Atlas of Hispanic-American History

CHANGES IN LATIN

AMERICAN IMMIGRATION

Until World War II, the vast majority of
Hispanics in the United States were of
Mexican descent. After World War II,
people from Hispanic nations whose
descendants had never before been widely
represented in the U.S. population began
to migrate to the United States in droves.
Besides Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the
Dominican Republic, Hispanics also
flowed to the United States from the many
nations of Central America and South
America, though in substantially smaller
numbers than from Mexico and the
Caribbean.
The availability for the first time of
inexpensive commercial air travel was one
reason for the dramatic boom in immigra-
tion from Latin America; another was the
exploding problem of overpopulation of
Latin America. Yet another reason for the
surge in Latin American immigration was
the heightened perception in many
Hispanic countries that the postwar
United States was a place of prosperity and
political stability, one that offered opportu-
nities not to be found in nations chronical-
ly poor and unstable. Furthermore, the

opportunities were relatively easy to

access. There was no prescribed maxi-

mum on immigration from Latin America,

so the door was as wide as Hispanic new-

comers made it. That changed with the

Immigration Act of 1965, which consider-

ably narrowed the door for legal entry

from the Western Hemisphere.

The Immigration Act

of 1965

Since the 1920s, immigration from the

Eastern Hemisphere had been restricted

by a quota system that favored immi-

grants from northern and western Europe

over southern and eastern Europe and

Asia. Annual immigration from any given

country was limited to a percentage of the

U.S. population of that ethnic group as

listed in the 1890 census. However, this

quota system did not apply to Western

Hemisphere countries, and Latin

Americans enjoyed comparatively greater

freedom in immigrating to the United

States. The exemption had largely been

retained at the insistence of western and

southwestern employers, who depended

on the unimpeded flow of laborers from

Mexico. But after World War II, people

LA RAZA UNIDA 185

In 1965, the U.S. Congress amended the nation’s long-standing

policy of setting immigration quotas based upon the national

origin of immigrants. The new law used a system based on

reunification of families and needed skills. Although a law that

made it easier for families to be reunited across borders bene-

fited most immigrants, immigrants from the Western

Hemisphere, including Latin America, had never been subject to

quotas to begin with. In fact, for the first time in U.S. history, the

1965 law set an annual ceiling of 120,000 immigrants from the

Western Hemisphere. Even with the ceiling, however, Latin

America—with Asia—has become the leading source of immi-

grants to the United States.

The law’s provisions are as follows:

a.Abolished the national origins quota system, eliminating

national origin, race, or ancestry as a basis for immigration to

the United States.

b.It established allocation of immigrant visas on a first-come,

first-served basis, subject to a seven-category preference sys-

tem for relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent resident

aliens (for the reunification of families) and for persons with

special occupational skills, abilities, or training (needed in the

United States).

c.It established two categories of immigrants not subject to

numerical restrictions:

1.Immediate relatives (spouses, children, parents) of U.S. citizens,

and

2.Special immigrants: certain ministers of religion; certain former

employees of the U.S. government abroad; certain persons

who lost citizenship (e.g., by marriage or by service in foreign

armed forces); and certain foreign medical graduates.

d.The act maintained the principle of numerical restriction,

expanding limits to world coverage by limiting Eastern

Hemisphere immigration to 170,000 and placing a ceiling on

Western Hemisphere immigration (120,000) for the first time.

However, neither the preference categories nor the 20,000

per-country limit was applied to the Western Hemisphere.

e.It introduced a prerequisite for the issuance of a visa that an

alien seeking to enter the United States would not replace a cur-

rently employed worker in the United States or adversely affect

the wages and working conditions of similarly employed individ-

uals in the United States.

PROVISIONS OF THE IMMIGRATION

AND NATIONALITY ACT OF 1965