Speech #820230158

I shall not take up the time of the Senate in a detailed discussion of the conference report or of the bill as it now goes to the President. but I desire to speak briefly on the subject. Mr. President. the conferees have reported an omnibus immigration and naturalization bill which fails by far to meet the basic and deepseated objections of those of us who fought and shall continue to fight the enactment of regressive provisions into our immigration and naturalization laws. This is an antiimmigration bill. It is an antialien bill. It still fixes into law the dangerous and unAmerican concept of secondclass citizenship. drawing deeper the distinction between nativeborn and naturalized citizens. and transforming the grant of citizenship into a temporary license. The McCarranWalter bill is still replete with unwieldy administrative features. It still vests extreme and arbitrary powers for admission and deportation in the hands of administrative officials. without creating adequate review or appeals machinery. The amendments accepted on the floor and included in the conference version and the efforts made by the conferees to ameliorate some of the more outlandish provisions of the McCarran bill do not. in any significant degree. cure the basic defects of this legislation. That is shown very clearly in the report of the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee. who pointed out that the main purpose of the conference was to reconcile certain differences which existed in the two bills. Those defects are deeply buried and entrenched in the McCarran bill which is. by its nature and motivation. an antiimmigration bill. a bill specifically designed to create a secondclass group of citizens by holding the fear of denaturalization over the heads of hundreds of thousands of naturalized citizens. a bill designed to give consuls and immigration officers virtually unlimited authority to exclude. and maximum authority to deport. with as little interference from impartial reviewing authorities as possible. These defects cannot be cured by a few technical changes and by amendments specifically labeled by the conferees as "clarifying" in nature. The defects in the McCarran bill go to the very heart of the measure. They spring from the very nature of the bill. and are manifested by scores of provisions which outrage the very meaning of America. the very concept of America. as the melting pot. the home of justice and freedom. Consuls are still given the authority to exclude persons on the basis of guess and prediction as to what the aliens might do after they come to America. "at any time in the future." A score of new grounds for exclusion are added to present law. most of which are unnecessary. vague. and without legally reviewable or interpretable standards. The same is true of deportation. Naturalized citizens who within 5 years of naturalization join an organization which might become listed by the Attorney General as communisticfront are still penalized by denaturalization. although nativeborn citizens suffer no legal penalty for the same act or association. No showing of subversive intent or activity is required for the invocation of this terrible penalty. Naturalized citizens who. within 10 years of denaturalization. refuse to testify before a congressional committee investigating subversive activities are likewise subjected to the penalty of denaturalization. regardless of the circumstances surrounding such refusal. Subordinate branches of the executive department dealing with immigration matters are still required to report directly to a joint congressional committee. and to submit their rules. regulations. and practices to the jurisdiction of that committee. thus violating all principles of sound government practice and trespassing on the constitutional principle of the separation of powers. There is a virtually endless number of such provisions in the bill worked out by the conference committee. This bill cannot possibly rise above its source. It is an antiimmigration measure. It is an antialien measure. The conference committee could not. whatever its desire. do more than remove some of the superficial blemishes.