The Immigration Act of 1965: Interpretations and Effects - Dissertation Example

 The Immigration Act of 1965: Interpretations and Effects Background: The history of the United States of America and the relation between the nation and the rest of the world are shaped by the controversial legislative acts that also accompany the development of the American society. The Immigration Act of 1965 signed by Lyndon Johnson is one of those legislative documents that brings with it widespread disputes for over the next few decades. The Immigration law according to the president was signed not to change the nature of the society. According to the writings of Daniel in 2008, the effects that were intended differ completely from the actual ones. Around 22.8 million migrants came to America after the Immigration Act, which made the country the second largest in terms of the percentage of naturalized citizens. However according to Canellos (2008) the intended positive effects of the act completely matched the actual effects and led to the historical development of the country. The country, after the enactment of the act, experienced a change in the immigration pattern from a majority of European immigrants to an increase in Asian, African and Latin Americans. Another effect presented by the CIS report (though not supported by the other authors) was the increase in the dropout rates in the society with the increasing population of the immigrants. Though opinions about the actual effect of the act on the historical development and the changing nature of the society differ among the authors, the effects of the act on the economy and the employment level of the country need to be disclosed. Primary resource essay Introduction: The Immigration Act of 1965 was passed by the Congress government of the country sponsored by Ted Kennedy, the senator of United States. With the new Immigration Act, the national origin formula that existed from the days of the previous Immigration Act of the year 1924 was abolished. Maintaining the ethnic composition of the population of the country was the ultimate aim of the formula. For the accomplishment of this law, immigration from foreign countries of the world was restricted and the goal was to maintain the proportion of the existing population of the country that already remained in the nation. The Immigration Act, when it was published, went unnoticed by the common people of the country as was the remaining eleven thousand bills published by the government of the country. The common people of the country were worried about the publication of the laws until the effect of those fell on the entire nation, ultimately affecting the lives of these common people. The same happened with the Immigration Act when it was first published by the Congress Ministry. However, with the proper enforcement of the act and its spread among the general people their lives started being affected gradually as the restriction on the immigration from the foreign land was considerably withdrawn with an annual limit being maintained by the law. The law ensured that not more twenty thousand of the people of foreign countries could immigrate to United States in a span of one year irrespective of the number of people of the same country already residing in the United States of America. The visas to the immigrants from the countries of the western hemisphere were produced on the first come first served basis. As the immigration policy of the country became almost the same for citizens of any country irrespective of their location, their economic and social conditions, the nature of immigration to the country changed. Previously immigrants, mainly from the European nations, visited America. However, with the change in the policy there occurred a shift from the European migrants to migrants from the continent of Asia and also from the countries of Central America and that of South America. The immediate effect of the Immigration Act of 1965 was that the number of immigrants in the country doubled itself within the span of five years, the time that the law required to spread its popularity amongst the general people of the country. During the period of 1970-1990, the immigration again doubled like the previous five years following the enactment of the act.1 The impact that the people of the country already residing in America felt with the doubling of the rate of immigration in the country was the change in the ethnic composition of the population of the country which was tightly maintained through restrictions on immigration by the previous Immigration Acts of the country. This changed the labor force of the country, increasing the pressure on the existing working population and the ultimate result was the inequality of the earnings of the male population of the labor force. Not only that with the increase in the pressure of the work force of the country there occurred changes in the unemployment rate of the country as well. Thus in order to restrict the increased flow of immigrants in the country Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed by the government of the country immediately in the year 1986 and again in the other Immigration Act of 1990.2 The aim of the government of the country was to stabilize the influx of the country’s economy. Thus, this paper aims at an in depth look at the Immigration Act of 1965, the reasons behind the enactment of the law, and the changes that occurred in the economy with the Immigration Act. It also aims at investigating the changes that occurred with the amendment of the new laws following the Immigration Act of 1965 and the far-reaching consequences of those acts. The long-term development perspective of the Immigration Act: The Second World War brought about big changes in the economic positions of every nation of the world irrespective of whether it was a developed nation or a third world country. During the period preceding the Second World War, United States of America adopted restricted immigration policies with the banned migration of the Asian residents and provision of national quota of origin for the Europeans. The Immigration Act that was developed in the year 1924 remained the main law concerning immigration in the country until 1965. 