Lately, migrants and refugees have been in the forefront of our headline news. The fact that so many people have been forced to leave their homes because of conflict, natural disaster, or economic circumstance has had a devastating effect on the global community, creating complex humanitarian and development difficulties. Many are wondering, “What is our responsibility to those who have lost everything?” The question is not new, because the political and ideological conflict we call the Cold War created many of the same challenges. Perhaps a look back at US Immigration Policy over time will provide some insight.

What effect did the Cold War conflict have on US immigration policy? 

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the national immigration quotas established in the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 remained in effect. According to the Office of the Historian at the US Department of State:

The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia.

The quotas weren’t altered until 1965, although exceptions were made to traditional policy as need dictated. For example, after months of inaction, just before Christmas in 1945, President Truman issued a directive reserving about 42.000 quota slots for European refugees, known at that time as “Displaced Persons.”

Other exceptions include:

The War Brides Act, enacted on December 28, 1945, allowed alien spouses, natural children, and adopted children of members of the United States Armed Forces to enter the US as non-quota immigrants “if admissible.”  (Japanese and Korean wives of American soldiers were not allowed to immigrate. The Alien Fiancées and Fiancés Act of 1946 extended privileges to Fiancées and Fiancés of war veterans.) More than 100,000 individuals entered the United States under this Act and its extensions and amendments until it expired in December 1948. 

A 1947 Amendment of the War Brides Act removed the term “if admissible,” making it possible for Japanese and Korean wives of American soldiers to immigrate. 

The Displaced Persons Acts of 1948 (Amended in 1950) brought more than 400,000 European refugees into the United States and expanded the use of voluntary agencies known as VOGAGS (Voluntary Agencies Responsible for Refugees). They included Catholic and Lutheran welfare organizations and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Association. These groups were able to sponsor refugees, negating the “likely to become a public charge” clause in cases where individuals didn’t have American relatives who could sponsor them. Finally, the US was able to say that it had a refugee policy.

The Refugee Relief Act of 1953 resulted in the admission of 214,000 immigrants to the United States, including 60,000 Italians, 17,000 Greeks, 17,000 Dutch, and 45,000 immigrants from communist countries. The act allowed visas for up to 2,000 immigrants of Chinese origin in the wake of the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. It expired in 1956.

In 1950, the (McCarran) Internal Security Act also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 was passed in an attempt to make sure that Communist Agents could not enter the US. It was followed by passage of the McCarran-Walter Immigration and Naturalization Act in 1952. Both were passed over President Truman’s veto.

The McCarran-Walter Immigration and Naturalization Act eliminated race as a barrier to naturalization, but retained the national origins formula of 1924. It also strengthened the government’s ability to denaturalize and deport immigrants associated with subversive groups.

Speaking in the Senate on March 2, 1953, McCarran said:

I believe that this nation is the last hope of Western civilization and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished. I take no issue with those who would praise the contributions which have been made to our society by people of many races, of varied creeds and colors . . . . However, we have in the United States today hard-core, indigestible blocs which have not become integrated into the American way of life, but which, on the contrary are its deadly enemies. Today, as never before, untold millions are storming our gates for admission and those gates are cracking under the strain. The solution of the problems of Europe and Asia will not come through a transplanting of those problems en masse to the United States . . . . I do not intend to become prophetic, but if the enemies of this legislation succeed in riddling it to pieces, or in amending it beyond recognition, they will have contributed more to promote this nation’s downfall than any other group since we achieved our independence as a nation.

Sound familiar?

t’s important to note that the word “refugee” doesn’t appear in the 1952 immigration act. Still, an obscure section of the Act gave the attorney general discretionary parole power to admit aliens “for emergency reasons in the public interest.” This allowed the executive branch to respond quickly to emergency situations like the Hungarian Revolt of 1956 and the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

Pressure Mounts for a More Liberal Immigration Policy

As decolonization spread throughout the world, and the Civil Rights movement gained support in the United States, many Americans began pressing for a more liberal immigration policy. Then Senator John F. Kennedy authored A Nation of Immigrants (published in 1958), espousing the ideological value of a racially neutral immigration policy. You can preview the book here.

