The Immigration and Nationality (McCarran-Walter) Act of 1952, as Amended to 1965

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was the product of the most extensive Congressional study of the subject in the nation's history. The Act codified and brought together for the first time all the nation's laws on immigration and naturalization. It continued and enlarged upon qualitative restrictions; revised but continued the national-origins quota system of immigrant selection in effect since 1929; eliminated race and sex as a bar to immigration; Western Hemisphere immigration was continued quota-free; quota preferences were established for relatives and skilled aliens; security provisions against criminals and subversives were strengthened; and due process was safeguarded. The measure was passed over President Truman's veto. The Act was continuously amended in successive years to increase immigration and to accommodate refugees and excluded or restricted classes. The amendments, together with the Act's nonquota loopholes and permissive administrative exceptions, effectively nullified the national-origins quota system, so that two out of every three immigrants became nonquota entrants. The bulk of immigration under the Act was not from the northern and western European areas favored by the national-origins formula. This circumstance accelerated demands for its abolition.