The 1965 law established many elements of
what continues to be the structure of the legal
immigration system today. These elements include
identical per-country quotas and a categorical
preferences system that emphasized family unification
and, to a much lesser degree, occupational skills and
refugee status. In 1976 the system was changed to
equalize the treatment of Eastern and Western Hemisphere
countries, including Mexico, and in 1978 the hemispheric
quotas were combined into a single global total of
290,000 visas per year. During the 1970s, legal
admissions totaled 4.5 million, the highest since the
second decade of the century. It was during this decade,
moreover, that concern about illegal migration became a
high-visibility political issue in the United States.
Most of these migrants were Mexican agricultural workers
who had been marooned in the mid-1960s when the
long-standing Bracero program was terminated, and in the
mid-1970s when the per-country limits were applied for
the first time to Mexico. (Simon Rita J, 1995)
The 1965 law established many elements of
what continues to be the structure of the legal
immigration system today. These elements include
identical per-country quotas and a categorical
preferences system that emphasized family unification
and, to a much lesser degree, occupational skills and
refugee status. In 1976 the system was changed to
equalize the treatment of Eastern and Western Hemisphere
countries, including Mexico, and in 1978 the hemispheric
quotas were combined into a single global total of
290,000 visas per year. During the 1970s, legal
admissions totaled 4.5 million, the highest since the
second decade of the century. It was during this decade,
moreover, that concern about illegal migration became a
high-visibility political issue in the United States.
Most of these migrants were Mexican agricultural workers
who had been marooned in the mid-1960s when the
long-standing Bracero program was terminated, and in the
mid-1970s when the per-country limits were applied for
the first time to Mexico. (Simon Rita J, 1995)
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