“Family Reunification and the Limits of Immigration Reform: Impact and Legacy of the 1965
Immigration Act.”
Catherine Lee1
Department of Sociology
Rutgers University
1
DRAFT – please do not cite without permission. Direct all correspondence to Catherine Lee,
Department of Sociology, 26 Nichol Ave, New Brunswick, NJ 08901,
clee@sociology.rutgers.edu.
1
Abstract
Immigration scholars and politicians recognize the deep importance of family
reunification, lauding its role in diversifying the United States’ racial and ethnic make-up,
modernizing the American immigration system, and uniting families. These commentators
typically view family reunification policy as a uniquely modern political achievement connected
to 1960s civil rights-era legislation and emblematic of democratic liberalism. As the centerpiece
of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, family reunification replaced the racially
discriminatory national origins quota system. I challenge this characterization by examining
immigration policy during the exclusion and show that family reunification has been a crucial
element of American immigration policy since the United States began regulating immigration.
Support for family unity sometimes result from exclusionary efforts. I illustrate this further by
tracing the legislative history of passage of the 1965 Immigration Act. I conclude that a
reassessment of the liberal valuation of family reunification policy is warranted and suggest that
there may be limits to immigration reform that targets family.
2
“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, or really add importantly to
either our wealth or our power.”2
With those rather inauspicious words, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration
and Nationality (Hart-Celler) Act of 1965 into law on October 3. While downplaying the
expected impact of the new legislation, Johnson nevertheless considered the law an important
one—one that would repair what he considered a “painful flaw in the fabric of American justice.”
That flaw was the racially discriminatory national origins policy, which had been in place since
the early 1920s. President Johnson unequivocally declared that the 1965 legislation was an act of
democratic liberalism, stamping out a previously racist policy that, as he argued, “violated the
basic principle of American democracy—the principle that values and rewards each man on the
basis of his merit as a man.”
Despite this lofty promise, Johnson nevertheless did not expect the United States to be
fundamentally altered. He underestimated the impact of the new legislation on American
immigration and its national culture and identity. The 1965 Act replaced national origins policy
with a new system that emphasized family reunification along with a modest percentage of visas
for work-related immigration. In making family reunification the centerpiece of the U.S.
immigration policy, the 1965 law ushered in significant changes.
“President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Remarks at the Signing of the Immigration Bill,
Liberty Island, New York, October 3, 1965.” LBJ Presidential Library, University of Texas.
Retrieved December 20, 2014
(http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/651003.asp)
2
3
Since passage of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, family preferences have been the central
pathway to legal immigration to the United States. In 1970 and 1980, 25 percent and 40 percent
of legal permanent immigration resulted from family reunification, respectively, and in the 1990s,
about 55 percent used family preference for immigration. In the decade from 2001 to 2010,
family reunification represented nearly two thirds of total documented immigration to the United
States. When family members of skilled immigrants and lottery winners are included, family
reunification immigration represents an even bigger percentage of total legal immigration (Office
of Immigration Statistics 2011: table 6).3
Family reunification also has shaped the face of the immigrant population. For much of
U.S. history Europe was the dominant continental source of immigrants. However, since 1965,
the majority of family-sponsored immigrants have come from Asia and Latin America rather
than Europe. Furthermore, for the first time since the United States began counting immigrants in
1819, immigrants from Africa outnumbered Europeans between 2009 and 2011. With these
changes in immigration patterns, particularly the rise of Asian and Latin American countries as
major immigrant-sending countries, family reunification is shaping the national identity by
reconfiguring the racial and ethnic make-up of the United States—so much so that some
immigration scholars argue that there has been already a shift in the “color line” (Foner 2005;
Lee and Bean 2010). Given these dramatic changes, there has been a tendency to emphasize
what happened in 1965 as a paradigmatic break that yielded a new modern liberal era in
3
Between 2001 and 2010, 6,760,621 immigrants were admitted as immediate family
members or based on family preference system. In 2010, of the 148,343 immigrants who entered
under the employer-based preference category, an estimated 81,354 of them were spouses and
children. Also available is diversity lottery, which gives permanent residency to many
immigrants from countries with traditionally low immigration to the United States, such as
Africa and Eastern Europe.
4
immigration. Politicians, scholars, and other commentators view the Hart-Celler Act as part of
the triumvirate liberal political achievement of the 1960s that included passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Baker 2014).
Although the characterization of the 1965 Immigration Act as an act of democratic
liberalism is not baseless, a narrowly framed view of it as a uniquely new, liberal political
achievement helps to further two misconceptions. The first misconception is the belief that the
centerpiece of the legislation—family reunification—is specifically tied to the modern
immigration era. However, since the United States began regulating immigration in 1875, some
semblance of family unity provisions has existed, including during the height of exclusion when
the National Origins Act of 1924 was legislated. The second misconception is the idea that
family reunification is emblematic of liberal, expansive support for immigrants in the
contemporary period. However, family reunification can be part of exclusionary processes.
Clarifying these misconceptions raises important prior questions. Why do we have family
reunification? What role does it play if it is not emblematic of liberal democratic progress? To
begin to answer these questions, I examine what role family plays in shaping immigration policy.
I argue we can understand why we have family reunification, why family unity may be
celebrated as a liberal legacy of the 1965 Immigration Act, and generally, how and why
immigration policymaking occurs by examining the role of meaning construction and perception.
This article explores meaning construction and perception by immigration stakeholders—
including politicians, immigration officials, intellectuals, business leaders, religious and ethnic
organizations, and immigrant group advocates. These actors invoked family and family
reunification in efforts to make sense of the challenges wrought by immigration.
5
Family unity provisions are part of the larger discursive and symbolic practices that I
term family ideation—conceptualization of what family means, constitutes, and features in terms
of its idealized characteristics, such as gender or sexual norms, class ideals, and racial or ethnic
attributes. Through family ideation, immigration stakeholders constructed racialized, gendered,
and class meanings and attached them to immigrants and immigration policy as they negotiated
who would be allowed to enter and settle permanently. Family and family reunification are
critical to making claims about inclusion and exclusion that are central to immigration control.
