Speech #820169918

I hope when we come to consider this omnibus bill that you talk about that it will be consistent with the well recognized immigration policy of the country which we established about 30 years ago and that it will protect our own country from many undesirables that have been flocking into our country from all parts of the world. It might be interesting to say that the United States of America was the first country that ever declared to the world the proposition that as an incident of sovereignty every nation had the right to protect its own border. That is the basis of our immigration laws. We have that right and we have always defended it well as far as the purposes of Congress were concerned. The enforcement of the immigration laws was very rigid until Mr. Roosevelt was elected President. He permitted much laxity with the result that there are at least 3.000.000 aliens illegally within our borders now.