Speech #860193991

Mr. President. earlier today I was happy to cosponsor a bill to carry out the recommendations of the President for revision of the immigration laws. I hope that the Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization. of which I am a member. will give this legislation prompt and favorable attention. The problems in this field have been too long neglected. Our present immigration laws are very fine in many respects. Nevertheless. they are riddled with discriminatory. inequitable. and unjustifiably stringent provisions. and the sooner we come to grips with this problem the better. Charges were made yesterday. both here and in the other body. that the Presidents message was motivated by election year politics. At the time I said this charge was completely baseless. I repeat that statement now and I wish to document my position. The charge is made by those who wish to cover up for the failure on the part of the Congress to do anything substantial to reform our immigration laws. Let me briefly review the actions which the President has taken in this field since 1953. On February 2. 1953. within 1 month after taking office. the President. in his state of the Union message. requested the Congress to review existing legislation in this field and to "enact a statute which would at one and the same time guard our legitimate national interests and be faithful to our basic ideas of freedom and fairness to all." This message reminded us that "we areone and allimmigrants or the sons and daughters of immigrants." It pointed out that existing legislation contained "injustices" and did in fact "discriminate." Later that same year. on April 22. 1953. the President sent a letter to the Vice President of the United States and the President of the Senate. and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. whereIn he recommended the enactment of emergency immigration legislation for the special admission of a total of 240.000 Immigrants. On February 17. 1954. the President requested supplemental appropriations to continue the refugee relief program. On January 6. 1955. in his state of the Union address. the President again urged the correction of certain inequitable. and discriminatory provisions in our Immigration laws. On April 20. 1955. the President transmitted a message to the Congress on the mutual security program which contained his request for funds for the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration for the purpose of carrying on their humanitarian assistance to uprooted and oppressed refugees throughout the world. On May 27. 1955. the President. in a most comprehensive message. suggested approximately 10 changes to the Refugee Relief Act. On January 5. 1956. in his state of the Union message. the President again demanded immediate attention to our immigration problem and requested a revision of our immigration and nationality laws which would deal realistically with presentday conditions. On February 8. 1956. the President delivered a special message to the Congress which again was a comprehensive statement on the need for a major overhauling of our immigration laws. This message took up four separate and distinct subject matters respecting our immigration policies: First. the quota system and the use of national origins. second. the private relief bill system of handling hardship cases. third. unnecessary restrictions and administrative provisions of our immigration laws. and fourth. judicial review in deportation. In this message the President said: Experience in the postwar world demonstrates that the present national origins method of admitting aliens needs to be reexamined and a new system adopted which will admit aliens within allowable numbers according to new guidelines and standards. On September 25. 1956. the President addressed a letter to me as the ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee. wherein he expressed great disappointment over Congress failure to meet his repeated requests for legislation which would provide asylum for a substantial number of refugees and escapees in Europe. He expressed hope. however. that this muchneeded legislation would be forthcoming in the next session of Congress and stated that he would again urge its enactment. In the Presidents budget message of 1957. the President again requested amounts for escapee program and for contributions to Governmental Committee for European Immigration and the United Nations Refugee Fund. which aid in the relief and settlement of refugees from behind the Iron Curtain and in immigration from Europe. On May 23. 1957. the President. in a message to the Congress. once again urged corrective legislation to alleviate the tremendous refugee problem existing throughout the world. And. in this same message. the President again urged that the quota be based on the 1950 population in place of the 1920 census. He called for the equitable distribution of the additional quota numbers and recommended that they be distributed among the various countries in proportion to the actual immigration into the United States since the establishment of the quota system in 1924 and up to July 1. 1955. He further recommended that quota numbers unused one year should be available for use in the following year. He called for a pool of the unused quota numbers for Europe.