President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act on Liberty Island on 3 October 1965. The law replaced national-origin quotas with a new preference system.
Explore all six stories from 3 October.
A signature beneath the Statue of Liberty
On 3 October 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. The LBJ Presidential Library identifies the date, place and law, also known as the Hart-Celler Act. The setting gave the ceremony a powerful symbol, but the law’s importance lay in the rules it changed. It moved United States immigration policy away from a national-origins quota system that had favored certain European countries and sharply restricted or excluded others.
What the old system had done
For decades, national-origin quotas shaped who could enter the United States. The LBJ Library notes that the system favored immigrants from northern Europe and the British Isles while discriminating against those from southern and eastern Europe and severely restricting Asian and non-white entrants. The signing did not make migration universally open. It changed the framework used to decide among applicants and should be understood against a longer history of exclusion written into federal law.
A different preference system
The 1965 act removed the national-origins formula and emphasized family relationships and occupational skills in a new preference system. Immigration limits and other legal conditions did not disappear. That nuance matters because the phrase “abolished quotas” can sound as if Congress removed every numerical restriction. The meaningful change was the dismantling of the discriminatory nationality ranking and the creation of different priorities. Its effects unfolded over years as families and applicants used the new rules.
The photograph is of the event
Unlike many historical features that rely on later illustrations, this article uses a photograph of the signing itself. The LBJ Library identifies Yoichi R. Okamoto as the photographer and marks the image public domain. It shows Johnson with other officials and guests while he signs the act. The image can establish where the ceremony took place; it cannot by itself measure how fully the law met the ideals invoked at the Statue of Liberty.
A law and its afterlife
The policy became a central point in the reshaping of American migration patterns and family reunification. Its history includes both the congressional choice made in 1965 and debates about how later administrations applied or revised immigration rules. For this dated feature, the documentary anchor is the signature on 3 October. The broader consequences should not be projected as if they were already visible to everyone standing at the ceremony. Read our story on Thurgood Marshall’s 1967 judicial oath for another milestone in the era’s contested expansion of legal opportunity.
Sources and method
The presidential library establishes the exact date, place and photograph. The account distinguishes ending national-origin quotas from ending all immigration limits.
.jpg){kind=link}