For example, politicians and other influential elites’ discussion of family allowed them to
evaluate whether or not immigrants were “like one of the family” and could be integrated into
the larger family of the nation (Collins 1998, 2001). Thus, in both periods of exclusion and
expansion, immigration stakeholders talked about what a family is, whose families deserved
protection, and which families were legitimate as they regulated the entry of new would-be
immigrants.
Meaning Construction in Immigration Policymaking
Increasingly, scholars are calling for greater attention to how meaning is constructed and
deployed in policymaking (Andrews and Gaby 2015; Campbell 2002, 2004; Edelman 1964;
Steensland 2006). Of course, a focus on meaning and the role of ideas in understanding social
change dates much further back (Weber 1958). It is a cultural emphasis in general and a
cognitive approach more specifically (DiMaggio 1997; Zerubavel 1997). The cultural emphasis
recognizes the importance of culture as a kind of “tool kit,” while the cognitive approach focuses
on how a tool kit shapes action or how we make sense of it (Swidler 1986). Examining meaning
construction and perception illuminates how new ideas are introduced and become plausible
6
policy options. Yet in positing the relevance of meaning construction and perception in
explaining policy development, I am not arguing against the insights offered by other
perspectives. Rather, the ideational approach, I argue, works in conjunction with other theories
of policy change, most notably works on agenda-setting and historical institutionalism.
In agenda-setting, for example, Deborah Stone notes that both the particular
characteristics of the actors involved (such as bureaucrats, interest groups, or professionals) and
the specific nature of the problem or issue (whether it is old, new, or recurring) can advance or
halt policy attention and action on a matter (Stone 1989). Agenda-setting can also focus,
however, on the use of language and symbols and their ability to convey meanings of
significance or urgency (Birkland 1997). Historical institutionalist studies of immigration explain
policy change by examining the institutional context of interests and power (Tichenor 2002).
Historical institutionalist investigations can highlight particular meaning construction (for
example, the extent to which a minority group’s endeavors that followed black civil rights efforts
were similarly “like blacks” in the civil rights movement) or the social construction of targeted
groups (such as Mexican immigrants identified as illegal and undeserving) and demonstrate how
ideas constitute institutional organization, power, and interests, which enable policymaking
(Chavez 2008; Newton 2008; Skrentny 2006). Specifically regarding immigration policy,
historical institutionalist studies have shown how the discrediting of racial eugenics during
World War II and the contribution of the black civil rights movement created a legacy of both
institutional and ideological conditions that shaped later policy (Dudziak 2000; Tichenor 2002).
Despite such strengths, these studies of immigration policy are still unable to explain the
empirical and theoretical significance of family and family reunification, including the
unexpected findings of family reunification provisions during periods of racial exclusion. Simply
7
stated, these other studies and perspectives neither explain nor anticipate the importance of
family in American immigration policy.
Family Ideation and Immigration
Immigration policymaking confronts directly the question of which newcomers should be
allowed to enter and to join the nation. How do immigration stakeholders grapple with change
and new challenges? They make sense and generate ideas and rationale for action by engaging in
family ideation—conceptualization of what family means, constitutes, and features in terms of its
idealized characteristics. I draw from the large and growing literature on narrative analysis and
storytelling and show that we can better understand how ideas shape opportunities for social and
political change (Ewick and Silbey 1995; Franzosi 1998; Ingram and Schneider 2005; Jasper
1997; Lakoff 2004; Newton 2008; Polletta 2006; Stone 1989). By invoking family, politicians
tell a story about who we are, how we are related, and what roles we play or functions we fulfill.
Stories of relatedness or connection and claims about who among us is indeed “like one of the
family” help to confer both privileges and responsibilities. Family is layered with values and
assumptions and makes available the building blocks for meaning construction. The ready set of
symbols, meanings, and reference points associated with family allows actors to use family as a
metaphor or synecdoche for related kinship constructs such as race or nation (Carsten 2002;
Schneider 1977, 1980). Family can also serve as a frame for interpreting how such structures
operate.
How actors talk about family—how they engage in family ideation—creates
opportunities for change by introducing ideas. In this sense, family ideation in particular and an
ideational approach more generally can illustrate the process of immigration policymaking.
8
Immigration stakeholders talk about family as a form of strategy to convince through rhetoric,
provide rationale for a stated position, and make sense of new or unfamiliar conditions for
themselves and their audience. Sometimes, this created opportunities for family reunification for
otherwise racially ineligible individuals during the exclusion era. During the 1960s, it provided a
method for introducing new interpretations of immigrants and immigration that made the call for
reform more urgent and necessary.
To illustrate this process, I draw on archival materials to trace the formulation and use of
family unity provisions during the exclusion era and the political effort to enact the 1965
Immigration Act. I closely examined and conducted content analysis of government documents
and personal papers of politicians and major organizations involved in immigration
policymaking gathered from over two dozen archival collections. A more detailed discussion of
data and methods and a fuller historical account of family reunification in American immigration
are available in Lee (2013).
In the rest of the article, I provide evidence of family reunification prior to the HartCeller Act during the exclusion era from the mid-1800s through the 1920s when national origins
policy was legislated. I show that family reunification existed for otherwise racially undesirable
immigrant groups, because gendered notions of family provided liminal space for some
individuals who possessed appropriate gender and class characteristics. These family unity
opportunities, however, resulted from efforts at immigrant exclusion, illustrating the point that
family reunification can be part of exclusionary processes. To demonstrate further how and why
family reunification is not necessarily emblematic of liberal expansion for immigration, I provide
a history of the efforts to reform immigration policy that led to the 1965 Act. Like most other
9
civil rights legislation of the era, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 resulted from
political compromise.
