Since 1952 Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago had won their independence from Great Britain; their citizens should enjoy free entry like other nations of the Western Hemisphere. Under McCarran-Walter no person with a mental problem was admissible except by enactment of a private bill. Kennedy recommended that such individuals should be allowed to enter if they were close relatives of U.S. citizens or resident aliens.
The President hoped for early hearings on the bill. But Eastland remained adamantly opposed. Michael A. Feighan of Ohio had replaced Walter as chairman of the House subcommittee. While the administration hoped that he would be open-minded, he refused to hold hearings in 1963. On November 22 Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Schwartz had a close personal relationship with Kennedy, he was deeply concerned. He had barely met Lyndon Johnson, merely shaking hands in a White House receiving line. The little he knew about him was discouraging. In 1952 then Senator Johnson, like other southerners, had voted for McCarran-Walter and to override Truman’s veto. But there was much about Johnson that Schwartz did not know. He was very sensitive to ethnic discrimination and in 1938 and 1939, when he was in the House, had helped Jews to escape from Hitler. The most notable case involved the Austrian conductor Erich Leinsdorf, for whom he got a temporary visa; when it expired, he sent him to Cuba from which he could return to the U.S. under the Austrian quota. He had also arranged for 42 German and Polish Jews to enter the country, many of whom settled in Austin.
When he became President, Johnson was uninformed about immigration reform. Myer Feldman, who had worked on the issue for Kennedy since his Senate days, said, “I had to educate both President Johnson and [his assistant] Jack Valenti.” Once briefed, Johnson became an unwavering supporter. In early 1964, for example, he phoned Celler to congratulate him on passage of the Civil Rights Act and, characteristically, told him to get busy on the immigration bill.
Schwartz felt that he had everything riding on the immigration measure. “If strong backing were not to be forthcoming, I … decided there was no use in my remaining in the administration.” He talked to Bill Moyers in the White House, who assured him that the President was fully committed.
In the State of the Union message on January 8, Johnson declared,
We must … lift by legislation the bars of discrimination against those who seek entry into our country, particularly those who have much needed skills and those joining their families.
In establishing preferences, a nation that was built by immigrants of all lands can ask those who now seek admission: “What can you do for our country?” But we should not be asking: “In what country were you born?”
On January 13 the President met in the Cabinet Room with 60 representatives of church, nationality, and labor groups that supported the Kennedy bill, along with involved members of Congress. Johnson told them that he was for immigration reform and would work hard for the bill. He asked Eastland if he would hold hearings and the senator said he was always ready to do so. Johnson then asked Feighan the same question. He said that the McCarran-Walter Act provided for a joint committee and that hearings should be held under that provision, an observation that almost no one present understood. Walter had thought the device useless and had never invoked it.
This was the start of the administration’s education into the ways of Michael Feighan. He was a slippery character capable of making endless trouble. The son of a banker, he had attended Princeton and then Harvard Law School. He then joined a Cleveland law firm with his four brothers, all lawyers, which was called Feighan, Feighan, Feighan, Feighan and Feighan. In the House he represented part of that city and its suburbs. While his district contained many voters descended from southern and eastern Europeans, he was a strong supporter of McCarran-Walter. According to Assistant Attorney General Norbert Schlei, who dealt with him extensively, Feighan viewed his constituency as “the traditional supporters of the national origins system (veterans groups, patriotic societies, conservative nationality groups, etc.).”
Feighan’s superior, Celler, thoroughly distrusted him, including his plan to invoke the McCarran-Walter committee. Celler was convinced that this would be “the end of any immigration legislation” and, with Larry O’Brien’s help, got the appropriations subcommittee to deny Feighan the funds he had asked for.
