Many considered the 1965 Immigration Act to be an extension of the Civil Rights and Voter Rights legislation of the Johnson Administration granting immigration civil rights to the world by eliminating regional quotas, a major population transformation. Although some Republicans supported the 1965 Immigration Act in its initial form, the Democrat Party promoted the bill in the legislature giving assurances that the bill would not adversely influence our nation, economy, and culture. As this discussion will show, that claim was utterly false; and the Democrat Party knew it. When he signed the bill into law, President Lyndon Johnson said, “This bill we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not restructure the shape of our daily lives.” Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-MA.) reassured his colleagues and the nation with the following:
“First, our cities will not be flooded with immigrants. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset. [The bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”
Senator Hiram Fong (R-HI) testified that Our cultural pattern will never be changed as far as America is concerned.” In an October 4, 1965 article on the immigration bill, The Washington Post author wrote,
“The most important change [is that] preference categories give first consideration to relatives of American citizens instead of to specially skilled persons. This insured that the new immigration pattern would not stray radically from the old one.”
Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), testified as follows: “The preferences established by this proposal are not entirely dissimilar from those which underlie the national origins quotas of existing law.” With hindsight as twenty-twenty, it seems fair to ask whether the supporters of the 1965 Immigration Act were actually honest about their claims that the new immigration policy would not alter the culture and ethnic composition of our nation or result in a population transformation.
Some opponents and legislators asked critical questions painting a less rosy picture of the potential outcome. William Miller of New York wrote:
‘The number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more.’ He asked, ‘Shall we, instead, look at this situation realistically and begin solving our own unemployment problems before we start tackling the world’s?'”
Myra C. Hacker, Vice President of the New Jersey Coalition, testified in the Senate Immigration Subcommittee hearing:
“We should remember that [the bill will] lower our wage and living standards [and] disrupt our cultural patterns. Whatever may be our benevolent intent toward many people, [the bill] fails to give due consideration to the economic needs, the cultural traditions, and the public sentiment of the citizens of the United States.”
In his 1982 book America in Search of Itself, Theodore White contradicted President Johnson’s signing-day assurance that it was not a revolutionary bill, writing that the bill was revolutionary and probably the most thoughtless of the many acts of the Great Society. In reality, critics were correct and the assurances that the Act would not upset the ethnic mix of our society, a major population transformation, were not justified as noted by the data on the changes in foreign-born population associated with the Act.
The 1965 Immigration Act ushered in a new era of mass immigration in which the country origins of immigrants changed radically. The European economy stabilized resulting in fewer European immigrants. Mass entry of people from Asia and Latin America and emphasis on family reunification ensured that these groups could bring in their relatives, freezing out potential immigrants from Europe and from other developing nations because of limits on total immigration numbers. Unfortunately, twice as many immigrants as native-born Americans did not have high school diplomas in the mid-1990’s. This population transformation contributed to downward wage pressure and a growing pool of blue-collar workers competing for a shrinking number of well-paying jobs. This issue is compounded by increasing levels of illegal immigrants who also compete for these jobs.
Data from the US Census Bureau showing the region of birth of the foreign-born population of the United States is informative regarding the cultural population transformation of the United States. From 1850-1960, Europeans and Canadians averaged approximately 95% of the foreign-born population. Southern and Eastern Europeans were greatly underrepresented in the US foreign-born population prior to 1960. In 1960, Europeans and Canadians comprised 75% which was a reduction of more than 15% of the foreign-born population compared to the previous 90 years. In 1970 this group comprised 61.7%; 1980, 39.0%; and in 1990 Europeans and Canadians comprised 26.9% of the US foreign-born population which was less than one third of the 1960 level and slightly more than one fourth of the 1850-1960 level. In contrast, Hispanics comprised an average of only 2.8% of the foreign-born population from 1850-1960. In 1960, the composition was 9.4%; in 1970, 19.4%; 1980, 33.1%; and 1990, 44.3% nearly 16 times the 1850-1960 average of the US foreign-born population. Asians comprised an average of only 1.7% of the US foreign-born population from 1850-1960. In 1960, the composition was 5.1%; 1970, 8.9%: 1980, 19.3%; and 1990, 26.3% which was more than 15 times the 1850-1960 average of the foreign-born population. In 1990, people from Africa and Oceania composed less than 2.5% of the US foreign-born population. By 2050, the racial and ethnic composition of the US population is expected to be 47% White, 29% Hispanic, 14% Black, and 9% Asian. According to this projection, the composition of whites will decline; the composition blacks will be stable; and the composition of Hispanics and Asians will increase. Although conservative pundits and other intellectuals agree, progressives always start immigration discussions with the phrase, We are a nation of immigrants, or We are all descendants of immigrants. What they fail to say is that, prior to the 1965 Immigration Act, we were a nation of European and Canadian immigrants; and after 1965, we became and nation of Asian and Hispanic immigrants.
