WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 Welcome to this custom -tailored deep dive. Today 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:05.480 we're exploring a massive Wikipedia article on 00:00:05.480 --> 00:00:07.980 the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. 00:00:08.339 --> 00:00:10.740 Yeah, which you might also hear referred to as 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:13.849 the Hart -Celler Act. Right. And, you know, usually 00:00:13.849 --> 00:00:15.550 when we talk about writing a law, there's this 00:00:15.550 --> 00:00:17.910 expectation of absolute precision, almost like 00:00:17.910 --> 00:00:20.129 computer control. Exactly. You type in a specific 00:00:20.129 --> 00:00:22.609 command and the system executes exactly what 00:00:22.609 --> 00:00:24.629 you told it to do. Right. You assume the people 00:00:24.629 --> 00:00:26.730 steering the ship know exactly where the currents 00:00:26.730 --> 00:00:29.129 are going to take us. You pull a lever, you get 00:00:29.129 --> 00:00:31.210 a highly predictable outcome. We like to believe 00:00:31.210 --> 00:00:33.170 that anyway. But then you step into the world 00:00:33.170 --> 00:00:37.140 of historical legislation and suddenly... that 00:00:37.140 --> 00:00:39.840 precision just, well, it completely evaporates. 00:00:39.939 --> 00:00:41.859 It really does. We're looking at a legal landscape 00:00:41.859 --> 00:00:45.179 defined by just massive blind spots. Yeah. So 00:00:45.179 --> 00:00:48.159 our mission today is to unpack a story about 00:00:48.159 --> 00:00:51.960 what is arguably the most consequential, most 00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:54.280 explosive miscalculation in American history. 00:00:54.380 --> 00:00:56.850 Oh, without a doubt. We are looking at the legal 00:00:56.850 --> 00:01:00.350 DNA that completely re -engineered the demographic 00:01:00.350 --> 00:01:02.810 makeup of the United States, and the wild part 00:01:02.810 --> 00:01:05.370 is that it did exactly what its creators promised 00:01:05.370 --> 00:01:08.510 it would never do. Yeah, it is the absolute definition 00:01:08.510 --> 00:01:10.769 of unintended consequences. I mean, we are talking 00:01:10.769 --> 00:01:13.590 about a single piece of legislation that essentially 00:01:13.590 --> 00:01:16.349 built the modern version of the country we live 00:01:16.349 --> 00:01:18.510 in today. It really did. Now, before we jump 00:01:18.510 --> 00:01:20.829 into the actual mechanics of this, let's just 00:01:20.829 --> 00:01:22.829 set some quick ground rules for you listening. 00:01:22.890 --> 00:01:24.809 Always a good idea. We are going to be discussing... 00:01:24.680 --> 00:01:27.959 the exact contents of this historical text, and 00:01:27.959 --> 00:01:31.120 that includes some incredibly charged political 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:33.000 histories from both sides of the aisle. Right, 00:01:33.159 --> 00:01:35.659 because the debates over immigration are as intense 00:01:35.659 --> 00:01:40.019 today as they were in the 1960s. Exactly. Explicitly, 00:01:40.260 --> 00:01:42.959 our mandate here is simple. We are not taking 00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:45.640 political sides. No. We are not endorsing any 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:47.599 viewpoints of the politicians or the groups we 00:01:47.599 --> 00:01:50.579 mention. We are simply unpacking the fascinating 00:01:50.579 --> 00:01:53.560 facts, the political maneuvers and the historical 00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:56.400 impacts exactly as they are documented in our 00:01:56.400 --> 00:01:58.700 source material. We are just following the text, 00:01:58.700 --> 00:02:02.500 you know, wherever it leads. Right. So to understand 00:02:02.500 --> 00:02:05.319 why the 1965 act was such a massive earthquake, 00:02:05.719 --> 00:02:07.700 we have to look at the fortress that it replaced. 00:02:08.060 --> 00:02:09.879 We have to look at the before picture. Yeah, 00:02:10.020 --> 00:02:12.520 because the 1965 act didn't just appear in a 00:02:12.520 --> 00:02:16.340 vacuum. It was a radical break from decades of 00:02:16.340 --> 00:02:19.000 strict targeted exclusion. Right. So take us 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:22.020 back a bit. So if you go back to the 1920s, specifically 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:25.439 the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 and then 00:02:25.439 --> 00:02:28.400 the Immigration Act of 1924, the United States 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:30.780 established something called the National Origins 00:02:30.780 --> 00:02:33.080 Formula. The National Origins Formula. Right. 00:02:33.439 --> 00:02:35.080 And according to the U .S. Department of State's 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:37.719 own historian, the stated purpose of this formula 00:02:37.719 --> 00:02:41.560 was, quote, to preserve the ideal of U .S. homogeneity. 