“Nations, like individuals, make mistakes. We must be big enough
to acknowledge our mistakes of the past and correct them.”
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt, October 11, 1943
“The House cannot fail to pass this bill without dealing a serious blow to one of our allies— and thus to ourselves and the whole United Nations cause. If the bill is enacted speedily and overwhelmingly, as it should be, it will do much to cement the good relations between China and the United States and to spur the war effort in the Far East.” “How would we like it if any other country in the world...were to say that no Americans should be admitted into that country as an immigrant?” |
“The bill before us is an entering wedge to aid in further efforts to break down our immigration laws and take away their protection for own citizens.” “I want any jobs available after the war to go to our soldiers. When I vote against the repeal of the Chinese exclusion acts,I am voting for every American man and woman in uniform.” |
“The legislation proposed in this bill is for the purpose of repealing the Chinese exclusion laws, to place Chinese persons on a small quota basis, and to make persons of the Chinese race eligible to become naturalized citizens.” |
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“In 1943, Congress passed a measure to repeal the discriminatory exclusion laws against Chinese immigrants and to establish an immigration quota for China of around 105 visas per year.” |
“Legal discrimination was no longer acceptable in immigration law after the Civil Rights Act.
This principle was encoded into the 1965 Immigration Act.”
- Erika Lee, Director of the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, Email Interview
Also known as the Hart-Celler Act,
this landmark law abolished the national origins quota system and established the modern American system of immigrant admission. By giving first preference to immigrants with valuable skills and social family relationships, it changed the U.S. demographics for years to come. |
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“This bill that we will 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. ... Yet it is still one of the most important acts of this Congress and of this administration.
For it does repair a very deep and painful flaw in the fabric of American justice.
It corrects a cruel and enduring wrong in the conduct of the American nation.”
- President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965
“The president would be proven wrong:
A half-century later, the United States has been transformed,
and millions of immigrant lives have been affected—if in very different ways.”
- Erika Lee, "The Contradictory Legacy of the 1965 Immigration Act"