Family Reunification in the Exclusion Era
Prior to 1924, the United States did not have a comprehensive immigration policy apart
from treaties, group-specific laws, and executive orders, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of
1882 and the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, which directed Chinese and Japanese
immigration. In addition, before national origins policy of the 1920s was enacted, there was no
general family provision or preference system for other would-be immigrants. Nevertheless,
prior to that legislation, gendered ideas of family and coverture, which tied a woman’s legal
status to that of her husband’s, permitted some immigrants to reunite with their spouses and
children. Thus, despite ethnic, racial, and national origins exclusion, many immigrants entered
through the use of family unity provisions. For example, between 1908 and 1924, just over 5,400
Chinese wives were admitted, and over 36,000 Japanese wives were permitted to enter. The
National Origins Act of 1924 provided non-quota visas for wives and minor children under
eighteen years of age of U.S. citizens, including naturalized immigrants. Although we have rich
accounts of why the U.S. enacted immigrant exclusion laws during this period, no explanation
has been offered as to why family reunification even existed at all during this period. That is,
given the anti-immigrant tide that swelled over the decades from the mid-1800s through 1920s,
why did the government ever concede family reunification and show reverence for the
preservation of family?
Political leaders, intellectuals, moral reformers, and other immigration stakeholders faced
an unprecedented number of immigrants; in just three decades from 1890 to 1920, over 18
10
million immigrants landed, increasingly from regions previously unknown, including southern
and eastern Europe and Asia. Reference to family provided these actors with language and
framework for discussing the changes and challenges new immigrants engendered. By engaging
in family ideation—talking about what family is and should do—immigration stakeholders were
able to articulate and attach racialized and gendered meanings to immigrant groups, which
guided policy that denied their entry as an immigrant ethnic or racial group because of their
inassimilable (“not like one of the family”) characteristics but still permitted family unity
provisions based on gendered ideals for some individuals. These gendered declarations of family
protected immigrant men’s right to hearth and home, even as their racial assimilability remained
questionable.
Family ideation, therefore, created liminal space for otherwise excludable immigrants.
Politicians, even in their efforts to enact exclusionary policies, articulated the importance of
family and of a man’s right to his family. For example, in congressional debates over whether
literacy tests ought to be a condition for entry for immigrants, exclusionists still argued for a
man’s right to have his family with him. Thus, Representative Richard Parker (R-NJ) argued:
“We want members of families. We do not believe that it is better to admit a man, no matter how
well educated, to be separated from his family and to live here by himself. It is better neither for
the country nor for him” (Congressional Record 1897: 1228). Even as they supported
exclusionary measures such as a literacy test for would-be immigrants, many politicians still saw
the benefit of a united family, not only for a man, but for the nation as well.
Perhaps the most startling example of official support for family unity alongside
exclusionary fervor can be seen in the family unity provisions extended to Chinese merchant
men. Chinese immigrants, whose numbers increased in the 1870s, drew greater scrutiny and
11
harsher treatment. The United States implemented the first federal immigrant exclusion policy,
the Page Law in 1875, which banned all immigrant prostitutes and prohibited the entry of
Chinese women in particular for “lewd and immoral purposes” (Chan 1991: 94-164; Peffer 1999;
Appendix to the Congressional Record 1875: 40-45).4 Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion
Act in 1882, banning all Chinese laborers with passage of the first, last, and only ethnic-specific
exclusionary law (Lee 2003; Riggs 1950).5 Despite their unfit racial status, Chinese merchants
possessed appropriate class standing. Thus, they had family reunification rights not available to
most Chinese immigrants—one of the first examples of family unity provisions in immigration
law. Although immigration officials sometimes questioned the validity of Chinese men’s
merchant status, the veracity of these claims is less important to the current discussion than the
fact that these provisions existed at all and permitted a mode of legal entry.6
Although these features of Chinese immigrant regulation seem at odds with one
another—that is, an official respect for family and coverture that emphasized gender privilege
versus administrative practice that exercised ethnic exclusion—they were both part of family
ideation that helped to spell out notions of gender and sexual propriety, class ideals, and racial
fitness and desirability. This family ideation was crucial for the characterization of the Chinese
as inassimilable and a threat to the nation even as gendered ideals of family opened up
opportunities for some individuals who possessed other attributes of fitness. Thus, politicians
regularly referred to what they considered to be deviant about Chinese immigrants, especially
4
Though the law denied entry to any subject coming from “China, Japan, or any oriental
country,” the real target was Chinese women.
5
Congress made the act permanent in 1902, repealing it in 1943 when China became the
United States’ ally in its war against Japan.
6
William Jack Chow, an immigration attorney, guessed that at least half of all Chinese
immigrants who entered during the exclusion era did so illegally, using fraudulent claims and
documents (Ngai 2004: 204).
12
their supposed connection to prostitution and bachelor communities, in efforts to push for their
exclusion. For example, Charles Wolcott Brooks was an American who worked for the Japanese
government and was the former Japanese consul in San Francisco. He testified before the Special
Committee on Chinese Immigration convened by the California State Senate in 1878 and argued:
“The Chinese are bad for us, because they come here without their families. Families are the
centers of all that is elevating in mankind, yet here we have a very large Chinese male
population. The Chinese females that are here make this element more dangerous still”
(California Legislature 1878: 16). Similarly, Senator James Blaine (R-ME) spoke on the Senate
floor in 1879 in debates over whether the United States ought to abrogate the Burlingame Treaty,
which had enabled Chinese immigration thus far, in a step toward making Chinese exclusion
possible. He declared: “The Asiatic cannot go on with our population and make a homogenous
element.” He further claimed that the Chinese had “no regard to family,” did not “recognize the
relation of husband and wife,” and did “not have in the slightest degree the ennobling and
civilizing influences of the hearthstone and the fireside” (Congressional Record 1879: 1301). In
the explicit message that Chinese immigrants did not care about family was an implicit message
that their kinds of families were unwanted and could also threaten our kinds of families.
The rhetoric used to characterize Chinese as inassimilable opened up more favorable
immigration opportunities for Japanese immigrants who began to immigrate in greater numbers
after 1900. Whereas Congress made the Chinese Exclusion Act permanent in 1902 (which was
reversed only in 1943 when the U.S. and China became wartime allies), the United States
implemented a more favorable policy towards Japan. Japan and the United States negotiated the
terms of an immigration policy outlined in the Gentlemen’s Agreement, a series of six memos
exchanged between late 1907 and early 1908. The Japanese government pledged not to issue
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passports to laborers, skilled or unskilled, for the continental United States in exchange for
concessions regarding laborers already residing in the United States and their right to bring over
families.7 Japan was permitted to continue issuing passports to parents, wives, and children of
laborers already in the United States.