3 Thus, the period was characterized by unlimited immigration from the European nations that contributed to the needs of the increasing labor force with the growth of the economy. However, fear always remained among the civilians and also the government body that with increasing immigration criminal activities would be likely to increase which might be in conflict with the traditional need for more laborers. Hence restrictions were imposed on the immigration of Asian people and those from some countries of the East European origin as they were thought to be more prone to negative activities and thus unfit for immigration. The United States of America, following the turn around after the Second World War, adopted new sets of immigration policies and policies of opening the door to the foreign world. The Congress government of the period considered the foreign policies and the booming nature of the economy and as the first step of opening the economy completely to the rest of the world produced an immigration quota of 105 persons annually for China. For the other Asian countries the immigration legislation was passed in the year 1946 as 100 immigrants were allowed on an annual basis. The Second Quota Act provided the legislation for the Asian countries.4 These systems of the national origin quotas were ultimately replaced by the development of the Immigration Act of 1965 that was mainly signed to correct the wrong conduct of the Americans. According to the CIS report of 1995, the law, instead of correcting the political matters of the country, drastically changed the composition of the country’s population and also the nature of the immigration policies. This Immigration Act was also named as the Hart-cellar act of 1965.5 Effect of the Immigration Act on the American population and the nature of the Migration The data revealed by the Census Bureau of the United States of America for the year 2000 reveals that after the implementation of the act and its spreading effect, immigration in the country increased considerably. The population of the foreigners increased to 28.4 million in the year 2000 from 9.6 million in 1970. Thus, the effects of the Immigration Act of 1965 were revealed in the rapid increase in immigration within the country. Amongst the immigrants the Latin Americans constituted the major share with a population of about 14.5 million migrants. The other major areas from where immigration took place were Europe and Asia with 7.2 million and 4.4 million population respectively from each continent. The country with the maximum number of immigrants in United States was Mexico (according to the 2000 census report of the country). Data also revealed that the proportion of the foreign born population that completed their school education and higher education was only 67% as compared to 87% among the native citizens of the country. However, 95 % of the African migrants had completed their higher education with the percentage being approximately close to each other for the other regions and the least was about 33.8%as reported for Mexico. The labor force participation rates among the immigrants were not very much different from that of the native population participation rate, the two respectively being 66.6% and 67.3% respectively. However, the labor force participation rates among the immigrant male population were higher than the native male population of the country. The poverty rates of the immigrants were also higher compared to those among the native population.6 In the year 1950 the European nation contributed to 52.7%, that is, more than half of the total immigrants in the country with the possession of the quota of national origin. By 1960, the proportion reduced to one third of the immigrated population and with the Immigration Act the contribution of Europe reduced to merely one tenth of the total. With the reduction in the share of European immigrants the level of immigration from the Latin Americans and the Asian countries increased.7 The Immigration Act of 1965 changed the country of origin for the immigrants substantially. The Europeans were the dominant population of the immigrants of America but that became a smaller group after the enactment of the act and by the 1980s, the percentage of the European migrants of the total number of immigrated population became merely 10 %. The countries that used to send immigrants from traditional period of time like Germany, Italy etc, contributed to a very small fraction of immigration after the act. Mexico held the largest contribution of the immigrated population of the country since the period before the enactment of the Immigration Act, while after 1965, Mexico was followed by China, Taiwan, India, The Dominican republic, the Philippines, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, Laos, Cambodia, and Haiti. After 1980, the Asian nations held about 40 % of the total immigrated population of the country with the rest being contributed by Mexico and the Caribbean nations. Thus, the Immigration Act of 1965 made immigration to America global in the true sense of the term, with the country welcoming immigrants from different nations with different cultural backgrounds and people of different colors. The percentage of Asian immigrants increased from merely 6% in 1950 to 31% in 1990 whereas the European percentages fell from 53% to 16%. Thus, the increased immigration contributed towards changing the demography of United States of America. The immigrants mainly settled in six states of the country, namely, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, Texas, and Florida. The impact of the immigration on the social and the economic lives of the people of the country were felt specifically in these areas populated by the immigrants.8 The Immigration Act talked of a global ceiling on the immigration of about 290,000 immigrants on a year basis measurement. However, in reality the actual immigration exceeds considerably the actual numerical limitation as described by the act of 1965. During the period of 1976 and 1985, the number of immigrants varied with the minimum value of 398,089 and the maximum value touched 796,356 and the average value was about 546,000 immigrants each year which came to be 88 percent more than the enacted restrictions. The conclusion that can be drawn from the numerical estimates of the outcome of the enactment of the law of 1965 was that the expectations of the proponents did not work out to match the real and ultimate effects of the law on the level of immigration in the country. The pattern of the immigration in the country was probably not studied properly by the proponents prior to the publication of the Immigration Act and removal of the restrictions on the immigration. The law of 1965 was mainly enacted when the immigration from foreign countries did not affect the core of the political and the economical feelings of the common people of the country and mostly concentrated on the periphery of the nation. With the continuous increase in the population of migrated people in the country of America, feelings of helplessness prevailed among the residents. Economic dislocations triggered and immigration became the centre of consciousness of the general public. Immigration thus started to be taken largely as a negative outcome by the public. 