Speech #850208526

President. there are a great many things we can do. which we are not doing. Members of Congress in this body and in the House talk about the antiCommunist struggle. and about how vital it is. but in regard to which we are taking very little action. We have the further duty of regularizing the status. as United States residents. of some 25.000 Hungarian antiCommunist refugees. This proposed legislation should be expeditiously considered and enacted into law. Still unresolved is the modernization .of our immigration statutes to conform to the present national interest. by writing into them. as recommended by the President and also as recommended in proposed legislation which I and many other Senators are sponsoring. permanent provisions for a minimum number of refugees to be admitted. so that we will not have ad hoc situations which we had with respect to the Hungarian refugees. but. instead. a law. under which we can act and give haven to refugees. Finally. Mr. President. there is long overdue a thorough overhaul of the unwieldy. unfair. and discriminatory McCarranWalter Immigration Act. which both our national conscience and our national policy require. The national origins quota system. based on a census 38 years old and on an outmoded concept. requires drastic reappraisal and revision. That system is based on that old census. notwithstanding that three censuses have intervened since then. Certainly the world must consider this only as being in the nature of a punitive measure. not an appropriate exercise of legislative discretion.