Speech #860281585

It has been a long and sad story of procrastination and evasion on the part of many Members of Congress. Twelfth. The administrations efforts to liberalize immigration laws Is another long and sad story of congressional inactivity. In his first stateoftheUnion address. February 1953. the President pointed out that "existing legislation contains injustices." He. therefore. requested that Congress "review this legislation and enact a statute which will at one and the same time guard our legitimate national interests and be faithful to our basic ideas of freedom and fairness for all." The plea was reiterated 2 years later in the stateoftheUnion address of 1955.