Change came in 1965 with the passage of an Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as the Hart-Celler Act. This bill allowed each country in the Eastern Hemisphere an overall quota, with a maximum total for each hemisphere. It also created preference visa categories that focused on immigrants’ skills and family relationships with citizens or US residents. The bill set numerical restrictions on visas at 170,000 per year, with a per-country-of-origin quota. However, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and “special immigrants” had no restrictions.

Refugees from communism, Middle Eastern violence, and natural catastrophe were considered preference groups and were allotted up to 6% of each country’s annual visa quota. They were expected to number about 17,400 annually.

Even so, the number of refugees admitted was always higher than anticipated since all presidents employed parole authority to exempt hundreds of thousand of refugees, primarily those escaping communist regimes.

More than 2 million refugees were paroled into the United States between 1948 and 1980 so it’s safe to assume that the migration pressures brought on by the Cold War were not being adequately addressed. Here are just two examples:

Between 1962 and 1979, almost 700,000 Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro’s regime were paroled into the United States

More than 400,000 Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians also found safe harbor.

The Refugee Act of 1980 increased the normal refugee flow to 50,000 annually and accepted the 1969 United Nations definition of a refugee as one unwilling to return to his native land “because of persecution, or a well founded fear of persecution.” The measure also established a category called “Asylee”  which allowed 5,000 refugees already in the country illegally or as students to apply for formal entry.

Almost immediately, the new policy was tested by the Mariel Boatlift which brought 125,000 Cubans to the United States within a matter of weeks. The influx demonstrated that presidential parole powers would be continued, and that they would continue to exceed legislative limits.

A Brief Historical Overview

No official enumeration of immigration took place before 1819, but most authorities agree that perhaps a million European and African immigrants came to the US before then.

Between 1819 and the enactment of the 1924 Immigration Act some 36 million immigrants arrived.

In the decade before World War I, more than a million immigrants arrived each year.

Between 1935 and 1945 nearly 2.3 million came, an average of less than 125,00 annually. Arrivals were inhibited by the more restrictive immigration act passed in 1924, and by the Great Depression and World War II.

The chart below details legal immigration to the United States by decade from 1951 to 1998 (based on INS data).

LEGAL IMMIGRATION TO THE U.S. BY DECADE, 1951–1998

Decade                                              Number

1951–1960                                          2,515,479

1961–1970                                          3,321,677

1971–1980                                          4,493,314

1981–1990                                          7,338,062

1991–1998                                          7,605,068

(eight years only)

The bulk of the refugees during this period of time came from communist regimes, especially  Poland, the Soviet Union, Romania, China, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan.

After 1985, economic factors became the force driving immigration policy.

Immigration from Mexico, and those overstaying their visas became matters of immediate concern.

Input from the Department of State assumed less significance than during the Cold War.  Still, State was given the responsibility of administering the lottery provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 and its successors.

Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986

The major functions of IRCA were:

• The so-called “amnesty” provisions which legalized some 2.7 million immigrants who were in the US illegally. The majority of this group was from Mexico.
• The promise of effective control measures “to gain control of our borders” by more effective interdiction of illegal border crosses.
• Intensified deportation of remaining resident illegals.   

These functions created great anxiety in the Caribbean — especially in the Dominican Republic and El Salvador — where economies were greatly dependent on migrant remittances.

To cite one example, President Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador wrote President Reagan in early 1987 requesting that Salvadorans in the US illegally be given “extended voluntary departure” (EVD) status, whereby the attorney general’s parole power would enable illegal immigrants to remain. EVD was eventually granted on humanitarian grounds. Forms of EVD or its equivalent were put into place during the Clinton presidency for Salvadorans and Nicaraguans by both the administration and Congress.

In October 1991, the US government removed some 300,000 names from a list of “undesirable aliens.” The list was begun in 1952 in an effort to keep communist infiltrators out of the country.

Clearly the more than 25 million post-1950 immigrants have changed the face of America. As late as the 1950s immigrants from Europe were still a bare majority of all immigrants. By the 1980s, the European share was down to about 10% and immigrants from Latin America and Asia were predominant.

