I was privileged to be one of its cosponsors. The bill is now pending before the Committee on the Judiciary and could be acted upon at any time. Only its provisions dealing with refugee relief have received any attention at all. and even in this area the legislation finally passed by Congress fell far short of the Presidents proposals. I believe that every effort should be made during this special session to enact at least a portion of these recommendations. None of the Presidents proposals would in any sense open the floodgates or remove any reasonable limitations on the entry of new immigrants into our country. They would. however. serve to eliminate from our present immigration laws a number of unjustified and discriminatory provisions which have marred our immigration policies for many years. These provisions display a distrust and isolationism toward other peoples which is wholly inconsistent with our heritage as a nation of immigrants. and with our espousal of the ideas of freedom and equality. Of the several proposals contained in the Presidents repeated messages on this subject. the two on which I believe action is imperative are: first. the basing of the overall limitation on immigration on the 1960 census as soon as It is available. rather than on the basis of the white population in our country in 1920. as Is provided In the present law. and. second. the pooling and redistribution of any unused quota numbers for the benefit of areas which are heavily oversubscribed. These are extremely modest changes. and do not begin to fulfill all of the promises in the two party platforms. Their approval. however. would show the good faith of both parties. and would at least be a partial satisfaction of the Presidents many urgent requests for changes in this field.
Keywords matched
immigrants immigration refugee