Speech #710212436

Mr. President. my reason for offering this amendment is that under the present law. if any alien is convicted of a crime and deported. he is forever forbidden reentry into this country. Within the past three months I have had two cases in my own Stateand I think other Senators must have had similar casesone in which a mother of six children. all of them under the age of 18. who was convicted of an offense that sent her to the penitentiary for a period of a year. will be forever forbidden to come back to this country. where her children were born and where her husband resides. It seemed to me that that was an extremely severe penalty for a crime that was. to say the least. not serious enough to make her that undesirable. A few weeks later I had brought to my attention the case of a father who was in the penitentiary. I think for about 18 months. and who had four children. all of whom were under the age of 15 years. all of whom were born in this country. and he. too. will be deported. without ever being permitted to return to the United States. I took up these cases with the Immigration Bureau. and my attention was called to the statute. and I was told that the only possible way in which this condition could be remedied would be by amending the immigration law. Knowing that this bill was pending. and carried a considerable number of amendments. I asked the ollicials of the Bureau of Naturalization to lrepare an amendmnent that would meet this situation. This amendment was prepared at the direction of the officials of the Bureau of Naturalization and the Immigration Bureau. and written by the legislative drafting service in the Senate Office Building. so that the language is not mine. but is the language prepared to meet a situation of this sort. and approved by them. I may say that in hearings before the House committee a sinilir proposal has been approved . and it will be noted that it is all dependent upon the approval of the Bureau of Naturalization as to whether the aliens ever shall be permitted to come back. I do not care to discuss the amendment further than I have. except to say that I believe that the present law is entirely too severe and too cruel. and that this provision is not unduly opening the -way for convicted aliens to come back into the United States. I think that ill cases such as the two that have come to my own personal attention there should be lodged somewhere the discretion to permit people to come back into the United States.