There is a ghost haunting nearly every major fight over American immigration policy.
It is a law passed more than 60 years ago, sold to the American people with false assurances that it wouldn't dramatically increase immigration, wouldn't change the country's demographic makeup, and wouldn't fundamentally alter American life.
Ted Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson looked the American people in the eye and told them a big lie about the 1965 immigration act.
And now the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 — better known as the Hart-Celler Act — is back in the news for another reason: A Biden-appointed federal judge just used one of its provisions to block the Trump administration from suspending immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 countries.
The Trump administration had directed consular officers to refuse immigrant visas under the policy based on concerns that applicants from those countries were likely to become "public charges" — dependent on taxpayer-funded benefits after arriving in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York ruled that Secretary of State Marco Rubio exceeded his authority because Section 1152(a)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act prohibits discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas based on nationality.
The Hart-Celler Act goes to the “heart” of the problem, no pun intended. The very immigration law that helped create the enormous migration system that Trump is now attempting to restrain is being invoked to prevent his administration from restraining it.
READ MORE: Federal Judge Strikes Down Trump’s 75-Country Visa Ban Designed to Stop Welfare Abuse
Vargas was nominated by President Joe Biden in March 2024 and confirmed that September in a 51-43 vote. Every Republican voting opposed her except Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Her ruling turned heavily on a distinction between issuing a visa and allowing someone to enter the country.
The Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Trump v. Hawaii upheld broad presidential authority to restrict the entry of foreign nationals under Section 212(f) of the INA. Vargas concluded that the current case is different because the State Department policy operates directly on visa issuance — where Hart-Celler's nationality-discrimination provision applies.
That legal distinction will now presumably be fought through the appellate courts.
But the larger question is how America ended up with this immigration system in the first place. The answer goes back to 1965.
Before Hart-Celler, American immigration policy was largely organized around national-origin quotas established during the 1920s. Hart-Celler abolished that system and replaced it with preferences emphasizing family reunification and certain employment skills.
Its supporters insisted that the legislation was essentially a civil-rights cleanup operation — eliminating discriminatory national quotas without radically changing either the number or origins of people entering the United States.
What it did was radically shift the nation’s main source of immigrants from Western Europe, whose people were likely to culturally assimilate, to Asia and Africa, where the immigrants are less likely to smoothly adopt America’s Western culture, social customs, and legal traditions.
Sen. Ted Kennedy, one of the bill's principal Senate advocates, could hardly have been more explicit:
"First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same."
A demonstrable lie.
“Our” immigration policy since Hart-Cellar, and particularly since the 1990 Immigration Act (thanks HW) has served to fill America with 100 million foreigners who are simultaneously both incompatible with anything remotely resembling the America of our forefathers and who refuse… https://t.co/E8VocQlSd8 pic.twitter.com/LOYBYK1O7U
— Will Tanner (@Will_Tanner_1) May 31, 2026
“Our” immigration policy since Hart-Cellar, and particularly since the 1990 Immigration Act (thanks HW) has served to fill America with 100 million foreigners who are simultaneously both incompatible with anything remotely resembling the America of our forefathers and who refuse to leave
In other words, an invading army in the tens of millions, and which is supported by half of the (diluted) American people
The challenge posed by that is significant, to say the least
Kennedy went further.
"Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset."
Another lie.
"In 1965, roughly 84% of the U.S. population was non-Hispanic white, and most immigrants came from Europe. The Hart-Celler Act set off a demographic shift that has continued for six decades.
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 22, 2026
By the 2020 Census, non-Hispanic whites made up about 57.8% of the U.S. population. The… pic.twitter.com/xcLo2zFwJ8
And then came the assurance that looks almost surreal six decades later:
"Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and economically deprived nations of Africa and Asia."
Kennedy dismissed warnings to the contrary as "highly emotional, irrational, and with little foundation in fact."
President Lyndon Johnson delivered essentially the same sales pitch when he signed the legislation at Liberty Island on October 3, 1965.
"This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill," Johnson declared. "It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives."
This turned out to be a big lie.
The disastrous consequences accumulated over decades. Legal immigration had generally been running around 250,000 to 300,000 annually in the years before the 1965 overhaul. It subsequently climbed substantially, eventually reaching levels of roughly one million or more legal permanent residents in many years.
The composition of immigration changed just as dramatically. European immigration declined as a share of the total while immigration from Latin America and Asia surged. In other words, the two things Americans were specifically told would not happen — substantially greater immigration and a dramatic transformation in its national origins — happened.
The Vargas decision throws the Hart-Celler Act back into the national headlines. Organizations challenging Trump's 75-country policy argued that the State Department was violating the statutory system Congress created in 1965, and Vargas agreed.
Congress has prohibited nationality discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas. But Congress has also given the president extraordinary authority under Section 212(f) to suspend the entry of aliens when he determines their admission would be detrimental to American interests.
The Supreme Court upheld it in Trump v. Hawaii. And the constitutional backdrop is even larger. Immigration intersects directly with foreign affairs, sovereignty and national security — areas in which the executive branch traditionally possesses substantial authority.
The Trump administration has already benefited from Supreme Court intervention in the TPS litigation, where lower-court restrictions on the administration's termination decisions were substantially dismantled.
Hart-Celler has survived presidents, Congresses and enormous demographic change. Sixty-one years later, politicians aren't standing at the Statue of Liberty promising that it won't change America anymore. And now, when an elected president tries to pump the brakes, the statue they used to sell the lies watches them transform the country into the land of the unfree.
While their lies are already forgotten, the damage they have done to the country is still going on today.
It is a ghost in the machine that continues to haunt the nation’s worst decision.
It was only compounded by the Immigration Act of 1990, which paved the way for H1-B visa abuse, chain migration, and the green card lottery.
But bad decisions can be reversed, like President Calvin Coolidge did in 1924. He signed the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act, which halted mass immigration into the United States. The law halted all immigration from Asia, and set strict quotas on immigration from other places including Europe.
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬:
— Gabe Guidarini (@GabeGuidarini) December 28, 2024
In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act, which halted mass immigration into… pic.twitter.com/2ahPFqXCaU
After the law was passed, America saw unprecedented wage growth, which eventually led to the largest and most thriving middle class in world history.
If our country wants to see the return of the American Dream, the lesson of history is simple: Stop giving it out to foreigners who are coming into the nation to abuse the welfare system.
That is what Donald Trump tried to do with his order stopping visas from being issued to 75 nations.
Repeal Hart-Cellar
— The American Tribune (@TAmTrib) December 5, 2025
Repeal the Immigration Act of 1990
End H-1B and OPT Visas
Make America Great Again by Making America America Again pic.twitter.com/wAVroIssx6
But activist judges who want to see America “overwhelmed” by foreigners are furthering the plan set into place nearly 60 years ago with a law that few Americans have even heard of.
If we are going to get the nation back on track, we need to revisit the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act, the 1986 “amnesty,” and the Immigration Act of 1990 — and expose the lies and false promises that have pushed America to the breaking point.
