The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as the McCarren-Walter Act, outlines US immigration permissions and restrictions. It was controversial and vetoed by President Truman, but passed with one vote of override. The act was created due to changing international relations after WWII and growing anti-Communist sentiment. It revised the quota system and excluded immigrants based on health, criminal history, and ideology. The act remains in effect, but has been modified and amended over time.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 is a United States federal law that outlines the permissions and restrictions relating to immigration to the United States. Also known as the McCarren-Walter Act, after its two main sponsors, the Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA, it remains in effect into the 21st century, although several provisions have been modified and many amendments added to the original text. Notoriously controversial for many reasons, the INA was vetoed by President Harry Truman and only passed one vote of override in the Legislature.
The origins of the Immigration and Nationality Act can be traced to several related issues in the early 1950s. Although US immigration law existed shortly after the American Revolution, many historians attribute the initial impetus for a new immigration statute to a desire for a more comprehensive and focused doctrine as a result of the changing international relations created by the second world War. Furthermore, at the dawn of the Cold War, much of US policy began to reflect growing anti-Communist sentiment in the nation. Furthermore, the ongoing hostility with some Asian countries, especially Japan, has led to a revision of the visa system on a preferential basis.
Senators McCarran and Walter, who would both play significant roles in the government-led anti-Communist investigations of the 1950s, presented the Immigration and Nationality Act as a means to improve national security, as well as an attempt to formally codify the disparate laws driving immigration. One of the major changes to existing law presented in the bill was an overhaul of quota systems that based the allowable number of immigrants on nationality rather than race. In what some are calling “one step forward, one step back,” the new bill relaxed immigration standards for some racially excluded immigrants, while severely limiting visa quotas for people of certain nationalities. Visas were also granted based on preferential rank, which used factors such as national origin, skilled labor, and existence of U.S. citizen relatives, to determine legal status. After more than a decade of heated discussions, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 revised the quota system to allow for a more even distribution of visas among nations.
The other major controversial notion in the bill was the exclusion of immigrants based on health, criminal history, and most importantly, ideology. This provision has been used for decades to screen out alleged immigrants of communist leanings, often without any kind of proof. Additionally, immigrants who practiced or associated with socialist or communist groups were subject to deportation. Although many of the ideological grounds for expulsion were repealed in the 1990s, the door to ideological exclusion was reopened following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
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