Speech #820244780

But the National Catholic Welfare Conference endorses this particular bill. All associations of our shipping and airlines. as well as the JapaneseAmerican Citizens League and the ChineseAmerican organizations. have recommended its enactment. The main purpose of the strmngthening of our immigration laws was to give the executive branch a better instrument to protect the security of our country and our citizens. The loopholes in our old statutes have gradually become larger and larger. so that while fighting communism abroad we actually became powerless in fighting its infiltration into our own country. I believe that the Congress is under the obligationunder a mandateto provide for better protection of our country from subversives. gamblers. narcotic peddlers. stowaways. ship jumpers. and foreign agents who know not only too well how to slip into and remain in our country. There is no question that under the Constitution and under hundreds cf court decisions the Congress has the power to provide for such protection. Instead of following the presidential ghost writers example and indulge in writing fiction into veto messages. let me quote in that respect a few court decisions. The power of Congress to control immigration stems from the sovereign authority of the United States as a Nation and from the constitutional power of Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nationsChae Chan Ping v. United States (130 U. S. 581 (1889)).