Speech #820200456

Turkey. and Yugoslavia. As of December 10. 1951. the quota for Greece was mortgaged up to the year 2011. At the same time the registration of intending quota immigrants from that country totaled 16.195. Yugoslavias quota is mortgaged to the year 1998. and more than 33.000 persons are on the waiting list. Turkeys quota is mortgaged to the year 1963. and 7.780 persons are on the waiting list. One notable result of the operation of quota immigration under existing law has been- a marked change in the type of immigration. Prior to the 1924 act. more than 60 percent of immigrants were males. By 1947. however. females predominated. constituting about 59 percent of the total. Increases in family immigration was reflected in figures showing an increase in the proportion of children and older people. and a decrease in the proportion of prospective wageearners. At the same time. curtailment of immigration has resulted in pronounced reductions in the foreignborn and alien populations of the United States. In 1910 the foreignborn constituted 14.7 percent of the entire population. This proportion dropped to 11.6 percent in 1940 and to an estimated 6.6 percent in 1950. A rough count of the number of aliens now in this country puts the figure at around 3.000.000. but no accurate figure will be available until 1950 census figures are available sometime during the summer of 1952. The e facts sharply emphasize the point that in terms of contributions. in terms of need. and in terms of waste. the quota system based on national origin is hopelessly out of balance. If there is no hope of changing this unrealistic and unfounded system of national quotas we can. at the very least. adopt the proposal that the unused quotas can be distributed more equitably among those countries which have been so arbitrarily discriminated against. Under this proposal unused quotas for the year would be distributed to those countries with less than 7.000 annual quotas in the same proportion as they bear to the total quotas of these countries.