Celler introduced the administration bill, H.R. 7700. It had been written by a team in the Department of Justice headed by Schlei, by another from the State Department led by Schwartz, and by Feldman of the White House staff. It was proposed in the form of amendments to the Immigration and Nationality (McCarran-Walter) Act. The main provisions were the following: All quotas would fall 20 percent a year for five years. These reduced numbers would be placed in a quota reserve from which qualified applicants would be allowed to enter the U.S. The minimum quota for each nation would become 200. Persons from independent nations in the Western Hemisphere, including adjacent islands, would be admitted with their spouses and children outside the quota system. Individuals with special skills not available in the U.S. would receive preference. So would persons part of whose families were already legally within the country.
Thus, these amendments would eliminate the historic national origins quota system. But the bill proposed no annual total number of immigrants. The assumption was that the number allowed in each year would differ little from those in recent years under McCarran-Walter. Schlei estimated an increase from 157,000 to 165,000 because of the rise in the minimum from 100 to 200, not counting special cases. But they would now come from all over the world without being weighted in favor of northwestern Europe. The anti-Communist provisions of the 1952 law would be unchanged.
Feighan’s subcommittee held hearings on H.R. 7700 between June and September 1964. He worked over Schwartz. Feighan compelled him to admit that there was “nothing in the administration proposal which in any way alters or changes security safeguards spelled out in the present law.” He attacked Schwartz for helping to arrange for the entry into the U.S. from Turkey of 200 Russians of the Old Believer sect who had fled religious persecution in the Soviet Union. While the hearings were quite thorough, it was obvious that no legislation would be enacted in 1964. Great Society bills congested both congressional calendars and everyone in Washington had his eye on the election.
Further, the outlook in both the subcommittee and the parent Judiciary Committee was dismal. Henry Hall Wilson, who covered the House, wrote O’Brien on July 11, 1964: “As a practical matter I think we have to call it about an impossibility to get this out of subcommittee.” Three of the five members were “clearly and decisively wrong,” and one was “absolutely frantic.” Of Feighan, “we must suspect both his good faith and his capacity.” If a “miracle” occurred in the subcommittee, the committee would also be “tough.” The Senate was little better since Eastland’s committee was hopeless.
Feighan promised the administration that his subcommittee would report out “a good immigration bill.” But he did not mean H.R. 7700. The measure he introduced was entirely different. It would admit 10,000 people presently on the waiting list and would establish a board to examine the distribution of 100,000 unused quota numbers over the next two and a half years. His bill did not abolish the national origins system, did not eliminate the Asia-Pacific Triangle, and did not require the mandatory distribution of unused quota numbers. Even this was too much for Eastland and there was talk that the American Legion was lining up senators to filibuster. On August 12, Feldman wrote Valenti that “time is so short that I doubt that much can be done.” He was right. Nothing happened in 1964.3
The 1964 elections transformed the political prospect. Though public interest in immigration reform did not rise, the immense Democratic majorities in both houses virtually guaranteed that Johnson would get what he wanted. The House Judiciary Committee changed from 21 Democrats and 14 Republicans to 24 and 11. The immigration subcommittee was increased from 5 to 9 members, thereby assuring the administration a majority. Two of the new Democrats
were Jacob Gilbert of New York and Harold Donohue of Massachusetts, both from immigrant-heavy districts, as well as Jack Brooks of Texas, who was close to Johnson. While Feighan had hardly changed his mind and he had a nasty public fight with Celler, he could read the political signs and made friendly noises. Even Eastland told Mike Manatos of O’Brien’s staff that “Ted Kennedy is in charge of immigration.”
Johnson sent up a special message on immigration on January 13, calling for elimination of national origins. “That system is incompatible with our basic American tradition.” He proposed a bill virtually identical to the one Kennedy had offered in 1963. Celler introduced it in the House as H.R. 2580, Philip Hart of Michigan in the Senate as S. 500. Administration strategy was to move the bill through the House first.
The subcommittee hearings consumed 12 days between March and June 1965. Attorney General Katzenbach, whose department had led in drafting the bill and which included the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was the main spokesman for the administration. The primary purpose of H.R. 2580, he said, was to “abolish the national origins quota system and in its place … establish a standard for the selection of quota immigrants which is clear and fair.” They would be chosen on a first come, first served basis “within a total limit.” Otherwise, McCarran-Walter sanctions against Communists would carry over. The total admitted would rise only slightly.
