Speech #820209048

I believe they could best be implemented by passing the HumphreyLehman bill. In the House the able chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Representative CELLER. has introduced a bill for a special emergency immigration program. to carry out the Presidents proposals. A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate by the distinguished junior Senator from New Jersey . However. special emergency immigration legislation. even if enacted. would in my judgmentand I am not alone in this feelingbe negated and frustrated by the passage of the McCarran bill. The McCarran bill would. in my judgment. positively prevent the admission of additional persons into this country. even if emergency immigration legislation. authorizing additional admissions. were enacted. I expect that this statement will be well documented in the course of this debate. How. then. can we contemplate. even for a moment. approving the McCarran bill. without carefully examining every one of its provisions. in the light of the needs of our world policy. as well as in the light of elementary justice. equity. and humanity? The HumphreyLehman bill. with its provision for pooling of quotas. is the road to be followed to carry out President Trumans recommendations to meet the problem of refugees and of surplus peoples in Europe. That is my view and the view of others. but it is a view which requires study and examination. In any event. the McCarran bill moves In exactly the opposite direction from what the President proposed. The McCarran bill would choke and cut off immigration. erect new barriers. and establish new tests and devices whose only purpose can be. not to halt the admission of subversives and undesirableswe all agree on and favor restrictions to that endbut to curtail. impede. strangle. and eliminate all but a trickle of immigration. Mr. President. we who oppose the MeCarran bill are not alone in holding these views. We did not draw these ideas out of the stratosphere. nor did we get them from the socalled radical sources to which the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee has referred in statements on the floor and in statements emanating from his office. We got these ideas from experts in the immigration field who have been working for many years on immigration matters and problems. These experts are American citizens who work for organizations whose concern is just as patriotic and just as American as that of the proponents of the McCarran bill. The concern of the experts to whom I refer is for America and for humanity.