Speech #860267354

Mr. President. I intend to vote for House Joint Resolution 397 although I have grave misgivings about its effectiveness as a piece of refugeeadmission legislation and even more serious misgivings about its foreign policy implications. However. I believe that we must have a refugee admission bill in this World Refugee Year. even if the proposal is only a token demonstration of American interest in the worlds homeless as is House Joint Resolution Mr. President. I wish to make clear I object strongly to certain provisions and limitations in House Joint Resolution I had hoped. as had the majority of the American people. that in this World Refugee Year the Congress would fully and forthrightly accept its responsibilities for the courageous men and women who were willing to risk everything for freedomthe tens of thousands of refugees in Europe. the Middle East and Asia. Instead. Mr. President. House Joint Resolution 397 substitutes a concept of "followship." which I have never read in a single page of American history up to this time. for the concept of leadership which has been our tradition. For the first time in the history of American refugee legislation. the present proposal would make U.S. admissions of refugees proportionate to the efforts of other nations. Mr. President. I am convinced after careful reflection that this formula of approach is unworthy of our Nations heritage and totally at variance with the generous. openhearted response of the American people to the goals of World Refugee Year. Furthermore I believe that this formula25 percent of what the rest of the world accomplishesopens untold possibilities for erroneous but damaging exploitation by the Communist bloc to whom every single refugee who flees to freedom is. to paraphrase Mr. Khrushchev. "a bone in the throat." Mr. President. as we all know. the American people have responded with their usual generosity to appeals for funds for assistance and camp clearance projects during this World Refugee Year. The American Government under the present administration has responded. though only onehalf so well as I had envisioned in my amendment to the Mutual Security Act of 1959. with funds for training and transportation of refugees now in camps and with grants to voluntary agencies who have written an extraordinary record of charity and devotion to individual freedom and dignity. The American people have to date in World Refugee Year given $7 million above the normal private agency refugee assistance budgets of $50 million annually. The agencies estimate that the Americans may well give another $7 million before the close of World Refugee Year. But these fundsprivate or governmentaldo not provide the magic document of our century which recognizes a persons very existencea passport. As one refugee bitterly describes his desperation. "Twentieth century man is a body and a souland a passport." I find it most difficult to believe that the same American people who could so effectively imagine the needs and hopes of refugee men. women. and children tens of thousands of miles across the world would refuse to welcome these same refugees into their neighborhoods. or their plants or their churches. Many words have been spoken by this administration and previous Democratic administrations and by all of us in this Chamber about the overwhelming sympathy of the American people with the peoples of the captive nations. These expressions.