Speech #860049490

Mr. President. on behalf of myself and the Senator from New Jersey . the Senator from Massachusetts . and my colleague. the junior Senator from New York . I introduce. for appropriate reference. a bill which I call the World Refugee Year immigration bill. Mr. President. as to the participation of my colleague from New York as a cosponsor of this measure. I wish to make the following statement. The junior Senator from New York is a member of the Committee on the Judiciary and of its Immigration and Naturalization Subcommittee. Hence. while joining in the introduction of the bill. because of his interest in the general objective of a constructive revision of the immigration laws. and his interest in an effective provision for refugeeescapee admissions to the United States. especially those from behind the Iron Curtain. the junior Senator from New York reserves his judgment and freedom of action as to the detailed provisions of the bill. This World Refugee Year immigration bill seeks to modernize the present Immigration and Nationality Act and to make provision for the admission annually of about 60.000 refugeeescapees fleeing racial. religious or political persecution by Communists or others opposed to the free world. 40.000 refugeeescapees specially would be admitted over a 2year period beginning July 1. 1959. the date marking the official start of World Refugee Year. Representative SEYMOUR HALPERN. of New York is introducing a similar bill in the other body. During World Refugee Year 59 United Nations members. including the United States. have pledged themselves to focus attention on the refugees. seek additional financial aid and help develop a permanent solution of the world refugee problem which encompasses the fate of over 2 million persons. The immigration legislation we are introducing would give the President the authority to admit a maximum of 60.000 refugeeescapees per annum on parole in the event of an emergency situation. they would be eligible to apply for permanent residence 2 years after their entry into the United States under this program. This is substantially the administrations recommendation of a few years ago. We must not be caught unprepared again as to refugeeescapees as we were at the time of the Hungarian revolt. In addition. this legislation would permit "pooling" of unused quotas left over from any previous year. also it would update the quota system by basing it on 1950 instead of 1920 census figures. Also. it would eliminate various procedural injustices in the administration of the present law. speed up the admission of immigrants who are related to U.S. citizens and thus eligible to apply under the fourth preference category. and provide for the issuance of a total of 5.000 special nonquota immigrant visas under the refugeeescapee section to unresettled. socalled hard core cases. The recent announcement by Senator EASTLAND. chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. that very shortly the Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization will hold hearings for the first time in more than 3 years on major bills including vitally important amendments to the often discriminatory current Immigration ActPublic Law 414has long been awaited. For some years now. attempts by many of us to get consideration of amendments to the immigration law on the Senate floor have met the threat that our efforts would result in the defeat of miscellaneous. minor but deserving immigration bills like last years Azores refugee bill. At long last. a national awareness on the part of our people which is attributable in large part to work of many private groups like the Zellerbach Commission of the International Refugee Committee. the U.S. Committee on Refugees and others is stimulating immigration law revisions. The United States has a moral responsibility to its own citizens as well as to the antiCommunist struggle to assume its fair share of the homeless. often hopeless refugeeescapees of Communist and other totalitarian forces within the broad framework of a modern. humane immigration law. Today. our immigration regulations appear to stand as a barrier before the very eyes of those who have risked all in a gesture of faith in U.S. peace leadership. Bipartisan efforts in 1957 and 1958 in the Senate to serve the national interest and to carry out the pledges in both the Republican and Democratic national platforms of 1956 by enacting fundamental revisions in the immigration law were constantly frustrated. Then in late August of last year. the chairman of the Judiciary Committee gave assurances in a colloquy on the floor of the Senate that the Immigration Subcommittee would finally explore four key issuesthe national quota system. resettlement of Iron Curtain refugees. speeding up admissions of refugeeescapees under Public Law 84316. and action on the enormous backlog of persons awaiting entry under the "fourth preference." I hope that every provision in the comprehensive immigration bill we are submitting today to do this will receive the closest study by the subcommittee and the expert witnesses who will testify before it. A major provision of todays bill calls for the admittance annually of a maximum of 60.000 refugeeescapees with an additional 40.000 special nonquota immigrant visas to be available from July 1. 