“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s.
In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960. In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin.
After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.” Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”
HERE IS THE DEMOCRAT PARTY PLATFORM THAT JFK RAN ON IN 1960.
IMMIGRATION:
“We shall adjust our immigration, nationality and refugee policies to eliminate discrimination and to enable members of scattered families abroad to be united with relatives already in our midst.
The national-origins quota system of limiting immigration contradicts the rounding principles of this nation. It is inconsistent with our belief in the rights of man. This system was instituted after World War I as a policy of deliberate discrimination by a Republican Administration and Congress.
The revision of immigration and nationality laws we seek will implement our belief that enlightened immigration, naturalization and refugee policies and humane administration of them are important aspects of our foreign policy.
These laws will bring greater skills to our land, reunite families, permit the United States to meet its fair share of world programs of rescue and rehabilitation, and take advantage of immigration as an important factor in the growth of the American economy.
In this World Refugee Year it is our hope to achieve admission of our fair share of refugees. We will institute policies to alleviate suffering among the homeless wherever we are able to extend our aid.
We must remove the distinctions between native-born and naturalized citizens to assure full protection of our laws to all. There is no place in the United States for “second-class citizenship.”
The protections provided by due process, right of appeal, and statutes of limitation, can be extended to non-citizens without hampering the security of our nation.
We commend the Democratic Congress for the initial steps that have recently been taken toward liberalizing changes in immigration law. However, this should not be a piecemeal project and we are confident that a Democratic President in cooperation with Democratic Congresses will again implant a humanitarian and liberal spirit in our nation’s immigration and citizenship policies.”
Thank you, that’s very interesting. Their platform was more honest than I thought.
But still, and I’m sure you are aware, Ted Kennedy promised that the 1965 bill would not alter the ethnic balance, nor would it result in a large increase in overall immigration. Promises made to pass a specific bill mean more than the nonsense on the party platform.
Plus we shouldn’t forget that it was the first President Bush that made matters even worse. The 1990 immigration bill (again with Ted Kennedy’s dirty fingerprints all over it) expanded legal immigration even more, in part by the creation of the absurd Diversity Lottery visas.
The last time there was real hope for good immigration reform was with the Jordan Commission in the mid 90s. It called for cutting legal immigration significantly and for stepped up enforcement against illegal immigration. Bill Clinton expressed clear support for these recommendations upon their initial release. Senator Simpson and Congressman Lamar a Smith (???) wrote up legislation to implement these conservative reforms. Then it all fell apart. Clinton flip flopped once Asian ethnic grievance groups started whining (and once he realized how much fundraising he stood to lose with Asians) and then declared he opposed reducing legal immigration by ending chain migration. In Congress, the efforts were torpedoed by Gingrich and other cheap labor/big business whores like Senator Abraham, Dick Armey, and Sam Briownback. They could have forced Clinton in a situation where he stood by his original word, or vetoed a popular, bipartisan bill. But the GOP proved itself to be the Stupid Party and chose not to stave off demographic destruction.
Thus died the last good chance for good, conservative comprehensive immigration reform. Now it is inconceivable that good, pro-American immigration reform of that sort could get even a handful of democrat votes.