Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

While the Immigration Act of 1965 ended the system of national origins quotas, it maintained a ceiling on the number of immigrants admitted each year and extended numerical restrictions to the Western Hemisphere. This ensured the continuation of illegal immigration, particularly from Mexico. Although the reform of the quota system democratized access to citizenship, it by no means guaranteed citizenship to immigrants (229). The distinction between citizen and alien was in fact hardened.

Ngai argues that the thinking behind immigration reform combined a “pluralist view of American domestic group relations and a nationalist privileging of the U.S. nation-state’s geopolitical and economic position in the world” (230). Pluralism, earlier conceived to be a means for immigrants to retain their ethnic identity while becoming Americans, was re-conceptualized in the 1950s as a means for ethnic groups to participate in politics and further their interests. It assumed that groups would assimilate.

In 1948, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act to address the millions of displaced in Europe. Asia was ignored. The act allowed for the admission of 200,000 European refugees, who would be charged to future quotas from their respective countries. Introducing economic preferences for the first time, the law required that 30% of those admitted be agricultural workers.