the immigration reform act did not alter the rate or national origin of immigration after 1965
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 Prior to 1965, the demographics of immigration stood as mostly Europeans; 68 percent of legal immigrants in the 1950s came from Europe and Canada. However, in the years 1971–1991, immigrants from Hispanic and Latin American countries made 47.9 percent of immigrants (with Mexico accounting for 23.7 percent) and immigrants from Asia 35.2 percent. Not only did it change the ethnic makeup of immigration, but it also greatly increased the number of immigrants—immigration constituted 11 percent of the total U.S. population growth between 1960 and 1970, growing to 33 percent from 1970–80, and to 39 percent from 1980–90.[19] The elimination of the National Origins Formula and the introduction of numeric limits on immigration from the Western Hemisphere, along with the strong demand for immigrant workers by U.S. employers, led to rising numbers of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in the decades after 1965, especially in the Southwest.[20] Policies in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that were designed to curtail migration across the Mexican-U.S. border led many unauthorized workers to settle permanently in the U.S.[21] These demographic trends became a central part of anti-immigrant activism from the 1980s leading to greater border militarization, rising apprehension of migrants by the Border Patrol, and a focus in the media on the supposed criminality of immigrants.[22]