Speech #840052438

Mr. President. again the Eisenhower administration has recognized that possibly all is not well with the administration of the Refugee Relief Act of 1953. Under date of May 27. 1955. the President sent to Congress a message asking for 10 amendments to that act. The Refugee Relief Act has been in force almost 2 years. There are Members of the Senateand I am proud to be one of themwho have repeatedly pointed out that glaring weaknesses. inequities. limitations. and restrictions exist in the law which make it very difficult to administer. Secondly. we have pointed out real problems confronting those who administer the law. Within recent months there has been adequate testimony as to that fact. It has taken the Corsi incidentthe dismissal of Mr. Corsi. a New York Republican and an expert in the field of immigrationand it has taken statement after statement in the Senate to bring finally to the Presidents attention the weaknesses. limitations. and restrictions in the Refugee Relief Act. In reading the proposed 10 amendments to the act I was interested to note that over the weekend the press carried the message that a number of Republican Senators favored the Presidents proposal. as if that were news. It should be at least reasonably expected that a number of Republican Senators would be for the Presidents proposal. As I understand. the President is the leader of his party as well as the President of the United States. But I think it would have been a little better had the message pointed out that a number of proposals had been suggested in the Senate. The junior Senator from New York is the main sponsor of a bill to amend the Refugee Relief Act. The senior Senator from Illinois is a cosponsor. I am privileged to be a cosponsor. along with other Senators. That proposal was introduced in the Senate a considerable period of time ago. I know that the committees of the Senate are giving it serious consideration. What is more. from time to time last year. following 1 years experience under the Refugee Relief Act. weaknesses in the law were pointed out. and the administration was called upon to do something about them. I point out that there has been statement after statement from the White House. the Secretary of State. and the State Department. and also from the Presidents own press secretary. to the effect that there was nothing basically wrong with the Refugee Relief Act. and that it was working well. When it was stated on the floor of the Senate that after the act had been in operation more than a year. less than 100 refugees had been admitted. we heard only that the difficulties were being taken care of. that administrative inflexibilities were being ironed out. and that everything was going to work well. The truth is that we were purposely deluded by the administration for more than 2 years. I say with all charity that it is good now to have the 10 suggestions of the President for amendment of the act.