A number of factors explain why policies toward Japanese immigration began with
partial restriction and family reunification. During the height of Chinese immigration, Japan and
its subjects were characterized as superior to China and its people (Ichioka 1988; O’Brien and
Fugita 1991). This comparison was cast in familial terms as politicians and leading intellectuals
presented Japanese immigrants in more favorable light to the Chinese. For example, the San
Francisco Chronicle noted the difference between the two groups: “The objections raised against
the Chinese… cannot be alleged against the Japanese…. They have brought their wives, children
and… new industries among us” (Daniels 1977: 3). Crucial differences between the two groups
highlighted by many commentators centered on gender relations and notions of proper family
arrangements.
The United States also conceded a more favorable immigration policy to Japan, agreeing
to the terms of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, because Japan was a major geopolitical power.
Unlike China, which faced declining influence as it was besieged by domestic and international
crises, Japan emerged as an important international player after its defeat of Russia in the RussoJapanese War of 1905. Thus, geopolitics, as other scholars have documented, mattered greatly
(Daniels 1988; Hing 1993). Other important factors included the timing of Japanese immigrants’
7
The reference to “continental United States” was an important distinction. Japanese
immigrants first migrated to the Hawaiian island (which was a U.S. territory until its statehood in
1959) then made the second migratory move to the continental U.S., landing often on the Pacific
Coast. Following the Gentlemen’s Agreement, Japanese immigrants could no longer use Hawaii
as a stepping stone.
14
arrival. They followed Chinese immigrants just as the United States began to recover from a
national economic recession, beginning in the 1890s and increasing more significantly after
1900. Although these contextual factors shaped the overall more favorable policy toward the
Japanese, the particular allowance for family unity owed more to family ideation, which
identified new immigrants as good and assimilable, depending on their familial characteristics.
The family reunification provisions were short-lived; based on their racial ineligibility for
naturalization, Japanese immigrants were banned in the Immigration Act of 1924 (Haney López
1996; Ngai 2004). Nevertheless, the varying treatment was hugely consequential, creating a
viable American-born second generation (Nisei) for the Japanese but not for the Chinese (Lee
2010). By 1920, there were over 111,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans in the continental
U.S., and over a quarter of them were native-born citizens (Rossiter et al. 1922: 137, 174).8
The seeming reverence for family continued throughout the exclusionary era even as
lawmakers passed ever more draconian measures. These examples of family unity provisions
highlight the point that family reunification existed long before the 1965 Hart-Celler Act. The
ways in which immigration stakeholders invoked family in order to defend family unity while
exclusionary laws were enacted suggest that family reunification is not necessarily always about
immigrant support and immigration expansion. Family reunification as a part of family ideation
can be part of anti-immigrant sentiment. We can see more evidence of this in the next section on
the history of the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
8
Rossiter et al. explain that as of 1920, there were 110,010 Japanese in the United States
mainland and 109,274 in Hawaii.
15
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
After passage of the National Origins Act in 1924, liberal members of Congress made
futile efforts to overturn the discriminatory policy. Although the demands of a changing world
order wrought by World War II and the Cold War helped stir support for some piecemeal efforts
at reform such as the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 and the end of Asian exclusion
(which was nonetheless limited to 2,000 per year) in the Immigration and Naturalization or
McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, national origins policy remained. Still, important institutional and
ideological shifts, such as political realignment in Congress and the discrediting of eugenics
during World War II opened up new political space for reformists.
Before national origins policy could be ended, political alliances and leadership had to
change. With continued dominance of restrictionists’ leadership roles in the House and Senate,
especially Pat McCarran’s (D-NV) chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and with
critical alliances in Congress between Southern and Western Democrats and Republicans who
supported the national origins quota system, reformers lacked the institutional setting for their
telling of immigration reform needs. Opportunities for successful legislative action, which
directly challenged national origins policy, did not emerge until the retirement of key political
figures such as McCarran from the Senate in 1954. Representative Francis Walter (D-PA),
McCarran’s co-sponsor in the 1952 law, served in the House until his death in 1963. In addition,
other central supporters of national origins policy, including Representative Michael A. Feighan
(D-OH) and Senator James Eastland (D-MS), had to be outmaneuvered through the orchestration
of an increasingly more engaged White House (Tichenor 2002: 211-16).
16
As political space opened, reform advocates continued to mount pressure for change.
They stepped up the claim that family reunification was important by emphasizing how the effect
of denying family unity due to national origins policy undermined American interests
internationally. They reiterated claims made during World War II and its immediate aftermath.
Immigration reform was vital for serving the national interest—for presenting the United States
as the leader and defender of democracy. As with World War II, an international crisis—now the
exigencies of a détente with the Soviet Union—gave reformers an opportunity to frame the issue
of immigration as one requiring ever more urgent action. Thus, for example, in a series of notes,
Representative Emanuel Celler (D-NY), the eventual sponsor of the 1965 Immigration Act in the
House, identified a number of problems—both family related and not—he saw in the workings
of national origins policy. In preparation for a speech on immigration titled, “Further Examples
of how the National Origins Theory Prove Unworkable,” he noted, “The history of our
immigration legislation since World War II is a clear example of the ineffectiveness of our
present national origins law to meet our national and international needs,” referring to displaced
persons and GIs desiring to bring alien wives. He continued: “The most recent example of how
the national origins law prevents us from doing what is right and proper is the Hungarian
situation, where an explosion of freedom fighters against communism enabled us to show our
traditional humanitarian belief in the right of asylum only through disregard of the provisions of
the law.”9 He lamented that the U.S. could respond to the “Hungarian situation” only by acting
contrary to the official immigration policy. Celler continued: “Something must clearly be wrong
9
Emanuel Celler, “Further Examples of how the National Origins Theory Prove
Unworkable,” undated typed note: 2-3, Box 492, Folder: “Immigration – General 1961-62 Folder
#1,” Emanuel Celler Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter Celler Papers).
