In 1943 Congress passed the Magnuson Act, which lifted barriers to citizenship for most immigrants of Asian origin. This law also repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which had been in effect since 1882. Minimal immigration quotas were now permitted. From China, 100 people selected by the U.S. government could now enter the country annually. In 1946 immigrants from India were also granted a token immigration quota of 100.

Another factor leading to changes in immigration policy was the U.S. employers’ growing labor needs. In 1943, legislation was passed setting up “guest worker” status, known as the bracero program, providing for workers to be brought into the United States from Mexico and other countries in Latin America. This program, in effect until 1964, employed 5 million Mexican workers on a temporary basis with low pay, long hours, poor conditions, and no union rights in the fields of the Southwest and factories of the Southeast.

The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, formally lifted the policy on racial exclusion and bans on immigration from any particular country. The law was adopted during the Cold War years and also provided for the deportation of immigrants or naturalized citizens for advocating “subversive activities.”

McCarran-Walter abolished the “Asiatic Barred Zone,” replacing it with what was called the “Asia-Pacific Triangle.” Immigration from all countries in this region was capped at 2,000 per year. Entry into the United States was to be based on ethnic categories and not exclusively limited to geographic origin. For example, a person of Japanese origin living in France would be counted under Japan’s quota limit.

The law retained the national origins quota system, in place since 1924, but slightly raised overall country quotas. Entry of immigrants from all nations in the Western Hemisphere, many of whom entered through the border with Mexico, remained unrestricted.

During the first historic immigration surge in the United States, from 1880 to 1920, nearly 90 percent of the 23.5 million immigrants had come from Europe. For the next several decades, the national origins quota system sharply reduced these numbers. By the early 1950s, the United States was no longer comprised of many first-generation immigrants.

Over the course of the 1950s, immigration patterns began to shift. During that decade, 2.5 million people entered the country, a million more than during the previous two decades combined. Less than half of these immigrants were admitted under the quota system, and 1 million came from Canada, Mexico, and Latin America.

The Japanese government’s propaganda during World War II had exposed Washington’s hypocrisy in its claims of concern for the people of China at the same time as it enforced onerous restrictions on immigration. The U.S. rulers were also confronted with the impact of the struggles for independence from colonial rule sweeping Asia and Africa, especially the successful independence struggle in India after World War II, the triumph of the Chinese revolution in 1949, and the battles against colonial rule in Vietnam and Algeria.

These changes in world politics, together with the mass civil rights movement at home, and the increased need for labor power at a time of economic expansion, were key factors leading Washington to carry out major changes in its immigration policy.

In 1965 Congress modified the Immigration and Nationality Act, abolishing the national origins quota system that had been in place for four decades. The limit on total immigration was nearly doubled from 154,000 to 290,000 a year.

The law allowed for a maximum of 170,000 from outside the Americas, with a cap of 20,000 per country and a visa system favoring relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, refugees, and skilled workers.

For the first time an annual ceiling—120,000—was set on immigration from Mexico, the rest of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada. Neither per-country limits nor preference categories were included, however.

The 1965 law allowed Asian immigrants to enter on a more equal footing with people from other parts of the world. By the mid-1960s, the majority of immigrants coming to the United States were from Latin America and Asia, while those from Europe dropped below 20 percent. The U.S. capitalists drew in workers from Mexico and other semicolonial countries in order to meet their profit needs—a large pool of labor subject to second-class status that could be superexploited.  
 
 
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