Speech #820213999

Many organizations saw the inadequacy of the McCarran bill and came forward with a series of proposals. other than the recommendations the Senator from Nevada has placed before us. that are worthy of some comment. For example. the Senator from Nevada makes note of the fact that the JapaneseAmerican Citizens League supports his measure. I would have the Senate know that the reason for the support of the JapaneseAmerican Citizens League is as stated in the letter of May 8 to the Senator from Nevada: As you are well aware. our organization has been in the forefront of those who have urged the extension of naturalization rights to all loyal resident aliens. without regard to race or national origin. In addition. we have strongly advocated the complete repeal of the oriental exclusion acts. which will abolish a needless barrier to understanding between our Government and the peoples of the Far East. The elimination of these racial prohibitions. as provided by your bill. is not only a matter of longdeferred justice but will have an enormously salutary effect upon our international relations. I wish to make note of that because the substitute measure. which is now before the Senate. to which I shall soon direct my remarks. provides complete abolition of the racialdiscrimination features as they pertain to orientals. I would say to my friends from the JapaneseAmerican Citizens Leagueand I have many friends in that organizationthat their support of the McCarran bill is primarily support. as they have testified. for the areas of the bill which remove all types of discrimination. and which provide for the removal of the orientalexclusion provisions of the present immigration law. Mr. President. I shall go through the substitute measure. item by item. and tell the Senate what it seeks to accomplish. Why do we present the substitute? We present it because we believe a bill which is 302 pages long. which. in the minds of 28 United States Senators. should have been recommitted to committee. should not be passed by the Senate until every single aspect of it is clearly discussed and carefully gone over in its relationship to our total immigration policy. I suppose it is like repeating the same old words to say that the McCarran bill. S. 2550. is more than a recodification. It is an amendment of. it is a change in. it is a fundamental digression from the established immigration policy of the United States. It is misleading and wrong to state that what it does is merely to liberalize and to recodify. In fact. it restricts as It recodifles. and it not only recodifles. but it builds in a whole new area of immigration law. I do not believe even the proponents of the McCarran bill deny that it contains many new features. features which have been brought out in debate here as being undesirable. Many of those features will be attacked point by point. by amendment. in case our substitute measure should fail. but I think it would be well for the Senate to understand the substitute measure that is before it. The substitute is a bill 11 pages long. as compared to the McCarran bill with its 302 pages of legislative proposals which embody numerous cross references. With all the due regard and respect I have for my colleaguesand there are many able lawyers in this bodyI submit there is not one Member of the Senate who can go through that bill of 302 pages. and on the floor of the Senate. in debate. point out what each and every one of its provisions means. because it is indeed a legislative maze trap. It involves one series after another of changes in immigration policy. cross references to old immigration laws. and a building in of a new series of immigration law. Thus it constitutes a tremendously perplexing legislative problem. What do we offer?