The lobbies that had supported the elimination of national origins—nationality groups, churches, and organized labor—reaffirmed their positions. But a significant change occurred among some who had opposed—patriotic organizations like the American Legion. Now Daniel J. O’Connor of the Legion testified that his organization was “not unaware of the strength and direction of the current political winds” and was impressed with the fact that the quota system had “not worked in practice as in theory.” While he did not endorse reversal explicitly, he left no doubt that the Legion would not stand in the way.
Though Feighan also felt the new winds, he insisted on a last stand. In early May he made a proposal to the White House and the Justice Department in which he conceded on national origins. “Every trace of a system under which eligibility for immigration shall be based upon … place of birth, race or … nationality is removed immediately.” But he wanted something in return from the administration: a worldwide (including the Western Hemisphere) fixed ceiling of 325,000 persons admitted annually. This would not only eliminate discrimination among nations in Europe, Asia and Africa, but between continents as well.
Schlei, who negotiated with Feighan, concluded that he had fallen into a political trap. He needed an explanation for his acceptance of the elimination of national origins that would appeal to his constituency. “He wants to be able to say that in return for scrapping the national origins system … he has gotten … for the first time in our history a limit on all immigration.”
The problem was the Western Hemisphere, which had always been outside the quota system. The average annual immigration from the New World in the five most recent years was 125,014, including averages of 33,496 from Canada and 43,565 from Mexico. About one-fourth of the total consisted of close relatives of persons already in the U.S. and, therefore, automatically admissible, about one-third in the case of Mexico. Any tampering with the historic open border between Canada and the U.S. and the resulting intermingling of the Canadian and American peoples was out of the question. The problem in Latin America, including Mexico, differed, but was hardly amenable to quotas.
Johnson said he would accept a worldwide ceiling including Latin America only if Secretary of State Rusk approved. The secretary said that he “absolutely could not live with a numerical ceiling on the Western Hemisphere.” The Latin nations were extremely sensitive to insults from their North American neighbor. Further, Johnson had sent the Marines into the Dominican Republic on April 28 to the extreme displeasure of the Latin countries. If the U.S. now imposed immigration quotas, Rusk told Valenti, “we will vex and dumbfound our Latin American friends, who will now be sure we are in final retreat from Pan Americanism.” Moreover, Schlei pointed out, the Feighan proposal would serve no immigration purpose because “existing restrictions on non-quota immigration in reality control immigration from the Western Hemisphere adequately.”
To placate Feighan, the administration offered a worldwide maximum of 350,000 annually, 25,000 above his limit. But he had no bargaining power. There were five solid votes against him on the subcommittee and he had only three, including his own.
Celler thought this bargaining with Feighan was demeaning and unnecessary. He was now battling publicly with Feighan over the McCarran-Walter joint committee. While it was ostensibly over funding the committee, Celler was convinced that Feighan wanted to delay the immigration bill until 1966 and to smear alleged security risks.
There was some delay in getting the bill out of the subcommittee by the question of whose name should go on it. Celler was the obvious choice, but both Feighan and Peter Rodino wanted at least part of the credit. Speaker McCormack “suggested” to Feighan that it be called the Celler-Feighan Act, and, according to O’Brien, Celler and Feighan had a “love feast,” a rather improbable notion. But Rodino resented being left out and Valenti was called upon to bring his fellow Italian-American around. There were, Valenti wrote, “interminable conversations,” and he told Rodino that “we were counting on him in a very vital way and he simply could not let us down. He agreed to go along.” The irrepressible Feighan still would not give up the Western Hemisphere. “But we got it out,” Valenti wrote with relief, “and then Feighan stayed hitched.”