17
with a law that stands in the way of so many important and critical national objectives.”10 He
concluded “the national origins theory does not work, is not being applied and is broken down by
all kinds of special legislation including refugee provisions.”11 He believed, “National origins
[was] more honored in the breach than in the observance.”12
Celler and other immigration experts knew that the United States regularly ignored
official policy and that there was a disconnect between the law in action and the law on the
books. It was a policy gap—one in which the existing national origins policy was unable to
address extant circumstances (Majone 1989). For example, although national origins policy was
the official policy, family reunification was the dominant mode of entry between 1953 and 1965,
the years that the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) of 1952 or the McCarran-Walter
Act was in effect. During those thirteen years, some 3.5 million documented immigrants entered
the U.S., and only a little over a third were quota immigrants. The rest were non-quota
immigrants and represented the majority of all immigrants in all thirteen years. Over 237,000
Asian immigrants, whose entry was officially limited to just 2,000 per year by the “Asia-Pacific
triangle” clause of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, arrived—mostly as non-quota
10
Ibid., 3. Celler also showed that national origins policy was not working by stating that
in the fiscal year ended in 1960, quota immigrants accounted for 101,373–out of a possible
154,887, leaving unused 53,514. However, a total of 265,398 aliens, both quota and non-quota,
were admitted. Of the 164,025 nonquota immigrants, 34,215 were spouses and children of U.S.
citizens; 91,701 natives of Western Hemisphere countries and their spouses and children; 485
ministers with their families; and 30,906 came under special legislation.
11
Celler, “The National Origins System Does Not Work,” undated typed note: 5, Box
492, Folder: “Immigration–General 1961-62 Folder #1,” Celler Papers.
12
Celler, undated handwritten note, Box 492, Folder: “Immigration–General 1961-62
Folder #2,” Celler Papers.
18
family members of Asian Americans who exercised newly gained family unity provisions as
citizens (Immigration and Naturalization Service 1960: table 14, 1965: table 14).13
In addition to framing immigration reform as a national interest that benefited the United
States’ international policy objectives, reform advocates made family reunification increasingly
the focus and explicit goal of a new law that would overturn national origins. That is, reformers
made family reunification itself a primary goal instead of simply pushing for the end of national
origins policy. Quite significantly, such discursive reference and shift in policy goal came from
the president as the White House played an ever more important role in setting the agenda for
immigration reform. Since the Truman administration, immigration reform had been an
important issue for the White House, and over successive administrations, the president and his
advisors more explicitly focused on family reunification as a major priority of the reform effort.
For example, in his address to Congress on February 8, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower
stated that family reunion was an important element—albeit of many—of a reformed
immigration policy. According to him, these elements included, “the needs of this country for
persons having specialized skills or cultural accomplishments; close family relationships; the
populations and immigration policies of countries sending immigrants to this country; their past
immigration and trade relationships with this country; and their assistance to the joint defense of
the friendly free nations of the world” (Eisenhower 1960: 241).
Within a few years, political leaders identified family reunification as the fundamental
goal of immigration goal. In 1960, presidential nominees Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice
President Richard Nixon offered their thoughts on immigration reform when Representative
13
Between 1954 and 1955, 22,951 Asian immigrants entered the United States, and
between 1956 and 1965, 214,997 were admitted.
19
Alfred Santangelo (D-NY) asked both candidates to weigh in on his proposal to liberalize the
existing immigration policy. Vice President Nixon replied that “the United States has been built
by immigrants from other countries” and continued that “[h]umanitarianism itself calls for action
to bring about a reunion of immediate family members under preferential quotas.”14 Expressing
similar sentiments, Senator Kennedy wrote that he was “concerned with reforming our
immigration laws so they will better meet our national needs and international responsibilities.”
He continued:
I believe that the most important immediate objective of immigration reform is the reuniting of families. There are many new citizens in America whose immediate families
are in other lands, waiting patiently to join them. In countries which oversubscribe their
quotas, they have been waiting for many years. We have a social obligation to bring these
families together. For this purpose, I have suggested that non-quota status be granted to
parents, minor children and spouses of citizens and resident aliens, provided they are
otherwise eligible under the law … Ours is a nation of immigrants … And if our country
is to be the leader of democracy in the world, our immigration policies should conform
more fully to the principles of equal justice on which our country was founded.15
Unlike earlier discussions of family reunification, which referred to family reunification as just
actions for meritorious and deserving military service personnel and their family or as a way to
preserve the racial status quo, Kennedy identified family unity as a just goal in and of itself. In
14
Richard Nixon, letter dated September 26, 1960, “Letters to Representative Alfred E.
Santangelo, September-October 1960.” Retrieved January 15, 2013
(http://www.jfklink.com/speeches/joint/ app15_santangelo.html)
15
Letter dated October 8, 1960, Box 492, Folder: “Immigration–General 1961-62 Folder
#2,” Celler Papers.
20
their references to the United States’ immigrant history and to the “principles of equal justice”
and “humanitarianism,” Kennedy and Nixon, respectively, conceptualized a national identity and
the family in new moral, and not racial, terms.
Despite Kennedy’s affirmation of family reunification and commitment to immigration
reform, as president, he did not offer immigration legislation until after Representative Walter’s
death in 1963. That year Representative Celler and Senator Philip Hart (D-MI) introduced a bill,
which proposed a preference system with 50 percent of visas reserved for family reunification
and the other 50 percent for persons with needed skills and education. The legislation, however,
stalled in Congress as restrictionists Senator Eastland and Representative Feighan blocked the
bill, preventing even hearings for the bill (Tichenor 2002: 209).
After President Johnson’s election and the Democratic Party’s landslide victory in 1964,
immigration reformers finally had a more favorable Congress (McAdam 2015). President
Johnson transmitted a bill to Congress on January 13, 1965 for reforming the Immigration and
Naturalization Act. The bill, introduced in the House and Senate by Celler and Hart, respectively,
proposed to end national origins policy; abolish the Asia-Pacific triangle; and establish a
preferential system for those with skills and for close relatives of citizens and permanent
residents (Congressional Record 1965: 639). In hearings for the proposed legislation, the
administration’s Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach spoke on behalf of the bill, arguing the
need for urgent action. He stated:
I say urgency for three reasons, any of which alone justifies prompt remedy. The first is
the reason of elemental humanity. Under present law, we are requiring the separation of
families—indeed, in some cases, calling on mothers to choose between their children and
America. The second reason is one of domestic self-interest. Under present law, brilliant
21
and skilled residents of other countries are prevented or delayed from coming to this
country. We are depriving our selves needlessly of their talents. As President Johnson
observed in his immigration message, “This is neither good government nor good sense.”
