Speech #810013054

It has the un-. qualified approval of the White House. It does simple justice to all peoples who are legally resident in the United States. The President in this Chamber on February 2 last had the following to say with reference to the naturalization features of this bill: All properly qualified legal residents of the United States should be allowed to be.come citizens without regard to race. color. religion or national origin. The Congress has recently removed the bars which formerly prevented persons from China. India. and the Philippines from becoming naturalized citizens. I urge the Congress to remove the remaining racial or nationality barriers which stand in the way of citizenship for some residents of our country. We follow the advice of the President in that portion of the bill whereby we extend naturalization opportunities to all persons who are legally resident in this country. regardless of race. color or creed or national origin. The bill offers nothing new in our basic policy. We extend to all Asiatic peoples. as to immigration and naturalization. what we heretofore have done for China. India and Pakistan. and the Philippines. It is a goodneighbor policy for Asia. All Asiatics. here legally or who come here subsequently are eligible for naturalization. and to all Asiatics within the socalled AsiaPacific triangle. we extend immigration quotas of 100 for each sovereignty. as we did for India and China. Simple justice requires removal of these racial barriers.Many of those benefited. that is. Japanese and Polynesians have been here legally for decades. They came before 1924. the date of the National Origins Immigration Act.. Many of these gave their sons to our armed forces. Many of their sons died in the war effort.