http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/opinion/lbj-and-mexican-immigrants.html 2016-09-06 20:39:39 L.B.J. and Mexican Immigrants The 1965 Immigration Act is routinely mischaracterized as having “opened the door” to Latin American immigration, a history professor writes. === To the Editor: As Kevin Baker notes in “ But it should also be noted that a provision of the act — one that Lyndon Johnson in fact had opposed — serves to enable some of Mr. Trump’s demagogy. The act’s Western Hemisphere quota, which the author notes in passing, bears spotlighting, for this provision made it impossible for most Mexicans to receive permission to enter the country, despite a history of widespread migration in the greater border region that predated the border itself. The Johnson administration opposed the Western Hemisphere quota as unworkable, only acceding to it when Southern segregationists threatened to otherwise torpedo the entire immigration bill. Ironically, the 1965 Immigration Act is routinely mischaracterized, even by many immigration reformers, as supposedly having “opened the door” to Mexican and other Latin American immigration. JULIE LEININGER PYCIOR Bronx The writer is a professor of history at Manhattan College and the author of