IIE President Stephen Duggan influenced the U.S. government to create a new category of non-immigrant student visas, bypassing post-war quotas set by the Immigration Act of 1921. In the 1930s, IIE began expanding its activities beyond Europe, opening the first exchanges with the Soviet Union and Latin America. After World War II, the Institute facilitated the establishment of what is now NAFSA and the CIEE. In the 1940s, IIE aided more than 4,000 U.S. students to study and work on reconstruction projects at European universities devastated by the war.