The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) is the basic body of immigration law. Before the INA was created in 1952, a variety of statutes governed immigration law but were not organized in one location.
The INA is divided into titles, chapters, and sections. Although it stands alone as a body of law, the Act is also contained in the United States Code (U.S.C.). The code is a collection of all the laws of the United States. Title 8 of the U.S. Code is but one of the fifty titles and deals with "Aliens and Nationality". When browsing the INA or other statutes you will often see reference to the U.S. Code citation. For example, Section 208 of the INA deals with asylum, and is also contained in 8 U.S.C. 1158. Although it is correct to refer to a specific section by either its INA citation or its U.S. code, the INA citation is more commonly used.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
The 1952 act is also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, named after the bill's sponsors: Senator Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), and Congressman Francis Walter (D-Pennsylvania). The new Act kept many of the same immigration policies from earlier statutes with some major changes:
- Racial restrictions and gender discrimination were eliminated
- The policy of restricting immigrants from certain countries remained but the quota formula was revised
- Selective immigration was introduced by giving a quota preference to aliens with much-needed skills and relatives of U.S. citizens and alien residents
- Introduced a reporting system whereby all U.S. aliens were required to report their current address to the INS each year
- Established a central index of aliens in the U.S. for use by security and enforcement agencies
President Truman was concerned about the decisions to maintain the national origins quota system and to establish racially constructed quotas for Asian nations. He vetoed the McCarran-Walter Act because he regarded the bill as discriminatory. Truman's veto was overridden by a vote of 278 to 113 in the House and 57 to 26 in the Senate.
Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965
The original 1952 Act has been amended many times over the years. By far the biggest change occurred with the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965. The bill was proposed by Emanuel Celler, cosponsored by Philip Hart and heavily supported by Senator Ted Kennedy.
Major amendments in the 1965 Act included:
- Abolished the national origins quota system, eliminating national origin, race, or ancestry as a basis for immigration to the United States.
- Established a preference system for relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, and for persons with special occupational skills, abilities, or training
- Established two categories of immigrants not subject to numerical restrictions: immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and special immigrants
- Maintained the quota restriction, expanding limits to world coverage by limiting Eastern Hemisphere immigration and placing a ceiling on Western Hemisphere immigration for the first time. However, neither the preference categories nor the 20,000 per-country limit were applied to the Western Hemisphere.
- Introduced a prerequisite for the issuance of a visa that an alien worker will not replace a worker in the United States nor adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed individuals in the U.S.
In Congress, the House of Representatives voted 326 to 69 in favor of the act while the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 76 to 18. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the legislation into law on July 1, 1968.
Current Reform Bills
Immigration reform bills to amend the current INA have been introduced into Congress in recent years. Most notably, these bills include the Kennedy-McCain Immigration Bill of 2005 as well as the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and co-authored by a bipartisan group of 12 senators including Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sen. John McCain. None of these bills, however, have made it through Congress.
The most current version of the INA may be found on the USCIS website under Immigration and Nationality Act in the Laws & Regulations section.
Source: USCIS, US State Department