00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:44.560 OK, let's unpack this. How did that formula actually 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:46.319 work in practice? I mean, how did they enforce 00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:48.860 Homogeneity? Well, they engineered a quota system 00:02:48.860 --> 00:02:52.360 based entirely on the 1890 census. Wait, 1890? 00:02:52.439 --> 00:02:54.800 Why that specific year? Because they looked at 00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:57.539 the population of the U .S. in 1890, saw that 00:02:57.539 --> 00:02:59.479 it was mostly northern and western European, 00:02:59.699 --> 00:03:02.639 and then assigned future immigration visas based 00:03:02.639 --> 00:03:04.680 on those exact proportions. Oh, wow. So they 00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:06.819 rigged the baseline. Exactly. So if you were 00:03:06.819 --> 00:03:09.840 from Britain, Ireland or Germany, the door was 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:11.560 wide open because your group was already well 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:13.659 represented. Right. But if you were from southern 00:03:13.659 --> 00:03:16.560 and eastern Europe, places like Italy or Poland, 00:03:17.259 --> 00:03:20.340 the law severely restricted your entry. OK. But 00:03:20.340 --> 00:03:22.620 I have to assume that if you were from Asia or 00:03:22.620 --> 00:03:26.110 Africa. The quotas were basically non -existent. 00:03:26.469 --> 00:03:28.229 They were virtually banned. I mean, the laws 00:03:28.229 --> 00:03:30.969 were explicitly designed to freeze the country's 00:03:30.969 --> 00:03:32.810 demographics in place. Which were what, exactly? 00:03:32.889 --> 00:03:36.110 Well, prior to 1965, the demographic makeup of 00:03:36.110 --> 00:03:39.490 the United States was 85 % white. OK. Black people, 00:03:39.669 --> 00:03:41.870 most of whom were descendants of slaves, made 00:03:41.870 --> 00:03:45.659 up about 11%. and Latinos made up less than 4%. 00:03:45.659 --> 00:03:48.639 It's essentially like a VIP club where the bouncer 00:03:48.639 --> 00:03:51.240 doesn't just check your ID, but he checks your 00:03:51.240 --> 00:03:53.860 great -grandparent's birth certificates to decide 00:03:53.860 --> 00:03:55.639 if you belong. That's a great way to put it. 00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:57.759 You aren't being judged on your skills or your 00:03:57.759 --> 00:04:00.460 education or your character. You're being judged 00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:03.400 entirely on a predetermined geographical hierarchy. 00:04:03.800 --> 00:04:06.039 Yeah. And what's fascinating here is just how 00:04:06.039 --> 00:04:08.939 much this exclusionary framework was admired 00:04:08.939 --> 00:04:11.120 by some of the darkest figures in history. What 00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:13.599 do you mean? The source points out that in the 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:16.779 1930s, the National Socialist Handbook for Law 00:04:16.779 --> 00:04:19.540 and Legislation in Germany devoted a significant 00:04:19.540 --> 00:04:22.060 portion of its recommendations for race legislation 00:04:22.060 --> 00:04:26.180 specifically to U .S. laws. Wait, really? The 00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:30.040 Nazis used U .S. law as a template? Yes. Adolf 00:04:30.040 --> 00:04:32.699 Hitler actually praised America's exclusionary 00:04:32.699 --> 00:04:35.800 immigration laws in his book Mein Kampf. Oh, 00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:38.600 man. He openly admired how the U .S. simply refused 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:41.040 the immigration of certain races, and he used 00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:43.600 it to justify his own horrific policies. That 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:45.740 really puts the gravity of this formula into 00:04:45.740 --> 00:04:47.540 perspective. I mean, if the architects of Nazi 00:04:47.540 --> 00:04:49.639 race laws are using your immigration system as 00:04:49.639 --> 00:04:51.779 a blueprint, that tells you exactly what kind 00:04:51.779 --> 00:04:54.339 of fortress was built. Exactly. And that fortress 00:04:54.339 --> 00:04:57.540 stood in place for 40 years. It dictated the 00:04:57.540 --> 00:05:00.379 flow of humanity into the country until the cultural 00:05:00.379 --> 00:05:03.019 tectonic plates started shifting in the 1960s. 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:05.600 Right, the 1960s. So we move from the embarrassing 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:08.019 quotas of the 1920s to the intense pressures 00:05:08.019 --> 00:05:10.620 of the civil rights era. Yeah, the whole context 00:05:10.620 --> 00:05:13.139 changes. Keeping this discriminatory system on 00:05:13.139 --> 00:05:15.839 the books suddenly becomes a massive liability. 00:05:16.139 --> 00:05:19.360 A huge liability. Internationally, the U .S. 