During the hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary. representatives from a host of American religious. civic. and social organizations gave their support to this proposal. In my opinion. adoption of the suggestion. without tampering with the total number of authorized admissions. would go far in correcting one of the most serious shortcomings of our present quota system. In other wordsand I am not willing to accept this as a facteven if we go so far as to admit that we cannot absorb more than 150.000 immigrants annually. we should. at least. in order to remove the barriers of discrimination. base our formula on the census of our population in 1950 and not that of 1920. If we are in fact trying to modernize and bring our law up to date. then why use the census of 1920 and not the census of 1950. which is a more realistic and democratic approach to this problem? As long as it is recognized that immigration is desirable. even though it must be circumscribed. then it also seems wholly logical that we should not prevent the full utilization of authorized quotas through abuse of administrative procedures. Section 201 (c) of this bill. conforming to present law. limits the monthly issuance of quota visas to 10 percent of the total annual quota. Realistically. this means that at the end of the year there is a tragic waste of quota numbers which otherwise could have been used. If we must have a limitation as to the number that can be processed monthly for entry. then in all fairness the monthly limitation should be raised to 20 percent. with no restriction in the last 2 months of the year. so that each quota can be fully utilized.
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quota system immigration immigrants visas