Before Hart-Cellar we had national origin quotas, it wasn't a free-for-all.
replyFor those outside the Americas, yes. Western hemisphere immigration had no meaningful restrictions until 1965.
replyWe had little meaningful immigration pressure from the america at the time. The foreign born population dropped from 15% in 1921 to under 5% by 1970.
replyWe’re backing away from:
reply> The U.S. had a draconian restrictive immigration policy from 1921-1965.
to “well ok not really but it didn’t matter”?
It did matter. It was restrictive in actual effect, in that it blocked immigration from the places it was mainly coming from, and dropped the foreign born population under 5% by 1970.
reply