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:21.920 is trying to lead the free world during the Cold 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:25.040 War. They're trying to win the ideological battle 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:27.550 against the Soviets. Right. The optics of racist 00:05:27.550 --> 00:05:30.889 quotas aren't great for that. No, terrible. Meanwhile, 00:05:31.470 --> 00:05:33.350 newly independent nations in Africa and Asia 00:05:33.350 --> 00:05:36.029 are pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of America, 00:05:36.490 --> 00:05:39.410 claiming to be the beacon of freedom while maintaining 00:05:39.410 --> 00:05:41.910 these quotas. Makes sense. And domestically? 00:05:42.129 --> 00:05:44.709 Domestically, the civil rights movement is highlighting 00:05:44.709 --> 00:05:47.899 systemic inequalities across the board. President 00:05:47.899 --> 00:05:50.759 John F. Kennedy, before his assassination, wrote 00:05:50.759 --> 00:05:53.920 a pamphlet called A Nation of Immigrants Aggressively 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:56.019 Opposing These Quotas. And his brother was involved 00:05:56.019 --> 00:05:58.079 too, right? Yeah. Attorney General Robert F. 00:05:58.199 --> 00:06:00.279 Kennedy prepared a draft bill to change things. 00:06:00.519 --> 00:06:04.100 So then, after JFK's death, President Lyndon 00:06:04.100 --> 00:06:06.720 B. Johnson makes it a legislative priority. He 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:09.319 does. He pushes it through Congress with the 00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:11.480 help of Representative Emanuel Celler in the 00:06:11.480 --> 00:06:13.899 House and Senator Philip Hart in the Senate. 00:06:14.089 --> 00:06:17.290 Hence, the Hart -Seller Act. Exactly. But it 00:06:17.290 --> 00:06:19.990 was a brutal legislative fight. I mean, the bill 00:06:19.990 --> 00:06:24.170 faced massive coordinated opposition. Who? Conservative 00:06:24.170 --> 00:06:26.970 groups, like the Daughters of the American Revolution, 00:06:27.550 --> 00:06:29.930 lobbied hard against it, arguing it would destroy 00:06:29.930 --> 00:06:32.720 the American workforce. Okay. But more importantly, 00:06:33.100 --> 00:06:34.860 the congressional subcommittees that controlled 00:06:34.860 --> 00:06:37.819 immigration were completely dominated by Southern 00:06:37.819 --> 00:06:40.839 Democrats who were fiercely against changing 00:06:40.839 --> 00:06:43.800 America's ethnic makeup. Like who? We're talking 00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:45.920 about politicians like Representative Michael 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:49.319 Fain of Ohio and Senator James Eastling of Mississippi. 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:52.600 OK, wait, if the subcommittees were controlled 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:55.720 by politicians who strictly opposed. changing 00:06:55.720 --> 00:06:59.160 America's ethnic makeup. How did LBJ and his 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:01.620 allies actually get them to agree to this? It's 00:07:01.620 --> 00:07:03.639 a great question. Because I'm looking at the 00:07:03.639 --> 00:07:06.199 final vote and you have 74 percent of Democrats 00:07:06.199 --> 00:07:08.660 and 85 percent of Republicans voting yes. Right. 00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:11.339 The no votes were largely concentrated in the 00:07:11.339 --> 00:07:13.480 American South, but that is still a staggering 00:07:13.480 --> 00:07:16.819 super majority. How do you pull off that level 00:07:16.819 --> 00:07:18.980 of consensus when the people holding the pen 00:07:18.980 --> 00:07:21.100 hate the premise of the bill? You do it through 00:07:21.100 --> 00:07:24.019 a massive compromise that is just dripping with 00:07:24.019 --> 00:07:28.540 historical irony. OK, tell me more. So the reformers, 00:07:28.759 --> 00:07:31.759 the people who wanted to abolish the racist quotas, 00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:34.879 originally proposed a system that prioritized 00:07:34.879 --> 00:07:38.589 skills. OK. They wanted to let people in based 00:07:38.589 --> 00:07:41.730 purely on their employability, their education, 00:07:42.170 --> 00:07:44.350 and what they could contribute to the economy, 00:07:44.529 --> 00:07:46.329 regardless of where they were from. Which sounds 00:07:46.329 --> 00:07:48.490 like a fairly standard meritocratic approach. 00:07:48.670 --> 00:07:51.410 Right. But Representative Fain and the anti -immigration 00:07:51.410 --> 00:07:53.610 block pushed back hard against that. Naturally. 