Speech #850095376

Section 4 ends another of the racially discriminatory features of the present law. It abolishes the racial ancestry blood test for persons attributable by as much as onehalf of their ancestry to a people or peoples indigenous to the AsiaPacifiC triangle. Henceforth. all visa applicants would be classified only according to their place of birth. Fifth. It has often been said that a -man who tries to import a sack of beans into the United States and finds that it has been excluded has the right of appeal. but a man who wants to bring his -mother over and finds that she has been *denied a visa has no such right. Section 5 of my bill is designed to change that -situation. It is designed to modify the -anomaly of the present Immigration Act under which authority for the acts of the Immigration Servicewhich acts in many instances through the Board of Immigration Appealsis concentrated in the hands of the Attorney General. while authority for the acts of the Consular Service is diffused among the numerous consuls. each of whom is the final arbiter in the visa application cases before him. Section 5 concentrates responsibility in a Visa Review Board appointed by the Secretary of State. to which the sponsors of prospective Immigrants may be allowed to appeal. This Board would assure that visa regulations are enforced uniformly throughout the world and would also safeguard against irresponsible and capricious acts by individual consular officers. Sixth. Section 6 deals with problems such as faced this country as a result of the courageous uprising of the Hungarian people against their Communist oppressors.