When the U.S. Congress passed—and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law—the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, the move was largely seen as symbolic.  The 1965 aimed to eliminate race discrimination in immigration.  "The 1965 act has to be understood as a result of the civil rights movement, and the general effort to eliminate race discrimination from U.S. law," says Gabriel “Jack” Chin, immigration law professor at University of California, Davis and co-editor of The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act: Legislating a New America.

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