00:07:53.769 --> 00:07:56.230 They insisted that the new law had to prioritize 00:07:56.230 --> 00:08:00.000 family reunification. above employability. They 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.560 demanded that the absolute highest priority be 00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:04.920 given to the relatives of people who are already 00:08:04.920 --> 00:08:06.740 living in the United States. Wait, why would 00:08:06.740 --> 00:08:08.620 the anti -immigration side demand that? That 00:08:08.620 --> 00:08:10.779 seems counterintuitive if their goal is to keep 00:08:10.779 --> 00:08:12.959 people out. Well, they looked at the country 00:08:12.959 --> 00:08:16.000 and saw that it was 85 % white and predominantly 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:18.779 European. They assumed that if you prioritize 00:08:18.779 --> 00:08:21.139 the relatives of the current population, you 00:08:21.139 --> 00:08:23.620 are mathematically guaranteeing that the new 00:08:23.620 --> 00:08:25.699 immigrants will just be more white Europeans. 00:08:26.060 --> 00:08:28.959 So they thought family reunification was a brilliant 00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:31.779 loophole. Exactly. It would effectively maintain 00:08:31.779 --> 00:08:36.059 the exact same ethnic status quo as the old racist 00:08:36.059 --> 00:08:39.679 quotas, just without using overtly racist language 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:42.240 on paper. So they thought they were baking a 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:44.539 conservative fail safe into the legislation. 00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:47.480 They figured they could appease the civil rights 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:50.139 movement by getting rid of the national quotas 00:08:50.139 --> 00:08:53.080 in Maine while secretly ensuring that only the 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:54.820 relatives of the current majority would ever 00:08:54.820 --> 00:08:57.940 get through the door. Wow. They compromised because 00:08:57.940 --> 00:08:59.659 they were absolutely certain they had outsmarted 00:08:59.659 --> 00:09:01.379 the reformers. They really did. They thought 00:09:01.379 --> 00:09:03.440 they had it in the bag. OK. Let's look at the 00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:05.100 actual mechanics of what they passed because 00:09:05.100 --> 00:09:08.139 the details here are wild. We know they abolished 00:09:08.139 --> 00:09:10.399 the national origins quotas over a transition 00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:14.299 period from 1965 to 1968. Right. What did the 00:09:14.190 --> 00:09:17.330 fine print actually look like once the dust settled? 00:09:17.929 --> 00:09:20.610 They replaced the old system with a seven category 00:09:20.610 --> 00:09:23.129 preference system. Like we mentioned, the highest 00:09:23.129 --> 00:09:26.389 priority went to family reunification, immediate 00:09:26.389 --> 00:09:29.049 relatives of U .S. citizens, and legal permanent 00:09:29.049 --> 00:09:32.429 residents. Okay. Crucially, Immediate relatives 00:09:32.429 --> 00:09:35.509 like spouses, minor children, and parents of 00:09:35.509 --> 00:09:38.330 adult U .S. citizens were allowed in with no 00:09:38.330 --> 00:09:41.789 numerical cap whatsoever. Wait, uncapped? Completely 00:09:41.789 --> 00:09:44.850 uncapped. So if I am a citizen, there is zero 00:09:44.850 --> 00:09:47.590 limit on bringing my immediate family over. It 00:09:47.590 --> 00:09:50.230 seems like a giant wild card to leave in the 00:09:50.230 --> 00:09:52.230 legislation, especially if you are trying to 00:09:52.230 --> 00:09:54.190 strictly control demographics. It was a massive 00:09:54.190 --> 00:09:56.350 wild card. Further down the preference list, 00:09:56.460 --> 00:09:58.879 They capped the rest. You had professionals, 00:09:59.500 --> 00:10:01.860 individuals with specialized skills, and refugees. 00:10:02.139 --> 00:10:03.840 What were the limits there? They set an overall 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:07.320 cap of 170 ,000 immigrants per year from the 00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:09.840 Eastern Hemisphere, meaning Europe, Asia, and 00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:12.259 Africa, with no more than 20 ,000 from any single 00:10:12.259 --> 00:10:15.120 country. Now, there were also very specific rules 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:18.159 tied to work and wages. The text mentions the 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:20.460 introduction of labor certifications. How did 00:10:20.460 --> 00:10:22.360 those actually function on the ground? Well, 00:10:22.419 --> 00:10:24.500 the act dictated that the Secretary of Labor 00:10:24.500 --> 00:10:27.440 had to aggressively prove there were labor shortages 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:31.120 in specific economic sectors before certain skills 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:33.360 based immigrants could come in. So not just a 00:10:33.360 --> 00:10:36.440 rubber stamp. Far from it. This wasn't just checking 00:10:36.440 --> 00:10:39.580 a box. The text details several visa categories 00:10:39.580 --> 00:10:42.820 that emerged around this, like the H1B for professionals, 00:10:43.220 --> 00:10:46.080 the H2A for agricultural workers and the H2B 00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:48.679 for non agricultural workers. Give me an example 