Hart-Celler Act

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The Hart–Celler Act, or Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, was a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The law abolished the National Origins Formula, which had been the basis of U.S. immigration policy since the 1920s. The act formally removed de jure discrimination against Southern and Eastern Europeans as well as Asians, in addition to other non-Western and Northern European ethnicities from the immigration policy of the United States. The National Origins Formula had been established in the 1920s to preserve American homogeneity by promoting immigration from Western and Northern Europe. During the 1960s, at the height of the civil rights movement, this approach increasingly came under attack for being racially discriminatory. The bill is based on the draft bill sent to the Congress by President John F. Kennedy, who opposed the immigration formulas, in 1963, and was introduced by Senator Philip Hart and Congressman...

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