Today, immigration is a hot button issue. Will the US continue to welcome refugees from abhorrent regimes as we did in the Cold War? Or will the nation become more insular and unwelcoming? At this writing, the future is unclear.

Brazilian military leaders fought alongside American forces in World War II, enjoying warm ties with the United States. So when the US responded with alarm to the Cuban Revolution, the Brazilian military saw danger everywhere. In a very real sense, they went on “Red Alert.” At about the same time, the US initiated a new aid policy for Latin America in response to the insurrection.

The American plan was called the Alliance for Progress and was announced by President Kennedy in 1961. Based on the Marshall Plan, the Alliance was designed to reduce revolutionary pressures in other parts of the region by stimulating economic development and political reform. Unfortunately, the Alliance never really got off the ground. The onset of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 gave the US more to worry about than the threatened spread of revolutionary sentiment. Americans feared that their very survival was at stake.

The Kennedy Years

Brazil played an intriguing role in the politics and diplomacy of the Cuban Missile Crisis and in US – Cuban relations during the Kennedy years. After Fidel Castro took power, successive Brazilian governments tried secretly to mediate between Washington and Havana.

Brazil’s attempt to intervene reached a peak during the crisis when Kennedy asked Brazil to transmit a secret message to Castro. The country was already promoting a Latin American denuclearization scheme at the United Nations as a possible means of resolving the crisis.

Kennedy’s request gave Brazil an opening to broker a formula for US – Cuban reconciliation that would heighten the prestige of her own “independent” policy in the Cold War. Ultimately, all efforts failed, and Brazil’s leadership began to worry once more about the rise of Marxism at home.

Marxist Thought in Brazil

Marxist thought was gaining ground in Brazil’s public universities, and even the Catholic Church developed a wing sympathizing with the revolutionaries.

The military was especially distressed by the inability of their government’s civilian leadership to stem Marxism’s appeal. and a confrontational political climate soon developed.

The Military Takes Charge

Photo by Andre Gustavo Stumptf (Flickr)

At the same time that  Brazil’s military was becoming increasingly anxious, American policy continued to call for Brazilian democracy.  Even so, the US helped trigger dictatorship by encouraging the Latin American armed forces to take an increasingly active role in national life. As officers began promoting economic development and public health, a lot of them saw civilian politicians an unnecessary hindrance.

In April 1964, with the knowledge and collaboration of American officials, and with US naval support standing by offshore, Brazilian generals seized control of the country.

The new regime was intended to be transitory, but it gradually became a full dictatorship. Consequently, the military ruled Brazil undemocratically for the next twenty years.

Brazil had no tradition of military rule, so armed forces leadership carefully maintained the outward appearance of constitutional government. If laws got in their way, they changed the laws. For example, dissolving congress was an unconstitutional act, so before they took action, the generals decreed amendments that let them dissolve the legislative body legally.

Repression and An Economic Miracle

Due to extraordinary economic growth, labeled an “economic miracle,” the regime reached its highest level of popularity in the years of repression.

By the early 1970s, most Latin American generals thought that socialist revolution was imminent, and many believed that it was their responsibility to put an end to the revolutionary “red tide.“  They could see signs of opposition all around them. Spray painted revolutionary slogans seemed to cover every wall, and the 1960s New Cinema of Brazil had gained critical acclaim, producing films designed “to make people aware of their own misery.”

Marxism pervaded the cultural scene, emerging as the predominant political philosophy among Latin American artists, social scientists, and nationalist intellectuals. Not surprisingly the military reacted. Secret kidnapping, torture, and murder in the name of counterinsurgency became widespread. Student protesters, labor leaders, and peasant organizers were targeted — anyone, in actuality, suspected of sympathizing with guerillas.

Many of the guerillas lived and worked in the big cities close to government and army headquarters where it was easy for them to spur disruption. Operating in secrecy for their own protection, they preyed on wealthy industrialists to finance their operations.

“This is war,” explained the generals.

