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AP U.S. History 2.3 Period 8: 1945–1980 204 Views
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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?
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 ]
Full Transcript
- 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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