On October 3, 1965, Lyndon Johnson stood at the foot of the Statue of Liberty and signed the Hart-Celler Act into law. Vice President Humphrey flanked him on one side. Ted and Robert Kennedy stood on the other. Johnson promised the new law would not reshape America's demographics.
Twenty-five years later, on November 29, 1990, George H.W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990 in a quiet ceremony at the White House. No cameras at the Statue of Liberty. No grand promises. The bill raised legal immigration caps by 40%, created the H-1B visa program, launched the Diversity Visa lottery, and established Temporary Protected Status. It received almost no public attention.
Johnson was wrong about the 1965 Act. It did change who came to America. But the 1990 Act changed how many, created a pipeline for replacing American workers, and set off a cost-of-living crisis that has not ended.
The Volume
| Period | Average Annual Admissions | Governing Law |
|---|---|---|
| 1960-1965 | ~330,000 | National Origins Act (1924) |
| 1966-1979 | ~450,000 | Hart-Celler (1965) |
| 1980-1989 | ~600,000 | Hart-Celler + IRCA (1986) |
| 1990-1999 | ~900,000 | Immigration Act of 1990 |
| 2000-2009 | ~1,000,000 | Immigration Act of 1990 |
| 2010-2019 | ~1,060,000 | Immigration Act of 1990 |
| 2020-2025 | ~1,000,000-1,100,000 | Immigration Act of 1990 |
Under Hart-Celler, admissions rose from 330,000 to 600,000 per year.[1] That increase took 25 years. The 1990 Act pushed admissions past 900,000 immediately. Within a decade, the number crossed 1 million. It has stayed there for 25 years.
| Year | Foreign-Born | % of Total |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 9.6 million | 4.7% |
| 1980 | 14.1 million | 6.2% |
| 1990 | 19.8 million | 7.9% |
| 2000 | 31.1 million | 11.1% |
| 2010 | 40.0 million | 12.9% |
| 2025 | ~51.6 million | 15.8% |
The foreign-born share rose 3.2 points in the 25 years after Hart-Celler.[2] It rose 7.9 points in the 35 years after the 1990 Act.[3] The rate of demographic change more than doubled.
The Job Replacement Pipeline
Before 1990, there was no mechanism for employers to systematically replace American workers with foreign labor at scale. The predecessor H-1 visa admitted roughly 20,000 workers per year in the 1970s. By the late 1980s, use had expanded to about 65,000 - across all industries, not just tech. The bar was high: applicants needed "distinguished merit and ability."
The 1990 Act created the H-1B with an initial cap of 65,000, later expanded to 85,000. Renewals, transfers, and cap-exempt employers push the active H-1B workforce far beyond those numbers. Over 400,000 H-1B petitions are filed annually. 72% go to Indian nationals.[10] China is second at 11%. Two countries account for 83% of all H-1B admissions.
The program was sold as a way to fill genuine skill gaps. The Economic Policy Institute found that 60% of H-1B positions are certified at Level 1 or Level 2 wages - the bottom two tiers out of four.[11] A Level 1 wage is set at the 17th percentile of local wages for the occupation. A software developer in San Jose whose market rate is $140,000 can be replaced by an H-1B worker at $100,000. The H-1B worker accepts the lower salary because the visa is tied to the employer. Losing the job means leaving the country.
Four of the top ten H-1B sponsors are Indian outsourcing firms - Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant, and Wipro.[10] Their business model is importing mid-level workers at below-market wages.
Before 1990, a 22-year-old American with a computer science degree entered a labor market where 5-7% of tech workers were foreign-born. Recruiters came to campus. Multiple companies made offers. Starting salary was the highest of any bachelor's degree. By 2025, 25-30% of the national tech workforce is foreign-born.[8] In Silicon Valley, it exceeds 50%. The starting salary, adjusted for inflation, has risen 13% in 40 years. Housing in the same markets has risen 300%.[9]
The 1965 Act did not create this dynamic. Between 1965 and 1990, there was no program that could funnel hundreds of thousands of foreign workers into American professional jobs. The H-1B changed that overnight.
The Cost-of-Living Crisis
The connection between the 1990 Act and the cost-of-living explosion is direct. The Act added 32 million foreign-born residents to the population in 35 years.[3] The vast majority settled in the same 20 metropolitan areas.[4]
| Year | Price-to-Income Ratio | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1965 | 2.87x | Family income = 34.8% of home price |
| 1985 | ~3.5x | Modest increase over 20 years |
| 1990 | 3.7x | Still broadly affordable |
| 2000 | ~3.5x | Slight dip during 1990s |
| 2010 | ~4.0x | Post-recession recovery |
| 2022 | 5.6x | Record high |
| 2025 | ~5.0x | Still near record |
Between 1965 and 1990, the price-to-income ratio rose from 2.87x to 3.7x.[13] That is a manageable increase over 25 years. A family earning the median income could still buy the median home in every major metro in 1990.