Latin American security forces subjected prisoners to a variety of horrors.

Many in Latin America believed that torture techniques were taught at the US School of the Americas (see our post on  Pope Francis and the Cold War in Latin America. ) The verdict may be out on this accusation, but the perception of many was  that ‘national security doctrine’ maintained the climate of emergency that was used to justify the junta’s actions.

Still, the Brazilian military wasn’t a unified organization, and  even though repression against opponents, including urban guerrillas, was harsh, it was not as brutal as in other Latin American countries.

Moderate constitutionalists were in control of Brazil’s government from 1964 to 1967. More dictatorial hardliners took over in 1968, dominating the government until 1974. Then the regime relaxed somewhat.

The Economic Miracle

Photo by Deni Williams (Flickr)

Along with the group of generals who took their cues from the US, there were right wing nationalists who wanted to make Brazil into a world power. This group was afraid of losing the vast territory that made up the Amazon River basin, so they paid special attention to road building and development projects in the surrounding region.

The Brazilian military also pushed heavy industrialization, focusing on the manufacture of durable consumer goods. Additional resources were channeled into mining, transportation, steel production, and oil refining.

Eventually, the US and Brazil found themselves at odds on almost every international issue. However, this wasn’t as important as it might have been because the country’s  economy was growing explosively, and the government was bragging about a Brazilian economic “miracle.”

In actuality, the military government had purposely created conditions in which new industries would thrive at the expense of Brazil’s impoverished majority. The military was able to hold down wages, suppress strikes, and even “disappear” anyone who complained.

Most ordinary Brazilian citizens didn’t benefit from the “miracle.” Heavy industry used only a small portion of Brazil’s pool of unskilled labor, and production was aimed at a middle-class market. Military policies put more money and credit in the hands of those who were “better off” and likely to buy cars, electronics, and domestic appliances. In fact, the bulk of Brazil’s income gains went to the richest tenth of Brazilian society.

The Transition to Democracy

General Ernesto Geisel became president in 1974 and began a project of re-democratization through a process that he said would be “slow, gradual, and safe.” By the time civilians returned to power in 1985, the economic miracle was over.

Economic Distress

After constructing some of the world’s largest — and most environmentally destructive hydroelectric dams — along with highways, bridges, and airports, Brazil’s economic bubble burst. The country was impacted in a big way!

Oil prices had been rising steeply since the early 1970s and Brazil imported a lot of oil. The military had borrowed billions of petrodollars to sustain its developmental drive. They had also borrowed petrodollars to import the petroleum they needed. When international interest rates rose dramatically in the late 1970s, Brazil’s foreign debt mushroomed. By the early 1980s, the country had the world’s largest foreign debt.

Beginning in 1978, worker strikes in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s industrial heart, broadcast the revival of popular opposition to the military’s regressive social policies. The military had used economic growth to justify its continued authoritarian rule. Now, in the early 1980s, with an economic meltdown and increasing opposition, the military was finally ready to bow out.

Recommended: New Cinema Brazil (Cinema Novo 101)

For an overview of Military Juntas in the Southern Cone in the Cold War, read our just published post here.

I’m reading Charles Murray’s latest book now. It’s titled Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1060-2010 and you can buy it on Amazon right here.

The book argues that President Kennedy’s assassination on November, 21, 1963, marked the end of an era. The next day, November 22, was symbolic, the first day

of what would be known as the Sixties and of the cultural transformation that wound its course through the subsequent decades.

There’s a lot of focus on The Sixties now because of the turmoil that we Americans are experiencing in our cities. Racial animosity and eroding respect for the police, especially, are spurring many to make comparisons to the agitation and protests that took place five decades ago.

Others are more concerned about economic inequality across races and ethnicities. But I guess I picked up the book because I wanted to figure out what was behind the Trump phenomenon.  Do white middle and lower class voters have a reason for feeling increasingly marginalized, hopeless, and disenchanted? Well, I haven’t gotten there yet, but some of the tidbits I’ve read about 1963 are fun — and, yes, even fascinating.

