Change in Policy and Attitudes in Past Decade

A new immigration is taking place in America and is once again raising a national debate on an issue that has been so emotional and troublesome in other times. Major changes in the size and characteristics of America's immigrant population have occurred in the decade since the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965. The act marked a turning point in American immigration policy by ending the long-established and long-controversial policy of using national origin as a major criterion for admitting foreigners to this country. Moreover, American attitudes toward immigration also have changed in the intervening years.

The pro-immigration sentiment that was largely responsible for eliminating the inequities of the old system has been replaced in some quarters by concern about population growth, dwindling resources and the state of the economy. Does America really want—and can it afford—to extend the Statue of Liberty's invitation to the tired, the poor, the wretched refuse of the world, some Americans are asking? Is it time for this “nation of immigrants” to pull up the gangplank? The current ambivalence toward immigration was evident in a recent speech by Attorney General William B. Saxbe. “With the manifold problems the nation faces—energy shortages, inflation, scarcity of some foodstuffs, rising unemployment—it is apparent that we are not a limitless horn of plenty,” Saxbe told a local bar association meeting in Brownsville, Texas, on Oct. 30. “While we must help other nations all we can, we cannot let our own people suffer in the bargain.”

Demands for more restrictive immigration policies come at a time when world food shortages and economic uncertainties abroad are making the United States increasingly attractive to foreigners. The volume of immigration already is increasing. In fiscal year 1965, a total of 296,697 immigrants were admitted into this country; by fiscal 1973, that number had grown to 400,063—a 34.8 per cent increase. “Immigration is not about to decline” in the years ahead, according to Charles B. Keely, associate professor of sociology at Western Michigan University. “Rather, it would seem that the fiscal year 1973 may be the beginning of a new stage of immigration….”