On July 22 the subcommittee voted out the administration bill 8 to 0, with one Republican counted as present. The Judiciary Committee followed on August 3 by a 27 to 4 vote, though the Republicans, wanting to have it both ways, filed minority reports complaining about the Western Hemisphere exemption. The House debate was low-key on H.R. 2580 on August 25. The only significant amendment was a proposal to limit entries from the Western Hemisphere to 115,000 annually, which was defeated 218 to 189. The House then adopted the bill 318 to 95. The northern Democrats were overwhelmingly in favor, 179 to 8, and the Republicans joined them 109 to 29. The southern Democrats alone opposed H.R. 2580, 62 to 30. All of the 92 Catholics in the House except 3 of the 9 southerners and all 15 Jews voted for the bill.
The Senate subcommittee took no action until the House had moved, but held 29 days of hearings between February and August. Eastland, the chairman of both the subcommittee and the Judiciary Committee, removed himself from the proceedings. But he was not “guided by Ted Kennedy’s wishes.” In fact, Senator Sam Ervin, Jr., of North Carolina chaired the hearings and handled S. 500. While, like other southerners, Ervin preferred McCarran-Walter, he was somewhat more liberal about immigration and had a particular respect for Greeks. The difference from the House subcommittee was that Ervin, unlike Feighan, had a majority and was, therefore, tougher on the Western Hemisphere.
On August 20 Ervin told Manatos that he insisted on a total quota of 300,000, including 120,000 from the Americas. O’Brien informed the President on August 24, “It is clear that some sort of compromise involving a worldwide quota may be necessary to spring a bill from the Senate Judiciary Committee.” Johnson, who wanted quick action, conceded at once. That same day Katzenbach notified Ervin and minority leader Dirksen that the administration would accept 120,000 on condition that a select commission on Western Hemisphere immigration should be established to examine the question and report within three years. If it recommended a figure other than 120,000, Congress would consider its proposal; otherwise, a 120,000 ceiling would take effect on July 1, 1968. The senators agreed and the subcommittee amended the bill on August 26 by a vote of 5 to 3. The Judiciary Committee accepted the report on September 15. The vote was 15 to 2, the latter both conservative southerners.
The Senate debated H.R. 2580 with the Ervin amendment for four days and on September 22 adopted it 76 to 18. The northern Democrats were fo
r it 43 to 2, the Republicans 24 to 3. The southern Democrats voted against it 13 to 9. All the Catholics and Jews in the Senate favored the bill.
The conference report came down on September 29 for the Senate bill. The Senate adopted it by voice vote the next day. In the House that day Democrat Henry Gonzalez of Texas proposed rejection of the Latin American limitation to no avail. The House then accepted the report 320 to 69.
The Select Commission on Western Hemisphere Immigration consisted of 15 members, five named by the Senate, including Dirksen, Eastland, and Ted Kennedy, five by the House, including Celler, Feighan, and Rodino, and five chosen by the President with Richard M. Scammon, former Director of the Census, as chairman. Its report, issued in January 1968, was divided. The more liberal majority recommended postponement of the ceiling to July 1, 1969, to allow more time for study, while the conservative minority urged that the law should go into effect as passed. Congress took no action on the majority recommendation and the 120,000 maximum became effective in 1968.
The signing of the new immigration law called for a special celebration and, as several people pointed out, there was no better place for it than Statue of Liberty Island. Secretary of the Interior Steward Udall, who was responsible for its administration, called it a “dramatic setting for the signing.” Ellis Island, the only alternative, lacked landing facilities and was in a state of disrepair. Statue of Liberty Island had open terraces above the museum which afforded a superb view of New York Harbor.
At the foot of the statue on October 3, 1965, President Johnson hailed the immigration law for eliminating “a very deep and painful flaw in the fabric of American justice.” The days of unlimited immigration were over, he said, but “those who do come will come because of what they are, and not because of the land from which they spring.” The U.S. had just concluded a treaty with Castro’s Cuba to allow for the emigration of Cubans to Miami in order to reunite families. “The lamp of this grand old lady is brighter today—and the golden door that she guards gleams more brilliantly in the light of an increased liberty for the people from all the countries of the globe.”4
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