After 1990, the ratio rose from 3.7x to 5.6x at its peak.[14] In high-immigration metros, the numbers are far worse. San Jose went from a price-to-income ratio of roughly 4x in 1990 to over 18x on a starting professional salary in 2025. Miami went from affordable to a ratio exceeding 10x. The metros with the highest foreign-born populations have the most extreme housing cost increases.[9]
The mechanism is arithmetic. When 1 million immigrants arrive per year and concentrate in 20 metros, housing demand rises without proportional supply. Prices follow. The foreign-born share of the population in San Jose is 39%. In Miami, 54%. In Los Angeles, 34%.[4] These are the same cities where a median-income family cannot afford a home.
In 1990, a family in San Jose could buy a home on a single income. In 2025, a household needs $300,000 per year to qualify for a mortgage on the median home. The 1965 Act did not produce this. San Jose was affordable in 1990. It became unaffordable after the H-1B pipeline and chain migration concentrated millions of additional residents in a market that could not absorb them.
Who Came
Hart-Celler shifted immigration away from Europe. That was a real change.
| Year | European-Born Share | Asian-Born | Latin American-Born |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 62% | 9% | 19% |
| 1990 | 22% | 25% | 44% |
| 2020 | 10% | 31% | 50% |
The 1965-1990 period was absorbable. Admissions ran 450,000-600,000 per year. The largest source countries shared some cultural overlap with the United States - Mexico through geography and Christianity, the Philippines through colonial history and English, Korea through military ties. English was still the default in public life. Institutional pressure to assimilate still existed.
The 1990 Act created a different pipeline. The H-1B funneled workers from India and China at a scale that had no precedent.
| Country | Foreign-Born in US (1990) | Foreign-Born in US (2025) | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| India | ~450,000 | ~3,200,000 | +611% |
| China | ~530,000 | ~3,000,000 | +466% |
Before the 1990 Act, the Indian-born population in the US was under half a million.[2] The Census did not track "Asian Indian" as a separate category until 1980. By 2025, India and China have sent 6.2 million foreign-born residents to the United States.[12] Neither nation shares a language, a religion, a legal tradition, or historical ties with America.
What the 1990 Act Built
The 1990 Act produced three outcomes that the 1965 Act did not.
It created a labor replacement pipeline. The H-1B program, the OPT program, and the L-1 intracompany transfer visa now place over 700,000 foreign workers in American professional jobs at any given time.[8] Before 1990, this number was effectively zero.
It created a cost-of-living crisis. Adding 32 million foreign-born residents to 20 metropolitan areas over 35 years, without building enough housing to absorb them, made those areas unaffordable for the Americans who were already there.[9] The price-to-income ratio went from 3.7x to 5.6x nationally.[14] In the metros where immigrants concentrated, it went to 10x or higher.
It created a demographic acceleration that outran assimilation. At 450,000-600,000 per year, communities could absorb newcomers. Schools could teach in English. Each cohort had time to integrate before the next arrived. At 1 million per year, the volume overwhelmed the system. The result is parallel communities that operate in different languages, maintain separate institutions, and have no civic connection to the country they live in.
The 1965 Act changed the composition of immigration. That mattered. The 1990 Act changed the scale, created the job replacement pipeline, and broke the housing market. The Center for Assimilation advocates replacing the 1990 Act with legislation that reduces legal immigration by at least 80% - the same reduction the 1924 Act achieved. The 1924 Act produced four decades of wage growth, middle-class expansion, and successful assimilation. The 1990 Act has produced the opposite.
Sources
- DHS Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, Table 1: Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status
- Census Bureau, Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-Born Population, 1850-2000
- Census Bureau, American Community Survey, Foreign-Born Population 2010-2024
- Migration Policy Institute, "Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration"
- Congressional Research Service, "Immigration: The Immigration Act of 1990"
- Immigration Act of 1990, Pub. L. 101-649
- Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler), Pub. L. 89-236
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Foreign-Born Workers: Labor Force Characteristics," 2024
- Census Bureau, Median Sales Price of Houses Sold, Historical Data
- USCIS, H-1B Employer Data Hub
- Economic Policy Institute, "H-1B Visas and Prevailing Wage Levels," Daniel Costa and Ron Hira, 2020
- Pew Research Center, "Key Facts About U.S. Immigrants," 2024
- Zoocasa, "60 Years of Housing Affordability Decline in America: 1965 to 2025"
- Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University, "Home Price-to-Income Ratio Reaches Record High"