Speech #820178713

Mr. Speaker. I ask your indulgence for a moment not to discuss this conference report but to permit me to draw the attention of the House to the propaganda drive that is being engaged in now by certain members of the American Jewish Congress opposed to the Immigration and Nationality Code. This code. as you know. was set down on the program for consideration by the House for today and tomorrow. I say "propaganda drive" advisedly. because the attacks made on this code are without foundation. Some time ago a Dr. Israel Goldstein. president of the American Jewish Congress. made a speech in New York in which he attacked this measure. Because of the reporting of his speech I wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times and I should like to read it to you. because I am sure that after you have heard the explanation I make you will be thoroughly convinced that this Immigration and Naturalization Code is a progressive measure designed to protect. first. the interests of the United States. and. second. the lawabiding alien who desires to live among us. In my letter of February 20 I stated: DEAR MR. EDITOR: Permit me to express my astonishment at the revoltingly misleading statements attributed to Dr. Israel Goldstein. president of the American Jewish Congress. by the New York Times on February 20. 1952. regarding the new Immigration and Nationality Code proposed in my bill. H. R. 5678. pending before the House of Representatives. It Is hard to believe that the president of the American Jewish Congress would see fit to present to the members of his own national executive committee such a completely false picture of this important legislation. There ls not a scintilla of truth to the statement that my bill places "a legislative seal of inferiority on all persons of other than AngloSaxon origin and would result in millions of naturalized Americans having to live in permanent fear of deportation or loss of citizenship for the most trivial and frivolous of reasons." The equality of all races. the final repeal of all racial discrimination now contained in our immigration and naturalization laws. as well as the repeal of all discrimination based on sex. nationality. etc.. are the basic features of my bill. At no point would my measure provide for the deportation of a United States citizen. nativeborn or naturalized. Every legal authority consulted on my billand over 60 witnesses testified before a joint HouseSenate committeeagrees that it represents a vast improvem3nt over the existing law and jurisprudence regarding the availability to an alien of fair administrative and judicial practices and procedures. Similarly. the provisions of my bill permitting the admission of reformed totalitarians and subversives have been unanimously recognized as one of the most laudable features of H.