The third reason for urgency is our self-interest abroad. Under present law, we choose
among potential immigrants not on the basis of what they can contribute to our society or
to our economic strength. We choose, instead on the basis of where they—or in some
cases even their ancestors—happened to be born. There is little logic or consistency in
such a choice, when we proclaim that our system of freedom is superior to the rival
system of fear; when we proclaim to all the peoples of the world that everyman is born
equal and that in America every man is free, to demonstrate his individual talents.
H.R. 2580 would eliminate such illogic and such injustice to immigrants. (U.S. Congress
1965: 1)
Katzenbach concluded by saying, “we must be concerned, above all, with justice” (U.S.
Congress 1965: 5).
In debates on the House and Senate floors, supporters stressed these moral and humane
dimensions. Representative Jacob Gilbert (D-NY) claimed: “Under the new immigration system,
immigrants will be selected not on the basis of their race but primarily on their family
relationship to American citizens and on the talents and skills that they possess.” He added: “The
bill [H.R. 2580], then, goes far toward eliminating the cruelties of family separation which the
United States has inadvertently been responsible for committing under the old law”
(Congressional Record 1965: 21770). On the Senate floor, the bill’s co-sponsor Senator Philip
Hart (D-MI) stressed: “Moral and national interest reasons justify a new immigration policy.
Aside from its racial and ethnic discrimination, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
22
fails to give sufficient recognition to the principle of family unity” (Congressional Record 1965:
24238).” He argued that “a compelling priority in any reform bill is the urgent need to facilitate
the reunion of families” and discussed “the historic value of immigration to our economy”
(Congressional Record 1965: 24239).
The White House and bill supporters added pressure on the remaining restrictionists and
maneuvered to quiet their opposition. In particular, they had to contend with interference from
Representative Feighan who tried to introduce his own bill. In private conversation with Senator
Edward Kennedy (D-MA), President Johnson acknowledged that they had to “work on him a
little bit,” to which Senator Kennedy replied that “he’s a tough cookie.”16 Supporters were
successful in placating the restrictionists, and Congress passed the Hart-Celler Act on October 3,
1965. The new law phased out the national origins system over a three-year period before
eliminating it permanently. An overall quota of 120,000 visas was set aside for Western
Hemisphere immigrants and 170,000 for Eastern Hemisphere immigrants, with a cap of 20,000
per nation (see Table 1).
Table 1 here
Family reunification became the centerpiece of the new American immigration policy
with 74 percent of all visas reserved for family members of American citizens and permanent
residents. The remaining 26 percent were divided between professionals or those with special
talent and education, skilled or unskilled laborers who fulfilled particular labor needs in the
16
Recording of Telephone Conversation between Lyndon B. Johnson and Edward
Kennedy, March 8, 1965, 9:10 p.m., Tape WH6503-04-7043, Presidential Recordings Program,
Miller Center, University of Virginia. Retrieved February 3, 2012
(http://whitehousetapes.net/transcript/johnson/wh6503-04-7043)
23
United States, and to refugees fleeing Communism or the Middle East. United States citizens
continued to have the right to bring over their immediate family members on an unlimited/nonquotas basis. However, for the first time, “immediate family” now included the parents of these
U.S. citizens. In debates, congressional members stated that the importance of including parents
of U.S. citizens. For example, Representative John V. Lindsay (R-NY) argued: “The family
relationship is the most important standard of all in this problem of priorities in immigration, and
parents of U.S. citizens should be included in the high priority list” (Congressional Record 1964:
12252). By including parents to the category of immediate family, Lindsay and other leaders
might have assumed that this was a largely symbolic, yet inconsequential, endorsement for
enlarging the meaning of “immediate family.” In the early 1960s, only about 30,000 spouses and
children entered. Lawmakers may have guessed that the addition of parents would add few
immigrants to that total. In the last decade, the number of parents of U.S. citizens entering the
United States has been over 100,000 annually (Office of Immigration Statistics 2012: table 6).17
This, like many other demographic changes generated by the post-1965 immigration, has been an
unintended consequence.
Representative Feighan’s move to alter Senator Kennedy’s proposals to have half of visas
to skills-related immigration and half to family reunification certainly contributed to these
changes. Feighan made family reunification the centerpiece of the new law with 74 percent of
visas reserved for families, and in some sense, lessened the reform impact of the original
Kennedy-Johnson proposal. He ensured that there were four preference categories for family
reunification and just two for immigrants with needed skills and educational backgrounds, of
which the White House proposal originally wanted more. The largest preference category was
17
Since 2006, the number of parents entering the United States as immediate relatives of
U.S. citizens has been well over 110,000 annually.
24
for brothers and sisters with 24 percent of the visas, helping to give the act the label of “Brothers
and Sisters Act” (Reimers 1983: 9-28). Feighan spoke passionately in support of uniting families
and objected to “the large number of families in our Nation, split and separated by war, tyranny
and human upsets, with some members living abroad waiting for a quota number to join their
loved ones in the United States. The waiting period in many instances is long and trying, difficult
if not impossible to justify in light of the primary moral value our society attaches to the integrity
of the family” (Congressional Record 1964: 20760).
Feighan also articulated the value of family for the nation—one that was central to its
history and vital for the future. In a speech delivered in February 1965, he declared: “The highest
values of our free society are the integrity of the family and the sanctity of the home. The
strength and stability of our nation flows from a firm adherence to these values. Families, split
and divided by peculiarities of law rather than free choice, are at variance with our long standing
tradition. Our first obligation should be to correct this inequity of law and to prevent its
recurrence.”18 In talking about the importance of a united family, Feighan defined the new core
goal of family reunification as central to not only American immigration policy but American
value and national identity—not the earlier effort of limiting entry by the racially undesirable
through a system of national origins quotas.
