Speech #800189726

President. it may seem that I object too strenuously to the admission of only 200.000 displaced persons to the United States. This legislation. however. is but the entering wedge. The leftwing forces who are now clamoring for the admission of 200.000 have in mind the eventual complete destruction of our immigration barriers. Some of the misled church groups in this country. the Federal Council of Churches and others. have actually advocated the complete elimination of immigration barriers to permit the unlimited immigration of Chinese to the United States. It is all part of the same picture. The proposed legislation is merely the opening wedge. and I consider it fraught with grave danger to the United States. Mr. President. the fact is that existing immigration laws are so liberal that they should be strengthened rather than weakened. Let me cite various features of our existing statutes relating to immigration which reveal their liberality. One hundred and fifty thousand five hundred and one European immigrants are permitted annually to enter the United States under quotas. All countries in the Western Hemisphere have no quota restrictions. Over and above European quotas. we permit the entry of wives and minor children of American citizens. ministers. professors. certain classes of merchant seamen. We place no limit on the number of visitors and students. with the result that hundreds of thousands of them are now in the United States. In World War II we naturalized 110.000 aliens in the United States Army. We brought in about 100.000 war brides who became American citizens. All told. under existing laws. we probably bring into America each year not less than two or three hundred thousand immigrants. which is far more than the United States can properly assimilate. Mr. President. the racial origins clause of the Immigration Act of 1924 aimed to insure twothirds of our immigrants coming from Northern and Western Europe has largely been circumvented. The British Isles. Scandanavia.