Speech #880009375

These conclusions to the report on scientific manpower cannot. of course. be generalized to every segment of our manpower pool. But they are indicative. nevertheless. of the situation in critical segments. A final objective of our reform bill is to provide a continuing and orderly. but flexible. authority for the yearly admission of a reasonable number of refugees. The steady trickle of escapees into Western Europe. the flight of Chinese into Hong Kong. and the Jewish exodus from North Africa immediately come to mind. an example of the continuing need for permanent flexibility in our admission practices. A firm steppingstone to a permanent provision for refugees now exists in Public Law 87510. the Refugee and Migration Assistance Act of 1962. This act includes a continuing authority that in each 6month periodending June 30 and December 31the United States shall admit up to 25 percent of the number of refugees. under the mandate of the U.S. High Commissioner for Refugees who have been received by other countries in the preceding 6 mondhs. This legislation is aimed specifically at the residual refugee problem in Europe. The solution to todays refugee problem does not lie in immigration to the United States. Nevertheless. the benefit that such an opportunity affords to a reasonable number of individual refugees. some of whom are relatives of American citizens. is highly desirable. and in keeping with Americas best tradition of freedom and humanitarianism. Commonsense tells us. of course. that the modem world has created imperative demands for the regulation of immigration. But in meeting these demands. we must not trample the credo of democracy. We must not sacrifice the security of America. Our task is to bring our traditional principles into a creative relation with the facts of the modem world. I shall outline briefly the major provisions of our bill. It authorizes 250.000 quota visas each year. of which 50.000 are to be made available to refugees and/ or escapees without regard to quota areas. The remaining 200.000 quota visas are to be allocated to countries under a twopart computation. First. 80.000 quota visas are to be divided among countries based on the relation of their population to world population. and no one country would receive more than 3.000 numbers under this category. Second. 120.000 quota visas are to be allocated to countries based on the proportion of their immigration to the United States over the past 15 years to the total of all immigration to the United States over the past 15 years. No quota area shall receive less than they received under the old law. The maximum quota. however. is 25.000. The minimum quota is 200. Quotas are allocated to applicanth either by country of birth or by country of citizenship. provided the applicant has been domiciled for 10 years or more in his place of citizenship. All unused quota numbers at the end of the year are pooled and divided among quota areas having a backlog of applicants waiting for immigrant visas. No quota area shall receive from this pool. however. a number of visas greater than its regular annual quota. No more than 100.000 numbers may be used from the pool in any one year. Quotas under the bill will be revised every 5 years. Within the quotas 60 percent are available to "blood relatives of a citizen or of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence through the third degree of consanguinity. their spouses and children." The remaining 40 percent are available to other qualified immigrants. Persons born in the Western Hemisphere remain nonquota. Nonquota status is expanded to include the parents of a U.S. citizen and persons with special skills. including spouse and children. The bill eliminates the AsiaPacific triangle provisions of present law. To provide a more precise understanding of how the proposal would operate. the Visa Division of the Department of State has made a computation of the proposed new quotas. An examination of this computation. and related statistics. illustrates how this bill responds to demonstrated immigration requirements. I ask unanimous consent that there be printed at this point in my remarks a table which sets forth the present immigration quotas. average annual immigration by countries over the last 10 years. the new quotas provided under this bill. and the present number of registrants in oversubscribed quota areas. The table includes those countries which have been the principal contributors to immigration from 1951 to