Speech #850002909

Mr. Speaker. under leave to extend my remarks in the RECORD. I include the following editorial from the Saturday Evening Post of January 19. 1957: The admission of Hungarian refugees to this country has not been helped by the sniping at our immigration laws which only confuses the issue: Many newspaper articles on the HungarIanrefugee problem spoke of the "necessity of cutting the usual red tape." A Herb A297 Block cartoon in the Washington Post and Times Herald showed a refugee hopelessly entangled in red tape. and other publications used expressions like "protracted processing filled with all the paraphernalia of bureaucracy. such as questionnaires. rubber stamps. fingerprinting. mug photos and identity cards." Actually the muchcondemned Immigration and Nationality Act. the socalled McCarranWalter Act. contains provisions for coping with just such emergencies as the Hungarianrefugee problem. But laws which crystallize national policy on a question as vital as immigration must contain provisions to keep out unwanted immigrants as well as provide for the admission of those whom we do want. Much of the socalled redtape is absolutely necessary machinery to debar undesirables. As early as the close of the American Revolution persons with cholera. smallpox. yellow fever. and plague were excluded. Later it was decided to debar those with tuberculosis and mental disease. These are two enormous groups. even in the most advanced countries. calling for considerable screening. Then. too. among the millions who. at all times. would like to emigrate to the United States. there are bound to be substantial numbers of criminals. subversives. narcotics addicts and peddlers. perverts and those who have made false declarations or obtained visas or passports by fraud. It is a neverending warfare to keep these undesirables out and to apprehend and deport those who slip in. One of the commonest criticisms of our immigration law is that it does not admit a large enough total. The maximum under the McCarranWalter Act is 154.657 a year. But since World War II. 200.000 additional war brides and orphans. 340.000 displaced persons and nearly 200.000 refugees were admitted under special legislation prior to the Hungarian crisis. President Eisenhower also wants the maximum under the McCarranWalter Act raised to 200.000. and still more admissions may be desirable. America welcomes today. as It always has. those who will make good citizens.