00:10:48.679 --> 00:10:51.830 of how hard it was. Well. If a farmer wanted 00:10:51.830 --> 00:10:54.789 to hire an H -2A worker from abroad, they literally 00:10:54.789 --> 00:10:57.970 had to post advertisements locally, offer a government 00:10:57.970 --> 00:11:00.889 -determined prevailing wage, and legally prove 00:11:00.889 --> 00:11:03.570 to the Department of Labor that no American worker 00:11:03.570 --> 00:11:06.330 was willing or available to do the job. That 00:11:06.330 --> 00:11:08.549 sounds like an incredible amount of bureaucratic 00:11:08.549 --> 00:11:10.850 friction designed specifically to protect American 00:11:10.850 --> 00:11:13.350 wages. It was highly restrictive, but there's 00:11:13.350 --> 00:11:15.990 another massive twist in the mechanics here regarding 00:11:15.990 --> 00:11:18.049 the Western Hemisphere. The American— Oh, right. 00:11:18.129 --> 00:11:20.450 What happened there? For the first time in United 00:11:20.450 --> 00:11:23.889 States history, the 1965 Act put a numerical 00:11:23.889 --> 00:11:26.470 limit on immigration from the Western hemisphere. 00:11:27.090 --> 00:11:30.809 They capped it at 120 ,000 people legally allowed 00:11:30.809 --> 00:11:33.250 to immigrate annually from Latin America and 00:11:33.250 --> 00:11:35.370 Canada. Just to be clear, before this law, there 00:11:35.370 --> 00:11:38.720 was no cap at all. None. Zero. Wow. Previously, 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:41.200 immigrants from the Western Hemisphere just needed 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:43.679 to register as permanent residents and have a 00:11:43.679 --> 00:11:45.919 financial sponsor so they wouldn't become a public 00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:48.940 charge. No skills tests. No skills -based requirements. 00:11:49.480 --> 00:11:52.279 No labor certifications. No hard numerical limits. 00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:55.320 I imagine the agriculture industry hated that 00:11:55.320 --> 00:11:58.299 change. Agricultural groups in the US vehemently 00:11:58.299 --> 00:12:00.159 opposed this new cap during the congressional 00:12:00.159 --> 00:12:04.000 hearings. They relied heavily on fluid seasonal 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:06.419 migrant labor moving back and forth across the 00:12:06.419 --> 00:12:08.340 southern border during critical farming seasons. 00:12:08.700 --> 00:12:11.230 Here's where it gets really interesting. It's 00:12:11.230 --> 00:12:13.710 as if the U .S. government completely threw open 00:12:13.710 --> 00:12:15.870 the heavily guarded front door facing Europe 00:12:15.870 --> 00:12:18.830 and Asia, but suddenly put a deadbolt on the 00:12:18.830 --> 00:12:21.169 back door facing Latin America, which had literally 00:12:21.169 --> 00:12:23.889 been wide open for centuries. That is a perfect 00:12:23.889 --> 00:12:27.500 way to visualize the structural shift. They fundamentally 00:12:27.500 --> 00:12:30.679 altered the flow of human movement on two completely 00:12:30.679 --> 00:12:32.960 different fronts at the exact same time. Which 00:12:32.960 --> 00:12:36.360 brings us to the legacy of this law. We move 00:12:36.360 --> 00:12:39.120 from the rules on paper to the explosive reality 00:12:39.120 --> 00:12:41.419 of what actually happened. And it was explosive. 00:12:41.580 --> 00:12:43.500 Because the politicians who sold this to the 00:12:43.500 --> 00:12:45.440 public made some incredibly confident promises 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:48.080 to get it passed, right? Yeah, to ease the fears 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:50.919 of the public. Because polls at the time showed 00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:53.039 only about half the country even wanted this 00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:56.179 reform. Yeah. The politicians promised that nothing 00:12:56.179 --> 00:12:59.039 would really change. Like demographic wise. Exactly. 00:12:59.399 --> 00:13:01.240 When President Johnson signed it at the foot 00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:03.139 of the Statue of Liberty, he literally said the 00:13:03.139 --> 00:13:06.500 bill does not affect the lives of millions. Oh, 00:13:06.500 --> 00:13:09.340 wow. Senator Ted Kennedy promised that the ethnic 00:13:09.340 --> 00:13:12.720 mix of the country would not be upset. Senator 00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:15.019 Hiram Fong went on the record to promise that 00:13:15.019 --> 00:13:17.340 Asians would, quote, never reach one percent 00:13:17.340 --> 00:13:20.240 of the population and that the American cultural 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:22.620 pattern would remain exactly the same. They were 00:13:22.620 --> 00:13:25.740 wrong. historically spectacularly wrong. They 00:13:25.740 --> 00:13:28.879 couldn't have been more wrong. That family reunification 00:13:28.879 --> 00:13:32.259 compromise that the conservatives demanded, it 00:13:32.259 --> 00:13:34.740 drastically backfired on them. How so? Instead 