Speech #840076875

Democrat. of New York. introduced a bill to correct deficiencies in the act. President Eisenhower recommended a sim1lar bill. The Democratic and Republican bills agree that religious and welfare organizations in the United States should be given more opportunity to sponsor immigrants. and that the requirement of a detailed 2year personal history prior to application should be repealed. Summing up this new approach to the problem. the President observed on May 27. and I quote: "This 2year history in the case of recent escapees is often impossible to obtain. Yet these are the very people who have been actively stimulated to risk the perils of escape by our own information program broadcast throughout the Iron Curtain. I have faith in the competence of our security personnel. and I recommend that this inflexible requirement be eliminated from the law. leaving it to the sound discretion of the security officer to make his recommendations on the basis of all the facts available." Previously. on January 2. 1953. President Trumans Commission on Immigration and Naturalization advised that the McCarranWalter Act should be completely revised because it was "an arrogant. brazen instrument of discrimination based on race. creed. color. and national origin." To me. as a Congressman. it seems a cruel breach of faith that we should urge people to escape from Communistcontrolled countries. and then permit them no opportunity to come to a free country. Or to turn our backs upon such good friends as the Italian and Greek peoples. who have sacrificed so much for freedoms cause. only to find that they are less welcome as immigrants than others who have less desire to come to the United States. The McCarranWalter Act increased the 1924 quotas by only 657. even though immigration has been scanty since 1924. and even though our country is much stronger economically and in a position to accommodate more refugees from tyranny. poverty. and despair. We could at least double the quotas to 300.000 and easily assimilate the newcomers. Commonsense would declare that we should pool unused quotas. and assign them. at least temporarily. to those people who must presently wait for years before they can ever hope to be admitted to the United States. Leading clergymen of all faiths and officials of our labor unions strongly support a more liberal immigration policy in keeping with our traditions and our growth. No wonder that other nations find it difficult to understand us when we preach freedom on one hand and become unduly suspicious of others by some of our actions. People rightfully resent the lopsided quota system which. In effect. grades the nationals of the various nations. tabbing some as preferred candidates and others as unwanted. They are inclined to believe that we talk a great game of freedom. but fail to play it on the level. Evidence of this is found in the law which treats naturalized citizens as inferior to those who were born in this country. You and I believe that all citizens are equal. but the law makes unfair distinctions. Under it naturalized immigrants can be deprived of their citizenship and evicted from the country. whereas nativeborn citizens are not subject to these fears and anxieties. We must be guided. of course. by certain measures necessary to our security. but that is no justification for a narrow and rigid Immigration policy which betrays the fact that we are not sure of ourselves. Nor is it any excuse for a Refugee Relief Act whose clear intent is being sabotaged by the State Department. Snobbishness is alien to the true American spirit. Up to this strange cold war era. the assumption has been that a person wanting to come to the United States. being of good health and good character. would respond to the opportunity and become an asset to himself and to the country of his adoption. That faith has been vindicated in so many teris of millions of individual cases. making our great Nation what it is today. that it is difficult to understand how any American can distrust it now. The present immigration curtain bears an odious resemblance to the Iron and Bamboo Curtains. It is a betrayal of fundamental American principles. and is an insult to our friends abroad. The sooner we unbend and take the wraps off the Statue of Liberty the better will be our leadership of the free world.