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AP U.S. History 2.3 Period 8: 1945–1980. The Immigration Act marked a new period in American immigration policy because of all of the following except that...what?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the national origins formula,

00:08

X plus Y equals xenophobia.

00:12

Read this excerpt.

00:13

[ mumbles ]

00:18

All right, and the question: The Immigration Act

00:21

marked a new period in American immigration policy because of

00:25

all of the following except that... what?

00:28

And here are your potential answers.

00:30

[ mumbles ]

00:35

All right. Well, what exactly is this question asking? Hmm?

00:38

Well, the excerpt says that the old system of immigration

00:41

"violates the basic principle of American democracy -

00:44

the principle that values and rewards each man

00:48

on the basis of his merit as a man."

00:51

Yeah. Those are some fighting words, LBJ.

00:53

So we need to figure out which of the answers was

00:55

not a result of this about-face in our nation's

00:58

immigration policy.

01:00

Well, did the Immigration Act mark a new period because A -

01:03

it abolished the national origins formula?

01:06

Well, the national origins formula restricted visa availability

01:09

to immigrants from certain regions. It excluded Asians

01:12

altogether and also preferred northern and western Europeans

01:15

over southern and eastern ones.

01:17

So that eliminates A and B.

01:19

Was the Immigration Act a step change because C -

01:21

it prioritized immigrants' skills and family relationships?

01:25

Well, that, too. Rather than focus on sheer numbers,

01:28

the new law emphasized that immigrants'

01:30

skills and their relationships to people already living in the U.S.

01:33

when evaluating visa applications.

01:36

Talk about a numbers game-changer. Yeah.

01:38

That means the Immigration Act did not D -

01:41

lead to a decrease in overall immigration.

01:44

LBJ may have had great intentions in reforming

01:46

U.S. immigration law, but he underestimated

01:48

the power of his pen. When he opened the visa system

01:51

up to dozens of new countries, he didn't expect them

01:54

to actually take advantage of the change

01:56

in policy. So D is the correct answer.

01:59

And LBJ may have misjudged

02:01

the potential increase in immigration and the stress

02:03

it would place on the system, but the law promoted

02:06

fairness in a way U.S. policy never had before.

02:09

Well, maybe two wrongs can make a right.

02:13

[ horse nickers ]

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