Speech #820209894

Italy. and other lands of the eastern and southern part of Europe have come into this country and become fine citizens of States like my own Michigan. Yet nowhere in the MeCarran bill is there any recognition that the United States has changed in the many years since the First World War. Is there any reason why a quota system drawn up in 1952 should make use of the census of 1920 instead of the 1950 census. except as a subterfuge to perpetuate the inequities of 3 decades ago and the discrimination against the peoples of southern and eastern Europe? Well over half of our present quotas go unused because they are assigned to countries like Great Britain whose people do not desire to emigrate to the United States. While from forty to fifty thousand quota numbers are wasted yearly in this way. the fugitives from Communist terror. the aged parents and grandparents of some of our finest American citizens. wait In vain for the chance to come to freedom and to reunion with their loved ones. This is only one of the hundreds of flaws in the McCarran bill which the HumphreyLehman bill would redress. through such provisions as pooling of quotas. Even should the elderly parent. or the religious persecutee run the gamut of an oversubscribed quota. he would be turned back if he had been poorly educated and could not read. For the first time in our law this bill requires the aged parents and grandparents of United States citizens. who under the present law are exempted from the literacy requirement. to pass a literacy test. There Is another hurdle put in the way of these people. S. 2550 for the first time excludes aliens who have been convicted of two offenses. except purely political offenses.