1959. through June 30. 1961. for the pool of refugeeescapees awaiting help. The pathetic procession of the dispossessed which began from Nazi Germany in the 1930s has swelled to such tragic proportions since World War II that no area in the free world can remain immune to the desperate predicament of refugeeescapees. It is reported that the free nations in Asia are flooded with more than 1 million refugees from the Chinese mainland and now escapees from courageous Tibet are joining their ranks as they flee the Red Chinese. In North Africa. 170.000 Algerian refugees live in the most primitive conditions. In the Mideast. Israel has resettled 900.000 Jewish refugees while little progress has been made in resettling the 600.000 to 700.000 Arab refugees. Nonresettled European refugees. thousands from behind the Iron Curtain. total an estimated 175.000 with another 25.000 anticipated in the next 2 years. Since the end of World War II. the United States has taken slightly less than 25 percent of those European refugees who have been resettled compared to nearly 50 percent absorbed by European nations. Under the terms of the bill we are now proposing. the United States could issue visas during a 2year period to 40.000 or about 23 percent of the nonresettled refugees in Europe alone. which if they are issued at the rate of about 20.000 a year would approximate the recommendations of both the Zellerbach Commission and the U.S. Committee on Refugees. Five thousand of these could be issued to hard core. unresettled refugeeescapees. The bills provision of $5 million in grants to public and private agencies to bear the cost of resettling and rehabilitating 5.000 socalled hard core cases is as small as this because of the experience of other nations. Austria. Sweden. Norway. Belgium. and West Germany. for example. have found that the majority of these refugees can become selfsupporting. Even if they cannot. frequently. they are members of a family group which has remained behind with them in a camp to avoid separation. Following their own resettlement. these families could provide adequate care for such relatives unable to care fo themselves. The U.S. share under this section would absorb about onetenth of the hard core cases still in European camps today. By establishing 1950 as the base year for the national origins quota system instead of 1920. the present law would recognize that the U.S. population has increased by 40 percent or some 45 million people. during those three decades. Then although the regular immigration quota for any one of these named countries would still not exceed 12.000 annually. the allotment for Italy would increase 99 percent. for Hungary 93 percent. for Greece 116 percent. and for Austria 136 percent. No provision under our existing law has drawn heavier. more justified criticism from our friends abroad as unjust. inequitable. and hopelessly archaic than has the present state of the national origins quota system. This change is the most urgently needed revision in existing law contained in my bill. Title IV of the bill would facilitate the entry of an estimated 85.000 individuals. principally from Italy and Greece who are eligible for entry under the "fourth preference" provisionthey have reached 21 or are married and are the sons or daughters. brothers or sisters of U.S. citizens. Those whose admission was already approved by the Attorney General prior to July 1. 1957. would now be eligible to enter without reference to the quota for their native land. thus speeding up the admission of those who have become eligible for entry since that date by cutting sharply the waiting period. Title I of the proposed legislation eliminates the secondclass citizenship provisions in the present law which forces naturalized citizens to surrender their citizenship if they reside abroad indefinitely. Another amendment in the same title ends the racial test for those of halfAsiatic origin seekingto immigrate and allows Asiatic and colonial peoples to come in under the quota for their native country. No greater service could be performed in the name of justice. humanity. and our own national selfinterest than that as a result of the scheduled hearings on major immigration bills such as this one. the facts on our immigration policies and their importance to our position in the struggle for peace shall become clear to every one of us. And no fundamental revision of our existing laws would be complete without a refugeeescapee provision which indicates by its very adequacy that we realize the United States must help the free world to offer those brave enough to escape an attractive alternative to communism and all forms of totalitarianism. We must be prepared to make attainable reality to those now trapped behind the Iron Curtain the prospect of some day living in freedom. Mr.