00:13:34.740 --> 00:13:37.639 of bringing in waves of Europeans, it created 00:13:37.639 --> 00:13:40.879 an engine known as chain migration. OK, walk 00:13:40.879 --> 00:13:42.940 us through the mechanism of that. How exactly 00:13:42.940 --> 00:13:46.779 does chain migration bypass the intent of the 00:13:46.779 --> 00:13:49.500 quotas? Under the new preference system, one 00:13:49.500 --> 00:13:51.600 person from a non -European country would get 00:13:51.600 --> 00:13:54.259 a visa. Maybe as a highly skilled professional 00:13:54.259 --> 00:13:56.740 like a doctor or an engineer right once they 00:13:56.740 --> 00:13:59.000 arrived and eventually became a citizen They 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:01.679 could sponsor their spouse and children using 00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:04.620 that uncapped immediate relative category ah 00:14:04.620 --> 00:14:07.730 the uncapped wild card exactly then Once those 00:14:07.730 --> 00:14:09.269 people were established, they could eventually 00:14:09.269 --> 00:14:11.750 sponsor their siblings, and those siblings could 00:14:11.750 --> 00:14:14.070 sponsor their own spouses. It just cascades. 00:14:14.470 --> 00:14:17.549 The chain expands exponentially, entirely legally, 00:14:18.049 --> 00:14:20.289 under the exact rules that conservatives demanded. 00:14:20.590 --> 00:14:22.950 And the numbers in the sources reflect this immediately. 00:14:23.169 --> 00:14:25.210 I mean, in the 20 years after the law passed, 00:14:25.610 --> 00:14:29.269 25 ,000 professional Filipino workers, including 00:14:29.269 --> 00:14:31.870 thousands of nurses, entered the U .S. You also 00:14:31.870 --> 00:14:35.190 had 20 ,000 Italians arriving annually just between 00:14:35.190 --> 00:14:39.769 1960 and 1975 to join relatives. Total immigration 00:14:39.769 --> 00:14:43.029 doubled between 1965 and 1970. It was immediate. 00:14:43.190 --> 00:14:46.370 And then it doubled again between 1970 and 1990. 00:14:46.950 --> 00:14:49.330 But hold on. These were career politicians who 00:14:49.330 --> 00:14:51.610 spent their entire lives managing demographics 00:14:51.610 --> 00:14:54.149 and writing strict quotas. True. How could they 00:14:54.149 --> 00:14:56.710 be so completely blind to how chain migration 00:14:56.710 --> 00:14:59.529 works? Was it just arrogance, or did they genuinely 00:14:59.529 --> 00:15:02.029 not understand the global math? If we connect 00:15:02.029 --> 00:15:04.870 this to the bigger picture, the politicians in 00:15:04.870 --> 00:15:08.330 1965 were completely blind to the global macroeconomic 00:15:08.330 --> 00:15:10.649 trends. What were they missing? They assumed 00:15:10.649 --> 00:15:12.789 everyone in the world wanted to come to America 00:15:12.789 --> 00:15:15.250 in equal numbers. But they didn't realize that 00:15:15.250 --> 00:15:17.350 Europe was finally finishing its post -World 00:15:17.350 --> 00:15:20.149 War II rebuilding phase. Oh, right. Their economies 00:15:20.149 --> 00:15:22.389 were stabilizing, their middle classes were growing. 00:15:22.809 --> 00:15:25.009 People generally don't uproot their entire lives, 00:15:25.190 --> 00:15:27.309 leave their extended families, and cross an ocean 00:15:27.309 --> 00:15:29.429 if they can find a good paying job and buy a 00:15:29.429 --> 00:15:31.470 house in their own hometown. That makes total 00:15:31.470 --> 00:15:34.669 sense. As Europe stabilized, the economic pressure 00:15:34.669 --> 00:15:37.210 valve that drove people to America for a century 00:15:37.210 --> 00:15:41.299 simply turned off. Exactly. Meanwhile, the desire 00:15:41.299 --> 00:15:43.980 to immigrate from developing nations in Asia, 00:15:44.379 --> 00:15:47.039 Africa, and Latin America was surging because 00:15:47.039 --> 00:15:49.580 they were experiencing economic turmoil or political 00:15:49.580 --> 00:15:52.240 instability. So the conservative politicians 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:55.299 built a family reunification engine thinking 00:15:55.299 --> 00:15:58.340 it would run on European fuel. But the only fuel 00:15:58.340 --> 00:16:00.440 available was from the rest of the world. That 00:16:00.440 --> 00:16:03.379 is wild. The demographic shift was profound. 00:16:03.740 --> 00:16:06.899 Pew research estimates that if this 1965 bill 00:16:06.899 --> 00:16:10.360 had not been passed by the year 2015 the United 00:16:10.360 --> 00:16:13.940 States would have been 75 % white 8 % Hispanic 00:16:13.940 --> 00:16:17.480 and less than 1 % Asian. Wow. Instead, because 00:16:17.480 --> 00:16:20.120 of this law, the percentage of foreign born individuals 00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:24.899 in the US jumped from 5 % in 1965 to 14 % by 00:16:24.899 --> 00:16:27.240 2016. It completely transformed the country. 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:29.539 But what is so fascinating is how this law is 00:16:29.539 --> 00:16:32.200 famous for dismantling national discrimination, 00:16:32.500 --> 00:16:34.840 yet it completely ignored other massive civil 00:16:34.840 --> 00:16:37.159 rights blind spots of the 1960s. Yeah, absolutely. 