Speech #860034090

Truly. it seems to me. we have singled out these people and said to them. "You are the most undesirable of mankind. Do not enter and corrupt our society." The time for a judicious reappraisal of this policy has long since passed. In place of the national origins system. the bill I introduced would provide for a unified quota system which would promote the general welfare both internally and in our dealings with other nations. The mechanics of this new proposed system have been explained sufficiently before that I feel I need not discuss them at this time beyond outline form. The bill provides for the distribution of quota immigrant visas without regard to race. If enacted it would be the first time since we first adopted a quota system that the distributions were so made. Visas would be distributed according to a system of five preference classes of aliens. which include. first. family reunification class. second. occupational class. third. refugee class. fourth. national interest class. and. fifth. resettlement class. These terms are all selfexplanatory. I think. except the national interest class. which includes peoples who would advance the national interests of the United States by strengthening areas of the free world that would be assisted in alleviating their own problems by the emigration of some of their people. An unfair distribution of visas is guarded against by providing that no more than 15 percent of the visas available within any of the preference classes could go to any nation. The total annual quota would be set permanently at 250.000. The percentage distribution of visas among the five preference groups would be made by the President each year. subject to the confirmation of Congress. In this way we would be assured of having an immigration policy which is current with existing conditions. so that visas would be issued to the various classes according to our domestic and foreign policy needs. A number of bills other than those patterned after the CellerLehman proposal have been introduced in recent years to alleviate the rigors of the national origins quota system. These bills would provide for the pooling and redistribution of unused quotas. President Eisenhower has sent repeated messages to Congress advocating such a plan.