The 1965 US immigration reform unintentionally triggered mass diversification of origin

Evidence

The USA had restrictive immigration policies until 1965. About 250,000 persons per year were admitted in the 1950s - mainly Western Europeans and refugees. Cold War politics ensured a warm welcome for anyone from Eastern Europe and later from Cuba. However, US agricultural employers also recruited large numbers of temporary workers from Mexico and the Caribbean. At times this migration was regulated by temporary labor systems, while at other times it was illegal, but tacitly tolerated. The turning point in US policies came in 1965 with changes to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which abolished the discriminatory national-origins quota system. No one envisaged the consequences: rapid growth in intakes and a diversification of areas of origin. Immigration escalated, averaging 450,000 per year in the 1970s and 600,000 per year in the 1980s. From 1986 to 1995 about 12 million immigrants were legally admitted to the USA. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3868

Categorization

• XREF: Unintended-consequences pattern connects to the phantom ‘human flood’ predictions in the European case at 3865/3867 — both show policy responding to imagined futures.