Wartime U.S. Immigration Policies and Quota Reforms

Wartime Policies and the Search for Principle

Quota Acts, Depression, and Declining Arrivals

The Quota Acts ended the new immigration, and arrivals from Northern and Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, declined. The Depression of the 1930s put a stop to mass immigration. During that decade, half a million Mexicans were deported. Nazi and fascist regimes caused the massive arrival of refugees. Congress, under special laws, admitted 250,000 of them as non-quota immigrants, but many more were turned away (including 20,000 Jewish children).

Labor Programs, Internment, and Postwar Resettlement

During World War II, the government imported temporary labor from Mexico under the Bracero Program due to wartime labor shortages and lifted the ban on Asian immigration. Although the federal government lifted the Asian ban, it yielded to racist pressures on the West Coast: approximately 10,000 Japanese were confined in internment camps and had their property confiscated. After the war, the government allowed the entry of several hundred thousand displaced persons who had no home to return to. Between 1948 and 1959, Cold War refugees from communist countries arrived. The total number of non-quota immigrants made a mockery of national-origin quotas and their racist principles.

McCarran-Walter Act and Selection Priorities

In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act declared that race was no longer a legitimate reason for refusing someone admission. Instead, it instituted a brain-drain policy by reserving 50% of visas for people with needed skills. The law retained the national-origins principle, gave many Third World countries very small quotas, and made communist associations a bar to immigration.

Immigration Act of 1965 and Its Consequences

The Immigration Act of 1965 had unforeseen consequences. It replaced national-origins quotas with hemispheric limits: all nations of the Eastern Hemisphere (Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa) were limited to 20,000 immigrants annually. The most important selection principles became the brain-drain (20% of visas for skilled immigrants) and family reunification, reserving most visas for relatives of American citizens or residents. Congress hoped this principle would lead to the reappearance of the new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. By 1980, however, it became clear that the family preferences benefited other nations—mostly Asian and Latin American countries. For example, foreign students from Third World countries, especially Asians, would use family reunification to bring in extended families.