Our Immigration Law in 400 Words

It’s called the Immigration and Nationality Act. It was passed in 1965. It overhauled 90 years of statutes and court rulings that massively restricted immigration from everywhere except the U.K. and northern Europe. The 1965 law changed immigration from white to all races.

The law has had a major impact on our population (see chart, orange line for percent of overall population). We bottomed at 5% foreign-born (early 1970s) to almost 14% today. Source: Migration Policy Institute.

The law creates these “buckets”:

Refugees are admitted if “unable or unwilling to return to that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution based on his or her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Example: Syrians opposed to Assad (2012-2016, after two years of vetting in refugee camps).

Asylum: Asylees are similar to refugees. These are often dissident individuals or groups with a reasonable fear of persecution (death, torture, incarceration for status or viewpoints). Example (1980s): Soviet Jews.

Diversity: Our law creates a lottery system that admits people from every country in the world. These numbers are very small. Source: Government Accounting Office.

Employment: Temporary workers are admitted with several visas. The total in 2015 was about 800,000. Some work short-term: H-2A for temporary, seasonal workers. Think of field workers, picking or planting crops.

Some are long-term: H-1B “specialty occupations,” which often means IT or computer workers. They stay 3 years; are eligible to renew another 3 years, and often petition to adjust status to green card (lawful permanent resident). They make up 500,000 in an IT workforce that has 4.6 million Americans (about 12%).

A small percentage are permanent green card holders. Example: Melania Trump, who was admitted as a world-class fashion model on an EB-2 visa for exceptional skill, accomplishment, and ability (legitimate).

Context: In January 2018, a bipartisan bill would have provided the administration with $25 billion for a wall in exchange for legalizing 1.8 million DACA “Dreamers” and granting them a path to citizenship. The president said no. He wanted reductions in legal immigration. Today, he will be presented a funding bill for $1.3 billion in border security. The legal immigration system— in other words, the INA— remains completely intact. 
(About 11 million people are in the U.S. without legal immigration, meaning they are here without using any legal process under the INA. 
In contrasts, international students, tourists (about 30 million/year), and similar are here as part of this law.)