McCarran-Walter Act

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952 (better known as the McCarran-Walter Act) was a law passed by the United States Congress restricting immigration into the United States.

It came into being despite heavy controversies between President Harry Truman and the House and the Senate. Truman vetoed the so-called McCarran-Walter Act (named after sponsors Senator Pat McCarran (D-Nevada) and Congressman Francis Walter (D-Pennsylvania)) because he regarded the bill as "un-American" and discriminatory. The two chambers neglected the president's veto but applied some changes to the bill.

Racial restrictions which previously existed were abolished in the INA, but a quota system was retained and the policy of restricting the numbers of immigrants from certain countries was continued. Eventually, the INA established a preference system which selected which ethnic groups were desirable immigrants and placed great importance on labor qualifications.

The INA defined three types of immigrants: 1. relatives of US citizens who were exempt from quotas and who were to be admitted without restrictions; 2. average immigrants whose numbers was not supposed to exceed 270,000 per year; 3. refugees.

The Act allowed the government to deport immigrants or naturalized citizens engaged in subversive activities and also allowed the barring of suspected subversives from entering the country. It was used over the years to bar members and former members and "fellow travellers" of the Communist Party from entry into the United States, even those who had not been associated with the party for decades.

The Act had been used to exclude numerous prominent individuals until its ideological clauses were repealed in 1990. These include British sociologist Tom Bottomore, Argentine novelist Julio Cortazar, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Italian playwright Dario Fo, Colombian novelist and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda, Uruguayan scholar Angel Rama, philosopher Michel Foucault (France), and authors Graham Greene (Great Britain), Doris Lessing (Great Britain), Dennis Brutus (South Africa), Farley Mowat (Canada), Kobo Abe (Japan), Nobel Laureate Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), and Jan Myrdal (Sweden)[1], as well as Pierre Trudeau prior to becoming Prime Minister of Canada.

"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. America is indeed a joining together of many streams which go to form a mighty river which we call the American way. 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." (Senator Pat McCarran, Cong. Rec., March 2, 1953, p. 1518.)

Parts of the act were overturned by the 1965 Immigration Act.

See also

• McCarran Internal Security Act
• House Committee on Un-American Activities (Francis Walter chair 1955-1963)
• McCarthyism

External links

• Text of the McCarran-Walter Act
• "The McCarran-Walter Act: A Contradictory Legacy on Race, Quotas, and Ideology" paper from the Immigration Policy Center.