Bush signs immigration reform statute into law, Nov. 29, 1990
On this day in 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed into law the broadest revision of U.S. immigration laws in more than a half century. The act provided for the admission into the United States of 700,000 immigrants in fiscal years 1992 through 1994 and 675,000 a year after that.
The bill had cleared the Senate on Oct. 26 by a vote of 89 to 8 and the House on the following day by a vote of 264 to 118. Bush said: “I am also pleased to note that this act facilitates immigration not just in numerical terms, but also in terms of basic entry rights of those beyond our borders.”
Bush also noted that “immigration reform began in 1986 with an effort to close the ‘back door’ on illegal immigration ... Now, as we open the ‘front door’ to increased legal immigration, I am pleased that this Act also provides needed enforcement authority.”
The legislation, Bush added, “meets several objectives of my administration’s war on drugs and violent crime. Specifically, it provides for the expeditious deportation of aliens who, by their violent criminal acts, forfeit their right to remain in this country. These offenders, comprising nearly a quarter of our federal prison population, jeopardize the safety and well-being of every American resident.”
In 1989, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) introduced what became the Immigration Act of 1990. It provided for family-based immigration visas, created five employment-based visas, categorized by occupation, and added a diversity visa program that created a lottery to admit a small number of immigrants from “low admittance” countries or countries where their citizens were historically underrepresented in the United States. The allotment of visas available for extended relatives were cut back.
In addition to these immigrant visa categories, there were also changes in nonimmigrant visas such as the H-1B visa for highly skilled workers. Congress also created the temporary protected status visa, which authorized the U.S. attorney general to admit immigrants who were unable to safely return to their home country because of ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. It was aimed to specifically benefit citizens of El Salvador.
(In signing the bill, Bush said: “I do not interpret this [temporary protected status] provision as detracting from any authority of the executive branch to exercise prosecutorial discretion in suitable immigration cases. Any attempt to do so would raise serious constitutional questions.”)
For permanent immigrant (green card) residents who were over 55 and had been living in the United States for at least 15 years, the act lifted the pre-naturalization English testing process, which had been in effect since passage of the Naturalization Act of 1906. It also eliminated exclusion of homosexuals under what Congress now deemed the medically unsound classification of “sexual deviant” that was included in the 1965 act.
SOURCE: “THIS DAY IN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY,” BY PAUL BRANDUS