Speech #840208008

H. R. 6888. In the last Congress we passed a refugee actan act to provide asylum for escapees and refugees. At the time .I said that act would not work very effectively. And it has not. So I intend to propose a series of amendments to the Refugee Act. embodied in a single bill. to extend the life of that act and to make it operable. Mr. President. we have an account to settle with our national conscience. We have a justification to make before the rest of the world. Our permanent immigration laws and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 present to the world a distorted image of the United States. We have to correct that image by adopting amendments to the McCarranWalter Act and amendments to the Refugee Relief Act. We should have started doing this a long time ago in this Congress. The various proposals for this purpose have languished in the Judiciary Committee. All that the Judiciary Committee has seen fit to recommend to this Congress is a bill for the admission of certain sheepherders and for the cancellation of certain mortgages on the quota imposed by former special bills. which we have passed. for the admission of sheepherders. Is this to be the sum total of action by this Congress on immigration and citizenship? Is this to be the sum total of our redemption of pledges we made substantially to amend the McCarranWalter Act and substantially tc amend the Refugee Relief Act? I hope it is not. And if this proposed legislation. now on the calendar. for the reliel of the sheepherding industry is to bE brought up for consideration. I intent to propose that we consider granting relief to the United States by enacting significant amendments to our immigration and citizenship law. and to th( Refugee Relief Act. Is this sheepherders bill the only relief we are going to offer to the million of naturalized citizens in our countri who now live under the stigma of see ondclass citizenship? I hope not. Is this the relief we are proposing t( offer to the millions of our citizens wh have relatives abroad who are worth. and desirable potential immigrants t( the United States? I hope not. Is this the relief we are going to offer to the thousands of refugees and escapees from behind the Iron Curtain who have been looking with desperate longing toward the United States as a possible asylum in their flight to freedom? I hope not. I hope we are going to consider grantIng real relief by making real amendments to our citizenship and immigration laws. Such relief is afforded in the amendment I am today submitting. Some relief would be granted by the amendments which the distinguished senior Senator from Utah submitted just the other day. embodying the recommendations of President Eisenhower. I hope this Congress will not adjourn until we have considered and debated amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act and amendments to the Refugee Relief Act of 1953. I ask unanimous consent that there be printed in the RECORD. at the conclusion of these remarks. a copy of a statement I made on November 22. 1955. before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization. when the late Senator Harley M. Kilgore was its chairman. The public hearings held then have not been printed. and I should like my statement to be available. in the RECORD. for all Senators at this time.