3. Removing barriers and debating consequences
America emerged from World War II a more unified, confident society, experiencing dramatic economic expansion and exercising military and political supremecy as the world’s dominant superpower. Racism and restrictionism in immigration and refugee law and policy were a burden on claims to world leadership. Continuing economic expansion could be reinforced by immigrant labor. Support grew for more open immigration and refugee regimes without racial and nationality restrictions. A series of laws created foundations for an expansive refugee policy. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act ended restrictive quotas and racial deselections. The public was not overly enthusiastic about a re-inception of mass immigration, and was assured that this would not happen. However, when paired with unsettling political and economic change as modernization spread outside Europe, the unintended consequence of the 1965 law was intense controversy over unprecedented numbers of immigrants, both legal and illegal, principally from Asia and Latin America.