Here are just a few of Murray’s factoids from 1963:

• There were limited choices in TV viewing and some of the shows seem really hokey. On Thursday, November 21, TV’s primetime lineup included The Flintstones, The Donna Reed Show, My Three Sons, Perry Mason, The Perry Como Show, and Doctor Kildare.
• Popular music consisted of a single top 40 list. Country, rock, folk and doo wop were all lumped together. There were no separate radio stations for the different genres, except for a few country stations in a few parts of the nation.
• Bookstores were small and scarce except in university towns and the very largest cities. Most carried only a few hundred titles.
• There were no DVDs. If you didn’t see a movie when it was playing in  your town, you probably would never see it.
• You saw TV shows the night they played or waited for a summer repeat. No TiVo.
• People drove cars made in the United States. Foreign cars from Europe were expensive and rare. Cars from Japan had just been introduced, but they hadn’t yet caught on. In fact, they were thought to be cheap and shoddy.
• If you were a foodie, you were out of luck. In a large city, you would be able to find an Americanized Chinese restaurant or two. You would also come across a few Italian (primarily pizza) restaurants, and maybe a restaurant or two with a French name. Onion soup anyone? That was it. No Sushi or Thai.

On a more serious note:

• The percentage of births to single women — the “illegitimacy ratio” — was only 3% among whites, but was rising rapidly among blacks.
• Marriage was universal and divorce was rare across all races. A divorced person headed just 3.5% of  American households; another 1.6% were headed by a separated person. Interestingly, the marriage percentages for college grads and high school dropouts were about the same.
• More than 80% of married women with young children weren’t working outside the home.
• It wasn’t socially acceptable to be adult, male, and idle; 98% of civilian men in their 30s and 40s reported to government interviewers that they were in the labor force. There were either working or seeking work.
• A Gallup Poll taken in October 1963 focused on religious preference. Only 1% said they didn’t have a religious preference. Half said they had attended a worship service in the last 7 days. These answers had almost no variation across classes.
• Crime was low and few people had ever been in prison, even in low income neighborhoods. Still, most of the people who committed crimes in those neighborhoods ended up in jail. CRIME DIDN’T PAY!!

Sounds OK, doesn’t it? What do you think? Do we want to “Make America Great Again?” Before you jump on the bandwagon they’re a couple of other factoids you should know.

There were a few problems too.

• First and foremost was the status of African-Americans. The South was still thoroughly segregated. In the North, neighborhoods and schools in urban areas were segregated in practice. Racial differences in income, education, and occupation were all huge. Not surprisingly, the Civil Rights Movement was the biggest domestic issue of the early 1960s.
• Women weren’t doing so well either.There were 1.4 male college graduates for every female. Two master’s degrees were awarded to males for every one that went to a female. Eight PhDs went to males for every one that went to a female.
• Teaching and nursing were still two of the only occupations in which women received equal treatment and opportunity.
• Women who entered male dominated professions were expected to put up with a fair amount of sexual harassment.
• Pollution was a serious problem in most urban communities.
• The official poverty line didn’t exist yet, but it’s been retrospectively calculated for 1963. Almost 20% of the American people were living below the poverty line. Even so. poverty was not at the forefront of the domestic policy agenda.

Gallup Poll: Fall 1963

You might be astonished to learn that, according to a second Gallup poll, America didn’t have a lower class or an upper class in 1963. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

• Ninety-five percent of the respondents said they were working class (50%) or middle class (45%).
• A great many poor people refused to identify themselves as lower class.
• A great many affluent people refused to identify themselves as upper class.

The data Murray presents just about sums the year up.  But America was about to change dramatically in every aspect: politics, the economy, technology, high culture, popular culture, and civic culture. Fast forward five years and you won’t believe you’re looking at the same country. And it’s the turmoil of the Democratic Convention in that year, 1968, that people are afraid of at this year’s Republican Convention. What do you think? Is the stage set?

If you want to take a more in-depth look at one of  major drivers of public opinion in the Sixties, take a look at our Vietnam Time here.

If you’d like to listen to Vietnam Protest Songs from the Sixties, listen to our YouTube Channel.