In 2000, sociologist Christopher Jencks predicted that the US population will grow to 500 million by 2050 if our immigration policies do not change. After evaluating congressional politics, Jencks concluded that congress did not want to appear to be racist and their leaders would not direct change. Consequently, Jerry Kammer, in his 2015 concluding remarks, included a dire analysis of our national future by Theodore White concerning of the potential impact of the 1965 Immigration Act and its population transformation,
‘Only one other great republic has ever experienced such a change in the texture of its people ” the Roman Republic.’ He then observed that ‘Rome could not pass on the heritage of its past to the people of its future’ and ultimately unraveled so badly that it ‘could no longer govern itself. ‘
Kammer also included this contrarian and optimistic quote from a 1965 Immigration Act, 50th anniversary book, A Nation of Nations (2015) by Tom Gjelten, which disregards the lesson of Roman Empire history,
While immigration ‘may swamp us, it may, if we seize the opportunity, mean the impregnation of our national life with a new brilliancy. It is only in the half century after 1965, with a population connected to every corner of the globe, that the country has finally begun to demonstrate the exceptionalism it has long claimed for itself.’
One Amazon reviewer of A Nation of Nations wrote,
“While Gjelten doesn’t make statements about assimilation with current tides of immigrant groups, he suggest[s] that these groups who differ more widely culturally than past [European immigrants] will ultimately accept the national ethos and fit in well.”
Apparently, like most US progressives, Gjelten and the reviewer believes that we can do things better than the Romans, the Soviet Communists, the Maoists, and the Cuban Communists, and achieve an internal globalist culture of new brilliancy and exceptionalism in the United States.
Without the benefit of actually reading his book, it appears that Gjelten does not believe that our Constitution and Bill of Rights are exceptional guidelines for governance or that turning the tide of victory in both World War I and World War II were exceptional events in world history. It does not appear that he considered our Industrial Revolution, railroads, interstate highway system, technical revolution, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter to be brilliant contributions making the United States the greatest economic power in history. As a true progressive globalist, Gjelten apparently believes that until the United States looks like the rest of the world, a population transformation, we cannot be either brilliant or exceptional. None of the reviews or excerpts answer the question posed by White, [With] such a change in the texture of [our] people, will the United States of America be able to govern itself? The cultural and racial diversity created by the 1965 Immigration Act has not resulted in a political and social environment of greater stability. Our educational, cultural, and political elites discourage acceptance of our national ethos, our Judeo-Christian heritage, Constitutional capitalism, and individual freedom. The progressive elites consider and communicate that this national ethos is offensive to the rest of the world, especially the regions of origin for most of today’s immigrants. Under these circumstances, how can we expect these immigrants to fit in well? Under the current circumstances in which we are losing our national ethos, my fear is that the admonition of John Jay portends a dire outcome for the United States of America, Should our Republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance this great experiment will then be surely doomed. This component of the fundamental transformation of the United States of America could help ensure that our nation will wither away. Phrased alternatively, our Founder’s nation will cease to exist.
Border security is a critical component of immigration policy. Secure borders ensure that nations have control over immigration into each country. Without secure borders and immigration policies that immediately detain or expel illegal immigrants, all immigration has the potential of becoming legal immigration which is the goal for progressive open border advocates. In this situation, citizenship and related voting rights would be meaningless; the wealthy and unscrupulous could import voters to gain control of any jurisdiction; or politicians could promise immigrants free benefits for their votes. Criminals, revolutionaries, insurgents, and freeloaders as well as unskilled and skilled workers, artisans, entrepreneurs, technicians, and highly educated professionals could flow in and out of countries. With this level of population transformation, all pretexts of economic, political, legal system, and numerical population stability and predictability would be eliminated. Determination of population-based representation in our republic, as in the US House of Representatives, would not be fair with the fluid population possible without immigration control and border security. This would be a fundamental transformation of the United States of America; and our Founder’s nation could wither away.
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