Speech #850003858

Mr. President. under regulations adopted by the State Department and the Attorney Generals office. the emergency parole procedures of the Immigration and Nationality Act were used to allow eligible adopted orphans to enter our country and join their new parents. thus alleviating hardships which threatened many American families. The regulations. as worked out by the Department of State and the Justice Department. provide that the adopted orphans will be able to enter our country without an immigrant visa. by being paroled to their new parents. awaiting enactment by the Congress of legislation to regularize the status of these orphans in the United States. Under current regulations of the Immigration Service. the emergency parole procedure as applied to orphans will expire at the end of this month. The Immigration Service has told me that 213 orphans have been admitted to our country under this procedure. Mr. President. today I am introducing proposed legislation to reestablish. within the State Department. an orphan program. The bill is quite similar to the provisions of the orphan section of the Refugee Relief Act. My bill provides for a quota of 10.000 special nonquota immigrant visas. to be issued to eligible orphans until such time as the quota is exhausted. My bill also increases the age of eligible orphans from 10 years. as provided in the Refugee Relief Act. to 12 years. The other important section of the bill would grant permanent residence in the United States for the orphans admitted under the emergency parole procedures. and these adopted orphans would thus be on the same basis as if they had been issued immigrant visas. Mr. President. in the struggle between the Communist world and the free world. our countrys symbol as a haven to the oppressed must endure.