Speech #830162068

Mr. President. it is time that the United States Senate took note of the fact that the will of the Congress is being ignored by the State Department and its representatives in connection with the emergency immigration bill which the Congress passed last July 1953. The bill called for the permanent admission for 214.000 additional refugees during a 3year period. When President Eisenhower signed the bill he described it as "a significant humanitarian act and an important contribution toward greater understanding and cooperation among the free nations of the world." The President also explained his hope that the refugees would be arriving in the United States without unnecessary delay and would "soon come to our shores." It is more than 8 months since the emergency immigration bill became law. To date. according to the most recent information I have been able to obtain. only 6 or 7 refugees have been admitted to our shores. This is a tragedy. It is a reflection of a lack of sympathy for the basic legislation on the part of those in the State Department who are responsible for the administration of the program. This is a tragedy. It was intended to be a significant humanitarian act to aid refugees from communismpeople seeking political liberty and religious freedom. Most of these refugees asking asylum from Communist tyranny and a new chance in life are freedomloving Germans. Poles. or Czechs. many of them with families in this country they want to join. Others include orphans for whom relatives in our country want to offer a home and a hope. Failure to carry out the intent of the Congress to admit them is a reflection of the lack of sympathy for this legislation on the part of those in the State Department who are responsible for administration of the program. The facts. the national interests and the humanitarian motivations which lead the Congress and the President to pass the emergency immigration bill last year are still present today. No appointed public official acting as the servant of Government has the right to ignore the will of the Congress and the President as expressed in law. No American is more eager than I to rid our Nation of subversives and to keep undesirable aliens from the United States. Members of the Senate will recall that I was one of those in the Senate who protested vigorously against the loose administration of our immigration practices along the Mexican border because of the threat to our security evidenced by the freedom of egress and ingress over the Mexican border into the United States. I expressed my fear that the border to our south was in fact an open invitation for subversives to enter our Nation and do their dirty business. It is. however. a total error and a dangerously misleading assumption to view every alien as a potential enemy and every immigrant as a potential spy. It would appear as if the State Department through its security officer who was unfortunately placed in charge of the refugee program has exploited its fear of new immigrants into the United States as a device to prevent hardly any refugees from entering the United States during the first year of the administration of the program. I serve notice to the Senate that unless we can receive assurance shortly from the State Department that it plans to take seriously the wishes of the Congress and conscientiously administered the emergency refugee bill so that we can in an orderly and sympathetic way admit the 214.000 refugees authorized by law. I shall ask for the Senate to take whatever proper legislative and investigative steps that are necessary to see that the program is better administered. The President has recently stated that he hopes the logjam which has tied up the bill to date will soon be broken.