The immigration laws that were in force until 1965 were a continuation of earlier laws written to maintain a white majority. However, after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and accommodation, a racially restrictive immigration policy was an embarrassment. The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965-also known as the Hart-Celler Act-abolished national origins quotas and opened immigration to all parts of the world.
Its backers, however, emphasized that they did not expect it to have much impact. "Under the proposed bill," explained Senator Edward Kennedy, "the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. Secondly, the ethnic mix will not be upset. Contrary to charges in some quarters, it will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area." The senator suggested that at most 62,000 people a year might immigrate. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill into law, he also downplayed its impact: "This bill that we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives . . . ."
The backers were wrong. In 1996, for example, there were a record 1,300,000 naturalizations 70 and perhaps 90 percent of the new citizens were non-white. Large parts of the country are being transformed by immigration. But the larger point is that "diversity" of the kind that immigration is now said to provide was never proposed as one of the law's benefits. No one dreamed that in just 20 years ten percent of the entire population of El Salvador would have moved to the United States or that millions of mostly Hispanic and Asian immigrants would reduce whites to a racial minority in California in little more than 20 years.
In 1965-before diversity had been decreed a strength-Americans would have been shocked by the prospect of demographic shifts of this kind. Whites were close to 90 percent of the American population, and immigration reform would have failed if its backers had accurately predicted its demographic consequences.
Its backers, however, emphasized that they did not expect it to have much impact. "Under the proposed bill," explained Senator Edward Kennedy, "the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. Secondly, the ethnic mix will not be upset. Contrary to charges in some quarters, it will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area." The senator suggested that at most 62,000 people a year might immigrate. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill into law, he also downplayed its impact: "This bill that we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives . . . ."
The backers were wrong. In 1996, for example, there were a record 1,300,000 naturalizations 70 and perhaps 90 percent of the new citizens were non-white. Large parts of the country are being transformed by immigration. But the larger point is that "diversity" of the kind that immigration is now said to provide was never proposed as one of the law's benefits. No one dreamed that in just 20 years ten percent of the entire population of El Salvador would have moved to the United States or that millions of mostly Hispanic and Asian immigrants would reduce whites to a racial minority in California in little more than 20 years.
In 1965-before diversity had been decreed a strength-Americans would have been shocked by the prospect of demographic shifts of this kind. Whites were close to 90 percent of the American population, and immigration reform would have failed if its backers had accurately predicted its demographic consequences.
( Jared Taylor )
[ White Identity: Racial ]
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