Immigration Act of 1990 Expands Legal Immigration, Creates Diversity Visa Lottery

President George H.W. Bush signs the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT), the most significant expansion of legal immigration since the Hart-Celler Act of 1965. The law increases annual immigration limits from 500,000 to 700,000 for the first three years and 675,000 thereafter, creates the Diversity Visa Lottery allocating 55,000 visas annually to countries with low immigration rates, expands employment-based immigration categories, and establishes the H-1B temporary worker visa program for specialty occupations requiring at least a bachelor’s degree.

The legislation represents a brief moment of bipartisan consensus on expanding legal immigration before the restrictionist turn of the mid-1990s. Sponsors argue that increased legal immigration will reduce unauthorized migration by providing lawful pathways, while the diversity lottery addresses complaints that post-1965 immigration disproportionately favored family reunification from established immigrant communities. Technology companies successfully lobby for H-1B provisions, beginning the corporate influence over employment-based immigration that intensifies in subsequent decades.

The 1990 Act’s employment provisions establish infrastructure that technology companies subsequently exploit to lower labor costs. The H-1B program, initially capped at 65,000 visas annually, creates worker dependency on employer sponsorship that critics characterize as a form of indentured servitude—workers cannot easily change jobs without risking deportation, enabling wage suppression and workplace abuse. The diversity lottery becomes a persistent target for restrictionists who characterize it as “random” immigration that should be replaced with “merit-based” selection, ignoring that lottery winners must still pass background checks and meet eligibility requirements. The 1990 Act demonstrates how immigration expansion can serve corporate interests in cheap labor while establishing programs that later face attack from both restrictionists opposing any legal immigration and worker advocates criticizing exploitation of temporary visa holders.