However, the two goals of family reunification and maintenance of the racial status quo
were not necessarily contradictory. They were amenable to one another and perhaps even
equivalent. For example, Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC) supported national origins policy and
18
Michael A. Feighan, “Some Insights on Immigration, Address of Honorable Michael A.
Feighan, United States Representative, 20th Ohio District, Delivered at the Thirty-sixth Annual
Conference of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, The Mayflower Hotel, Washington,
DC, February 4, 1965”: 10, Box 40, Folder: “Cleveland Hearings on HR 2580,” Michael A.
Feighan Papers, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University.
25
called for immigration restriction as he believed the United States no longer needed immigration
from other countries, population-wise. Furthermore, he stated:
There is nothing in the national origins quota system which has any connotation of the
idea of racial superiority or racial inferiority. This system is, indeed, inconsistent with
any such concept.… The preferences which would be established by this proposal
[Amendment of Immigration and Nationality Act, H.R. 2580] are based, I believe, on
sound reasoning and meritorious considerations, not entirely dissimilar in effect from
those which underlie the national origins quotas of existing law. Blood relationships and
family ties stem from the same sense of identity and preference, and it is most desirable
that unification of families be a major consideration in our immigration formula.
(Congressional Record 1965: 24237)
Like Senator Thurmond, few lawmakers could have anticipated that those taking
advantage of family reunification provisions would be anyone other than immigrants who had
assimilated into the United States by then (Chin 1996)19—the southern and eastern European
immigrants who had been previously considered inassimilable but were now simply “white”—
since prospective immigrants needed close family members to sponsor them (Brodkin 1998;
Jacobson 1998; Waters 1990). Given the over-subscription of the fourth preference for brothers
and sisters in the 1952 Act and the resulting backlog of brothers and sisters waiting to enter,
lawmakers were perhaps right to presume that most of the immigrants entering under the revised
policy would be the siblings of earlier European immigrants (Wolgin 2011: 42).20
19
In his interviews with lawmakers, Chin found that many claimed to have expected this.
However, these politicians may have tried to take credit for an outcome they never anticipated
(but has been supported by many) in an effort to court these new groups.
20
In particular, by 1962, Italy had a backlog of 136,858 applicants, seeking to enter using
the fourth preference.
26
Even supporters like Senator Hiram Fong (R-HI) could not fathom the racial and ethnic
shift in immigration flows. He dispelled as groundless the fear that “an increase in the number of
Asian immigrants would upset the historical and cultural pattern of American life.” Based on the
1960 census, he emphasized the small number of Americans of Asian descent in the United
States and argued that the allotment for Asians in the proposed immigration bill was too
insignificant to cause fear among Americans (Congressional Record 1965: 24467). Lawmakers
did not anticipate the eventual dominance of Asian and Latin American immigration—an
unintended consequence—as immigration scholars have argued (Ngai 2004; Reimers 1985).21
Thus, for most lawmakers—reformers and restrictionists alike—the new law may have
been a way to end the national origins quota system but without making significant changes to
immigration flows, and more importantly, the nature of American racial and national identity.
Nonetheless, by altering the law to end national origins policy, they made family reunification
and the importance of family core features of American immigration policy. This helped to
frame the new commitment to family reunification as central to American values and reflective
of its democratic principles. It is therefore understandable why the 1965 Act conjures ideas that
the law’s passage exemplified liberal progress. However, motivation for passage was also rooted
in belief that aligning U.S. immigration policy with its pronounced commitment to democratic
21
The 1965 law limited immigration from Western Hemisphere countries to 120,000
(effective July 1, 1968) and thus initially depressed immigration from Latin American countries.
The 1976 Immigration and Naturalization Act Amendments applied the 20,000 per-country limit
to the Western Hemisphere, and the 1978 law set a single world-wide ceiling of 290,000 into
which the separate limits for the Eastern and Western Hemispheres were combined. Other major
laws, such as Cuban Refugees Adjustment Act, Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act,
Immigration Reform and Control Act, and Immigration Act of 1990 helped to increase Latin
American immigration—particularly as these immigrants have sponsored family members for
entry. In addition to Asian and Latin American immigration, as stated previously, African
immigration has grown substantially.
27
values would yield little actual change. Recognizing the complicated nature of immigration
reform demonstrates more complex view of family reunification.
Conclusion
Despite strong public interest, mass demonstrations for change, and support from two
presidential administrations, Congress failed several times in the last decade to pass
comprehensive immigration reform bills. With no legislative action coming, President Barack
Obama issued two major executive orders in the last three years. In 2012, President Obama
issued an executive order that deferred deportation orders for qualified unauthorized immigrants
who had been brought to the United States by their families when they were minors (Preston
2012).22 After the 2014 midterm election, he announced another executive order, which protects
about four million undocumented immigrants from deportation and allows those without
criminal records to work legally in the U.S. (Shear and Pear 2014).
While attention in 1965 focused on fixing policy for regulating legal immigration, reform
efforts today focus most significantly on what to do with the estimated 11.5 million unauthorized
immigrants in the United States. There are an estimated 8.8 million families with a head of
household or spouse who is unauthorized (Hoefer, Rytina, and Baker, 2012; Wasem, 2012).
These mixed-status families include 16.6 million persons. More than 80 percent of the children
in such families are U.S.-born citizens—an estimated 4.5 million children in 2001 (Taylor et al.,
22
See also the White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “Remarks by the President on
Immigration,” June 15, 2012. Retrieved November 3, 2012 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/thepress-office/2012/06/15/remarks-president-immigration); Secretary of Homeland Security Janet
Napolitano, “Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the
United States as Children,” June 15, 2012. Retrieved November 3, 2012
(http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/s1-exercising-prosecutorial-discretion-individuals-whocame-to-us-as-children.pdf).
