Speech #830231846

Complaints. now diminishing. about this supervision are best answered by the fact that last year 20.000 foreign travelers took advantage of the nodocument privilege. This year the number is expected to be at least onethird greater. Experience over many years clearly shows that. under any immigration law. however carefully drawn. exceptional cases arise which on humanitarian grounds or in the public interest merit special consideration and action. Present policy gives considerable leeway to consular and immigration officers to deal with such cases. Recently an Englishman. convicted 10 years before of larceny. applied for a visa to visit his brother. who was seriously ill in New York. A strict interpretation of the law would have barred him. But. after inquiry. the American consul issued the visa. A Cuban who recently applied with his wife and son for immigrant visas might have been excluded because of his sons physical disability. But the consul. convinced the boy would not become a public charge. issued visas of permanent residence for the entire family. Early last year a Chicago chemical concern inquired about bringing in a famous Greek chemist to direct a new development project. The normal immigration quota for Greece was filled for 4 years in advance. Under the preference given in the new law to needed specialists. however. a visa for the chemist was speedily secured. Last September a French radio writer. a onetime member of the French Communist Party. applied in Paris for a visitors visa. Under our previous immigration policy he would have been barred by the "once a Communist always a Communist" provision. The new law contains a redemption clause which permits former Communists who have broken with the party to enter the country. Under this provision the French writer. like numerous other onetime Communists. was admitted. It is true that the security provisions of the new immigration laws are tighter than everreflecting the fact that our security problem is more serious. But it is also true that the present law goes further than any previous legislation to accord the alien the constitutional rights that are granted to American citizens. In deportation proceedings. for example. it is provided that the alien must be given reasonable notice of the charges against him. that he may examine the evidence. present evidence in his own behalf. crossexamine Government witnesses and be represented by counsel of his own choosing. Today more than 1.300 private immigration bills are pending before the Immigration Subcommittee of the United States Senate. Most of these bills are are bona fide efforts to grant the right of permanent residence to especially deserving aliens who are not technically eligible under the law. Thus the massive machinery of our National Governmentfrom committee report to congressional vote to Presidential signatureis put into operation for the sole benefit of the individual noncitizen. In another Important area. that of naturalization. our treatment of foreigners meets the test of American fairness and generosity. In San Francisco 1 day last summer. the courtroom of Federal Judge Louis E. Goodman was the scene of an affecting drama. Standing solemnly in rows before the bench were 182 Japanese aliens. All of them had lived for years in the United States. bad established homes. raised their families here. But they had been barred from citizenship by the oriental exclusion clause in our former immigration law. In 1952 the McCarranWalter Immigration and Nationality Act wiped out the racial clause. eliminated such bars to immigration and naturalization. When. under that law. these Japanese applied for citizenship. they got immediate aid. From the Citizenship Division of the United States Immigration and Naturalzation Service they received free textbooks and homestudy courses. Free citizenship classes were open to them In Californias public schools. Then came the big day.