Speech #860193684

Mr. President. yesterday the President sent to Congress a message urging liberalization of U.S. immigration policy through revisions of the Immigration Act of 1952. I believe the Presidents proposals deserve high praise as well as our most serious consideration. The President indicated that what he hopes eventually will be achieved is a complete abandonment of the quota system of immigration. I share that hope. for while there is no inherent right of aliens to enter the United States on an equal basis. it seems to me that the quota system of discrimination against some nationalities is indefensible under any principle of American history or democracy. What is more. I believe it is very bad foreign policy in a day when the attitudes and actions of peoples other than northern and western Europeans are increasingly important to our future. I must say. however. that the Presidents fears that such a sharp shift in our policy is unlikely at the present time are probably justified. The specific reforms which he has proposed in yesterdays message attempt to deal with some of the most flagrantly discriminatory features of the present law and to soften some of its worst features. These proposals would. first of all. double the number of immigrants coming in under the quotaraising it to approximately 300.000and provide for admission of some 10.000 refugees from oppression and persecution each year. One of the best features of the Presidents recommendations. and one which has been advocated by others for some time. is to permit the unused quotas of undersubscribed countries to be distributed among oversubscribed countries. Thus. in years when Germany. for example. fails to fill its very large quota. the number of Italians. Greeks. and other groups could be correspondingly increased. I am also strongly in favor of removing the ceiling of 2.000 on quotas within the AsiaticPacific triangle. Whatever good feelings may have been engendered toward the United States in Asia by the admission of Hawaii as a State are annually undermined by the realization on the part of our friends in that part of the world that we discriminate against them in the matter of immigration. The steps which the President has advocated are a definite move in the right direction. I strongly urge that action be taken on them In this session so that we can go on in future Congresses to a complete overhauling of our outdated immigration system.