Speech #840120197

Mr. President. we waited a long time for the Presidents recommendations as to how the Immigration and Nationality Act should be revised to remove the inequities and institutionalized bigotry contained in the present law. . The distinguished chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration brought to the attention of the Senate last July 30 the continued lack of success he had had in his efforts to learn the administrations proposals in regard to changing the McCarran Act. Appended to the statement of the Immigration subcommittees chairman were a number of statements made by President Eisenhower during the 1952 presidential election campaign. In 1952. Mr. Eisenhower made such eloquent statements as this: No mans race or creed or color- should count against him in his economic or civil or any other rights. Only secondclass Americanism tolerates secondclass citizenship. Its time to get rid of what remains of both. and that includes rewriting the unfair provisions of the McCarran Immigration Act. That is what President Eisenhowerthen Candidate Eisenhowertold the large crowd assembled on Boston Common on October 22. 1952. A week later he said to an audience in the Bronx. in New York City: We need to rewrite the unfair provisions of the McCarran Immigration Act to get the bigotry out of it. But. Mr. President. I am afraid this was merely one more example of how eloquence can outrun performance. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration documented for us quite fully last July his inability to get any response from the President providing specific recommendations as to how to eliminate from the McCarran Act the bigotry of which he spoke during the election campaign. Further. the Subcommittee on Immigration had an equally singular lack of success in its attempts to get testimony from those administration officials responsible for administering the immigration and nationality law. Let me quote the statement of the chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee to the Senate on July 30. 1955: It Is highly desirable for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and initially its subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization to have the current attitudes of the executive branch of the Federal Government before them. It is important to further orderly study of the subjects for the Senate committee members to hear first from authorized spokesmen for the administration. To this end. on behalf of the subcommittee of which I am chairman. I have invited the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to appear before us in person and present the views of the administration relating to the immigration and nationality matters coming within the range of operations of their executive departments.