Immigration Act of 1990

Immigration Act of 1990

Long title	An Act To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to change the level, and preference system for admission, of immigrants to the United States, and to provide for administrative naturalization, and for other purposes.
Enacted by	the 101st United States Congress
Citations
Public law	Pub.L. 101–649
Statutes at Large	104 Stat. 4978
Codification
Titles amended	8 U.S.C.: Aliens and Nationality
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as S. 358 by Ted Kennedy (D–MA) on February 7, 1989 Committee consideration by Senate Judiciary, House Judiciary Passed the Senate on July 13, 1989 (81–17) Passed the House on October 3, 1990 (unanimous consent in lieu of H.R. 4300, passed 231–192) Reported by the joint conference committee on October 26, 1990; agreed to by the Senate on October 26, 1990 (89–8) and by the House on October 27, 1990 (264–118) Signed into law by President George H. W. Bush on November 29, 1990

The Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub.L. 101–649, 104 Stat. 4978, enacted November 29, 1990) was signed into law by George H. W. Bush on November 29, 1990. It was first introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy in 1989. It was a national reform of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. It increased total, overall immigration to allow 700,000 immigrants to come to the U.S. per year for the fiscal years '92–'94, and 675,000 per year after that. It provided family based immigration visa, created five distinct employment based visas, categorized by occupation, as well as the diversity visa program which created a lottery to admit immigrants from "low admittance" countries or countries where their citizenry was underrepresented in the U.S.

Besides these immigrant visas there were also changes in nonimmigrant visas like the H-1B visa for highly skilled workers. There were also cutbacks in the allotment of visas available for extended relatives. The Temporary protected status visa was also created where Congress established a procedure by which the Attorney General may provide TPS to immigrants in the United States who are temporarily unable to safely return to their home country because of ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary condition. It specifically benefited citizens of El Salvador.

Other aspects of the act include lifting the English testing process for naturalization which was imposed in the Naturalization Act of 1906 and eliminating the exclusion of homosexuals under the medically unsound classification of "sexual deviant" that was present in the passage of the 1965 Act. George H. W. Bush is quoted in saying "I am also pleased to note that this Act facilitates immigration not just in numerical terms, but also in terms of basic entry rights of those beyond our borders." The administration, therefore, saw the importance of this amendment in extending a welcoming to those previously excluded nations/individuals.

Family reunification remained a priority as it had been in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This act expanded the number of family-based immigration visas allotted per year to 480,000 but to do this it also made the definition of family more exclusive by limiting it to immediate family members.

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