28
2011). If one or more of the unauthorized immigrants in these households were deported,
millions of children and their families would be affected. In addition, legal permanent residents
continue to face years of separation from their spouses and children as they wait for the yearslong backlog of over-subscribed, family-sponsored visas to clear so that they can be reunited.23
Thus, while immigration patterns and pressures for reform may differ from 1965, what
remain still true today are the concerned calls regarding the separation of families—that families
are separated by a broken system. For example, President Obama’s proposal for immigration
reform called for, among others, reuniting families in a timely and humane manner. He
expressed “deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes
from our broken immigration system.”24 Politicians have decried the untenable system as
contrary to the needs and values of the country. Calling for legislative action, Representative
Barbara Lee (D-CA) stated, “Mr. Speaker we need immigration reform because our system is
broken. We need it for family unity, for accountability, for fairness and equality, and for the
good of our country and economy (Congressional Record 2013: E116). Similarly, in October
2013, discussing immigration and women, Representative Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) explained:
“Far too many mothers have been separated from their children because our immigration system
does not value family unity and parental rights. Family values are American values. Women
23
The years-long wait is particularly long for family-sponsored immigrants coming from
mainland China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines. See U.S. Department of State, Bureau of
Consular Affairs, “Visa Bulletin for November 2014,” November 2014. Retrieved January 3,
2015 (http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy/bulletin/2015/visa-bulletin-fornovember-2014.html).
24
The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “Readout of the President’s Meeting
with Faith Leaders on Commonsense Immigration Reform,” April 15, 2014. Retrieved August 5,
2014 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/04/15/readout-president-s-meetingfaith-leaders-commonsense-immigration-reform).
29
waiting decades to reunite with their families is not acceptable” (Congressional Record 2013:
H6808).
Images of separated families, particularly of children pulled apart from their parents, have
the potential to draw attention and calls for action. Many immigration supporters and liberal
legislators have invoked family to draw support and to argue that separated families are
antithetical to American values and to democratic ideals of fairness and equality espoused in the
passage of the 1965 Act. However, as this article has shown, a commitment to family
reunification is not necessarily emblematic of immigrant support or democratic ideals.
As a matter of political reform, the emphasis on family could ultimately undermine
support for vulnerable families. The focus on family in immigration limits the meaning of
responsibility and rights to paternalistic relations between citizen and state. The parent/child
relationship demands the former to provide and obligates the latter to behave in exchange for
benefits. By talking about immigration rights in familial terms, immigration stakeholders reduce
the complex process of migration to one in which the nation-state confers special rights to
individuals and families who act responsibly and are deemed appropriate. In this sense,
migration and the right to move across national borders to reunite with families becomes less a
human right and more a state-sanctioned privilege for a select group (Freeman, 1998; Guiraudon,
1998; Jacobson 1996; Morris 2003; Soysal 1995).
Before, during, and after passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, political elites’
conception of family and their perception of immigrant groups as “like one of the family” and
therefore, assimilable into the nation, engendered family unity provisions. During periods of
exclusion, gendered claims about family opened up liminal space for lucky individuals who
possessed appropriate class attributes even as their racial or ethnic status made them excludable.
30
Family ideation provided immigration stakeholders a way to make sense of the change and
challenges associated with immigration. Likewise, as domestic and international demands
created new urgencies and as shifting political alignments created new legislative opportunities
in the post-World War II era, political leaders again turned to talk of family to debate and
articulate what role immigration should play in the United States. Their meaning construction
helped to push forward reform efforts that led to the replacement of national origins policy with
family reunification.
By examining the complicated history of family reunification in American immigration,
this article has shown that family unity provisions have resulted from political compromise. They
have also been the unintended consequences of political rhetoric stated in defense of prejudice in
the immigration system. This suggests family reunification is not simply the touchstone piece of
a new democratically liberal immigration policy as the Hart-Celler Act has been largely
celebrated. Instead, the meaning of family and family reunification in American immigration is
complicated, and our understanding of it requires a longer historical lens and critically nuanced
attention, particularly as we evaluate the legacy and impact of the 1965 Immigration and
Nationality Act and work toward comprehensive immigration reform.
31
Table 1 Hart-Celler Act of 1965
Major Provisions and Family Preferences
Limit
290,0001
Per-country limit
20,000
Family preferences limit
74%
Not limited
1st Preference
Immediate family members
(spouses, children, and parents) of U.S. citizens2
Unmarried sons and daughters3 of U.S. citizens
20% (58,000)
Spouses and unmarried sons and daughters4
2nd Preference
of permanent resident aliens
20% (58,000)
3rd Preference
Members of the professions of exceptional ability in sciences and
arts and their spouses and children
10% (29,000)
Married sons and daughters5 of U.S. citizens
4th Preference
and their spouses and children
10% (29,000)
Brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens2
5th Preference
and their spouses and children
24% (69,600)
6th Preference
Skilled or unskilled workers in occupations in which labor is in
short supply and their spouses and children
10% (29,000)
7th Preference
Refugees6
6% (10,200)
A “child” is defined as an unmarried person under 21 years of age, unless otherwise noted.
1
The 1965 Immigration Act set a ceiling of 170,000 on Eastern Hemisphere immigration. It also limited Western
Hemisphere immigration, effective July 1, 1968, to 120,000 annually without per-country limits. The 1976
Immigration and Naturalization Act Amendments applied the 20,000 per-country limit to the Western Hemisphere.
32
The 1978 law set a single world-wide ceiling of 290,000, and the Refugee Act of 1980 set the worldwide ceiling at
270,000.
2
To sponsor parents or siblings, the petitioning U.S. citizen must be aged 21 or older.
3
Aged 21 or older.
4
The second preference “unmarried sons and daughters” included both minor and adult children.
5
Married sons or daughters are persons who have recognized parent-child relationship and are married, regardless of
age.
6
The seventh preference category of the 1965 act reserved 6% of Eastern hemisphere immigrant visas to refugees.
As the ceiling for the Eastern hemisphere visas was initially set at 170,000, the number for the category was 10,200.
It increased to 17,400 when the 1978 law set a single world-wide ceiling of 290,000. By the 1980 Refugee Act,
refugees were admitted separately and were not under the preference system. The 6% preference for refugees from
1965 was added to the second preference, increasing it from 20% to 26%.
33
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