What is the Immigration and Nationality Act?
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) was enacted in 1952. Before the INA, a variety of statutes governed immigration law but were not organized in one location. The McCarran-Walter bill of 1952, Public Law No. 82-414, collected and codified many existing provisions and reorganized the structure of immigration law. The Act has been amended many times over the years but is still the basic body of immigration law. Although it stands alone as a body of law, the Act is also contained in the United States Code. The code is a collection of all the laws of the United States, arranged in 50 subject titles by general alphabetic order. Title 8 of the U.S. Code, one of the 50 titles, deals with “Aliens and Nationality.” Although it is correct to refer to a specific section by either its INA citation or its U.S. code, the INA citation is more commonly used.