00:16:37.379 --> 00:16:39.820 And the specific clauses of this text laid the 00:16:39.820 --> 00:16:41.740 exact groundwork for the political battles we 00:16:41.740 --> 00:16:43.720 see on the news today. Let's talk about the border 00:16:43.720 --> 00:16:45.559 first. Yeah, and remember that deadbolt we talked 00:16:45.559 --> 00:16:48.519 about, the 120 ,000 cap on the Western Hemisphere? 00:16:48.679 --> 00:16:51.820 Yes. Well, just because Washington put a quote 00:16:51.820 --> 00:16:54.320 on a piece of paper didn't mean the American 00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:56.539 demand for agricultural and service labor suddenly 00:16:56.539 --> 00:16:58.960 disappeared. The economic gravity was still there. 00:16:59.179 --> 00:17:02.159 Wait, so they capped the border at $120 ,000, 00:17:02.159 --> 00:17:04.140 but the farms and businesses in the Southwest 00:17:04.140 --> 00:17:07.420 still desperately need that labor? Desperately. 00:17:07.599 --> 00:17:09.500 I have to imagine that economic demand didn't 00:17:09.500 --> 00:17:12.519 just vanish because Washington changed some paperwork. 00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:15.200 It didn't vanish at all. The elimination of the 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:18.140 old fluid system and the sudden strict quotas 00:17:18.140 --> 00:17:21.279 on Latin America led directly to a massive rise 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:24.799 in illegal immigration in the decades after 1965, 00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:27.240 especially in the American Southwest. Because 00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:30.039 the legal route was choked off. Right. The law 00:17:30.039 --> 00:17:32.619 effectively criminalized a labor migration pattern 00:17:32.619 --> 00:17:35.700 that had existed for generations. And this dynamic 00:17:35.700 --> 00:17:38.019 led directly to the anti -immigrant activism 00:17:38.019 --> 00:17:41.400 of the 1980s, the push for greater border militarization, 00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:44.200 and the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. 00:17:44.619 --> 00:17:46.619 So the modern border debates you hear today are 00:17:46.619 --> 00:17:50.099 a direct descendant of that specific 1965 Western 00:17:50.099 --> 00:17:53.069 Hemisphere cap. Direct descendants, yes. Now, 00:17:53.069 --> 00:17:54.970 while we are looking at the paradoxes of the 00:17:54.970 --> 00:17:58.410 text, it's crucial to point out who was explicitly 00:17:58.410 --> 00:18:01.069 left behind by this act. This is a really dark 00:18:01.069 --> 00:18:02.789 part of the history. Because while it abolished 00:18:02.789 --> 00:18:05.690 racial quotas, it maintains severe discrimination 00:18:05.690 --> 00:18:09.549 against the LGBTQ plus community. It did. The 00:18:09.549 --> 00:18:11.829 Immigration and Naturalization Service continued 00:18:11.829 --> 00:18:14.710 to deny entry to prospective immigrants who were 00:18:14.710 --> 00:18:17.450 gay or transgender. How did they legally justify 00:18:17.450 --> 00:18:19.509 that in a civil rights bill? Under the language 00:18:19.509 --> 00:18:21.609 of the law, the mechanism for this exclusion 00:18:21.609 --> 00:18:25.230 was medical. LGBTQ plus individuals were categorized 00:18:25.230 --> 00:18:28.250 and barred as being, quote, mentally defective 00:18:28.250 --> 00:18:31.190 or having a, quote, constitutional psychopathic 00:18:31.190 --> 00:18:33.970 inferiority. That language is just staggering. 00:18:34.109 --> 00:18:36.089 They used a pseudo medical classification to 00:18:36.089 --> 00:18:38.430 legally enforce bigotry, even in a bill hailed 00:18:38.430 --> 00:18:40.829 as a civil rights triumph. Yeah. And that explicit 00:18:40.829 --> 00:18:43.769 ban on LGBTQ plus immigrants wasn't rescinded 00:18:43.769 --> 00:18:46.930 until the Immigration Act of 1990. 1990. 1990. 00:18:47.210 --> 00:18:49.990 So for 25 years after the so -called Great Equalizer 00:18:49.990 --> 00:18:53.069 of 1965, the government was still legally mandated 00:18:53.069 --> 00:18:55.170 to discriminate based on sexual orientation. 00:18:55.630 --> 00:18:57.230 It shows you exactly where the boundaries of 00:18:57.230 --> 00:18:59.450 civil rights were drawn at that specific moment 00:18:59.450 --> 00:19:02.089 in time. Absolutely. But jumping to more recent 00:19:02.089 --> 00:19:05.289 history, the clauses of the 1965 Act have also 00:19:05.289 --> 00:19:07.750 been used as a primary legal weapon in modern 00:19:07.750 --> 00:19:10.230 courtrooms, specifically regarding the travel 00:19:10.230 --> 00:19:13.750 ban. Right. In January 2017, President Donald 00:19:13.750 --> 00:19:17.730 Trump issued an executive order temporarily halting 00:19:17.730 --> 00:19:20.690 immigration from seven majority Muslim nations. 