been eliminated in 1979.

¹² The admission of people coming for temporary stays is reported as an event (inspection at the ports of entry). Ten admissions may represent ten individuals coming once and staying or one individual coming ten separate times during the course of a year. In the case of foreign students from Asia, it is unlikely that students frequently left and reentered the country during the course of the year, so the number of inspections is likely to be close to the number of students.

¹³ This discussion of the characteristics of undocumented migration comes from my 1981 review of the literature for the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. See SCIRP staff report (SCIRP 1981b).

¹⁴ See Tichenor 2002: 230–39 for interest group politics on immigration during this period.

¹⁵ Lawrence Fuchs described an incident in which Secretary of State Vance was called to testify before Congress on the day of a commission meeting. Askew told him that it would be embarrassing for the Deputy Secretary of State Christopher because he would not be allowed to participate in the discussions, leading Vance to request that the congressional committee reschedule his appearance (Fuchs 1983).

¹⁶ In the interest of full disclosure, I served as research director of SCIRP from October 1980 to the completion of its work in June 1981 and wrote large segments of the commission report and staff supplement to the report.

¹⁷ The vote on existing forms of identification was 9 to 7 in favor; on a more secure method, the vote was in favor by 8 to 7 with one abstention.

¹⁸ See Tichenor (2002) for a similar analysis of SCIRP's legacy.

¹⁹ In a chapter that I wrote as research director (SCIRP 1981b).

²⁰ This anecdote made it into the SCIRP final report and Fuchs often spoke of it during his tenure as vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform whenever critics of immigration spoke pessimistically about the capacity of the new immigrants to become “Americans.” (personal observation)

²¹ See Tichenor (2002), Zolberg (2006), Fuchs (1983), and Schuck (1998) for the political machinations surrounding Simpson-Mazzoli and its successor, Simpson-Rodino.

²² Personal communication with Simpson and his chief aid, Richard Day, on the evening that the bill died in Congress.

²³ IRCA also included the RAW program and authorized a commission to investigate whether it should be triggered. The Commission on Agricultural Workers concluded that the RAW program was not needed, largely because employers had found enough unauthorized workers to fill the gap when the SAW program recipients left agriculture.

²⁴ See Tichenor (2002).

10 “A Nation of Immigrants”1965–1994