The Immigration Act of 1965, Hart-Celler Act, or 1965 Immigration Act, was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson abolished American discrimination against Southern and Eastern Europeans as well as Asians and other non-Western and Northern European ethnicities in immigration policy. The act was a break from past American immigration policies and restructured American immigration policy away from previous attempts to control immigration by ethnicity.
The 1965 Immigration Act significantly shifted the ethnic composition of immigrants with increased numbers from Asia, Africa, the West Indies, and non-US Americans. However, it also led to rising numbers of undocumented immigrants in the US after 1965, especially in the Southwest.