What I'm given to understand is that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was thought of as bringing immigration law into line with the color-blind philosophy in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Though no doubt there were other pressures involved. As you guessed, Wikipedia says "Most of the no votes were from the American South, which was then still strongly Democratic." OTOH, 74% of Democrats and 85% of Republicans voted in favor.
Looking at the article, I see "The bill set numerical restrictions on visas at 170,000 per year, with a per-country-of-origin quota. However, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and "special immigrants" had no restrictions." which seems low given that there are over 1,000,000 naturalizations. But perhaps family reunification has been far more dominant that I knew or Congress expected. I know an immigration lawyer; I should ask if he know anything about that.
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Date: 2016-06-01 10:58 pm (UTC)Though no doubt there were other pressures involved. As you guessed, Wikipedia says "Most of the no votes were from the American South, which was then still strongly Democratic." OTOH, 74% of Democrats and 85% of Republicans voted in favor.
Looking at the article, I see "The bill set numerical restrictions on visas at 170,000 per year, with a per-country-of-origin quota. However, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and "special immigrants" had no restrictions." which seems low given that there are over 1,000,000 naturalizations. But perhaps family reunification has been far more dominant that I knew or Congress expected. I know an immigration lawyer; I should ask if he know anything about that.