00:19:20.859 --> 00:19:24.279 And immediately lawsuits were filed. Locks of 00:19:24.279 --> 00:19:26.960 them. And the primary legal argument used by 00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:28.960 civil rights groups against the president was 00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:32.279 the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Because 00:19:32.279 --> 00:19:35.559 the 1965 act specifically outlawed discrimination 00:19:35.559 --> 00:19:38.529 based on national origin. in the issuance of 00:19:38.529 --> 00:19:41.009 visas. Exactly. Lower federal courts actually 00:19:41.009 --> 00:19:43.690 block the president's travel bans, citing that 00:19:43.690 --> 00:19:45.869 exact non -discrimination clause. Making the 00:19:45.869 --> 00:19:47.670 argument that you can't just ban a whole country. 00:19:47.910 --> 00:19:50.250 Right. They argued you cannot ban people based 00:19:50.250 --> 00:19:51.990 on what country they come from because Congress 00:19:51.990 --> 00:19:55.190 explicitly outlawed that practice in 1965. Yeah. 00:19:55.569 --> 00:19:57.390 However, this legal battle went all the way up 00:19:57.390 --> 00:20:00.609 to the Supreme Court in 2018 in a landmark case 00:20:00.609 --> 00:20:03.569 called Trump v. Hawaii. This is where two different 00:20:03.569 --> 00:20:06.170 parts of the legal code violently collide. How 00:20:06.170 --> 00:20:08.789 did the Supreme Court resolve it? Well, the Supreme 00:20:08.789 --> 00:20:11.730 Court ultimately upheld the travel ban. How so, 00:20:11.950 --> 00:20:16.089 if the 1965 act bans it? They ruled that while 00:20:16.089 --> 00:20:19.250 the 1965 act prohibits discrimination in issuing 00:20:19.250 --> 00:20:22.250 visas, it does not undermine the president's 00:20:22.250 --> 00:20:24.849 broader executive power under a different section 00:20:24.849 --> 00:20:27.250 of the law to secure the borders and suspend 00:20:27.250 --> 00:20:30.430 the entry of any class of aliens if he deems 00:20:30.430 --> 00:20:32.230 it detrimental to the interests of the United 00:20:32.230 --> 00:20:35.859 States. Ah, an issue of visas versus entry. Right. 00:20:35.859 --> 00:20:37.779 And this raises an important question for anyone 00:20:37.779 --> 00:20:40.779 studying American history. How is it that a single 00:20:40.779 --> 00:20:43.819 piece of legislation from the 1960s continues 00:20:43.819 --> 00:20:46.480 to be the absolute center of gravity for both 00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:48.960 left -wing and right -wing legal arguments today? 00:20:48.980 --> 00:20:51.380 It really is. Whether you are arguing for open 00:20:51.380 --> 00:20:53.500 arms, non -discrimination, or secure borders, 00:20:53.779 --> 00:20:55.779 you are reading from the Hartzeller playbook. 00:20:55.900 --> 00:20:57.680 So what does this all mean? When you zoom out 00:20:57.680 --> 00:20:59.339 from the statistics, the committee hearings, 00:20:59.619 --> 00:21:02.119 and the Supreme Court battles, what is the core 00:21:02.089 --> 00:21:04.150 takeaway for you listening to this right now. 00:21:04.269 --> 00:21:06.109 Yeah, what's the bottom line? Well, the next 00:21:06.109 --> 00:21:08.130 time you go to the grocery store or look around 00:21:08.130 --> 00:21:10.130 at your coworkers, your neighbors, your friends, 00:21:10.589 --> 00:21:13.089 the incredible diversity of modern America isn't 00:21:13.089 --> 00:21:15.950 just some natural passive evolution. No, it's 00:21:15.950 --> 00:21:19.130 not. It is the direct engineered result of this 00:21:19.130 --> 00:21:21.950 specific piece of legislation. Every community, 00:21:22.130 --> 00:21:24.509 every demographic shift over the last 60 years 00:21:24.509 --> 00:21:27.269 can trace its roots back to the fine print of 00:21:27.269 --> 00:21:30.549 the 1965 act. It is the architecture of modern 00:21:30.549 --> 00:21:33.910 America. built entirely on a foundation of political 00:21:33.910 --> 00:21:36.890 compromise and profound miscalculation. Which 00:21:36.890 --> 00:21:38.650 leaves us with a thought I really want you to 00:21:38.650 --> 00:21:42.190 chew on today. If the politicians of 1965 could 00:21:42.190 --> 00:21:44.410 look into a crystal ball. If they could see the 00:21:44.410 --> 00:21:47.150 America of today. Would the conservatives who 00:21:47.150 --> 00:21:50.269 vehemently demanded the family reunification 00:21:50.269 --> 00:21:52.789 loophole have fought against it? And honestly 00:21:52.789 --> 00:21:55.730 is the truest most American thing about this 00:21:55.730 --> 00:21:58.390 entire law. The fact that it ultimately succeeded 00:21:58.390 --> 00:22:00.789 in ways its own creators couldn't even imagine. 00:22:00.990 --> 00:22:03.450 The machine executed a command no one knew they 00:22:03.450 --> 00:22:05.839 had typed. Thank you so much for joining us on 00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:08.720 this deep dive into the historical sources. There 00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:11.000 is always more to the story than what makes it 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:13.079 into the headlines, so we encourage you to keep 00:22:13.079 --> 00:22:15.279 reading, keep questioning, and keep exploring. 00:22:15.500 --> 00:22:16.200 Until next time.