9 Effect of immigration on the income inequality of the economy: The increased rate of immigration that was facilitated by the Immigration Act of 1965 changed the nature and the composition of the population of the country that contributed moderately to the increased income inequality in the country. The immigrants in the country had the majority of their population employed in the low paid jobs of the country, thus increasing the percentage of the low paid labor force amongst the total working population of the society. This also increased the inequality in the earnings of the labor force of the country. The skill composition among the native labor force also changed due to the increased migration. Data reveals that inequality among the male labor force of the country increased by 16% during the period, 1969 to 1997. Immigration had greater effect on the increasing inequality of the male population of the labor force in comparison to the female workforce. Rather, with immigration there has been a trend of increase in women participation in the labor force of the country which controlled the increased inequality. The Immigration Act was passed in the year 1965 but the increase in the immigration from foreign countries experienced a substantial increase from about 1970. The inequality of income as best measured by the Gini coefficient revealed that the value was .345 in the year 1997, which was previously .257 in the year 1969. The main reason behind this is the increasing percentage of the low paid workers with the rise in immigration. According to the data of 1997, only 28 % of the immigrant labor force had their income exceeding the median of the earnings of the native labor force of the country and the long-term immigrants of the country. The reason behind the low wages of these recent immigrants was mainly their low educational qualifications that did not allow them to join the skilled labor force of the country with better income opportunities. 24 % of the recent migrants had the educational qualifications that were less than the ninth grade as compared to merely 2% of the native citizens and the long-term immigrants with such poor educational background. Among the native people and the long-term immigrants, 9% of them had less than higher school educational qualification as compared to about 37% for the recent immigrants. Thus the low educational qualification of the recent migrants were contributing to the increase in the labor force participation in low paid jobs which in turn contributed to the increased inequality among the male labor force of the country.10 Increased immigration not only affected the lower income strata of the labor force of the country but also the high-income section was affected by the mass migration. As a result there existed very few employment opportunities for large number of skilled laborers that consist of both the native residents of the country and also the educated migrated population. In the primary sectors of the economy, the cheap migrated labor affected the wage rates of the existing labor force and also the working conditions adversely. The indirect cost of displacement of the American laborers by the immigrants in the country amounted to about 12 billion dollars in the year 1992. Considering the other economic consequences of the increased migration in the country, it was concluded that the immigrants became a burden on the tax paying residents of the country. According to some economists, the immigrants enjoyed several welfare programs in the society for which they did not pay the required amount of the taxes.11 Changes implemented by the other Immigration Acts: The failure of the Immigration Act of 1965 to incorporate any ceiling on the immigration of the country while maintaining an open foreign policy resulted in the needs of reviewing the Hart-Cellar act. The ill effects of the increased immigration throughout the period following the enactment of the act in the country forced the Congress to impose restrictions on the immigration policies. Finally, in 1986 the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), the modified act of 1965, was passed. The law opened the door for legal immigrants in the country and eased up the admission procedures. At the same time, the act closed the back door for illegal immigration to the country.12 This act also did not work according to the expectations of the proponents and the last major change brought in the immigration policies of the country in that particular decade was the Immigration Act passed in the year 1990 that also unintentionally increased the migrated population in the country and increased immigration by about 35%.13 Thus to conclude it can be said that the Immigration Act of 1965 enforced by the government of America had both positive effects as well as ill effects. The positive effect of immigration was that the traditional demand for labor was fulfilled with more immigration and the pool of the skilled labor force increased as the contributors of the development of the country. However, the negative aspects of increased unemployment, inequality, and retarding working conditions due to the increase in the low paid unskilled workers along with the immigration of the skilled workers perhaps outdo the positive effects. Moreover, with the increase in the cases of illegal migrants the economy focused on acts to enforce restrictions on immigration in the country. References Daniels,Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration an Ethnicity in American Life. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Visual Education Corporation, 2002.  Reed, Deborah. "Immigration and Males' Earnings Inequality in the Regions of the United States Demography". 38. 3 (2001), 363-373, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3088352 (accessed April 20, 2011).  Reimers, David M. Unwelcome Strangers: American Identity and the Turn Against Immigration. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.  Current population reports, Profile of the Foreign-born population in the United states:2000, US Census Bureau, Dec, 2001,23-206, http://www.census.gov/ (accessed April 20, 2011).  Ueda, Reed. Postwar Immigrant America: A Social History. The Bedford Series in History and Culture. St. Martin’s Bedord, 1994  Read More