Speech #880062156

Madam President. almost 200.000 peoplerelatives of American citizens who have come from Italy and from Greece. aloneare penalized today because of the backwardness of our immigration laws. Yet to this day we continue to be unable to do anything about them. Instead. we take special steps at times of national emergency. such as during the crisis in Hungary. at which time many refugees or escapees streamed from that country. and. of course. in such situations it is desirable that we take them in. It has been a decade since our immigration wall was perpetuated by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. better known as the McCarranWalter Act. Time and experience have more than dramatized the fact that. as its opponents contended 11 years ago. it is perhaps as unique a law as we have on our statute books. But these 11 years have also produced an atmosphere of political helplessness to exasperate even the most determined immigration reformers. so that today most are resigned to the now annual practice of settling for piecemeal revisions or temporary relief rather than an effective overhaul of our entire policy of immigration. The backdoor methods Congress has used to cover up deficiencies in the basic law is the greatest proof of the laws inadequacies. Since the McCarranWalter Act was enacted. Congress has passed special. shortterm immigration and refugee legislation which has had the cumulative effect of admitting into the United States more than twice as many persons as permitted under the basic McCarranWalter Act. But even this piecemeal legislation has represented no relief to the thousands of American families within countries with heavily mortgaged and oversubscribed immigration quotas. This tragic situation is the result of that section of the McCarranWalter Act which is admittedly based on national and racial discriminationthe national origins quota system. which remains today as the core of our immigration policy. creating ill will abroad. furnishing a target for Communist propaganda. and making our effort to win over the uncommitted nations more difficult. It is based on the rejected racist assumption that people of one ethnic origin are superior. socially and culturally to those of another. It was designed and is administered not to admit as many immigrants as we can readily absorb. but to exclude as many as possible. Throughout his congressional career. President Kennedy was a dedicated foe of the McCarranWalter Act. called it in 1955 the "most blatant piece of discrimination" in history. During his 1960 campaign. he called for the abolition of the national origins quota system and pledged to give the Democratic CIX758 platform promises on immigration reform "high priority." The President came into office. backed by a stirring Democratic platform plank on immigration. and with reasonable assurances of support for immigration reform from Republicans. who adopted an equally strong immigration plank. The President had every reason to press forward. But those who expected. at long last. fighting leadership in this field were disappointedfirst. by President Kennedys failure even to mention immigration in three state of the Union messages. second. by the failure to send an immigration message to Congress although the President has sent messages to Congress on almost every other major national issue. and third. by the failure to break new ground in the administration of the Immigration Service. It is to be hoped that the President will begin to show the vigorous Presidential leadership required. At the same time. we in Congress have a responsibility to suggest the direction of immigration reform. My bill is designed to eliminate the most glaring deficiencies in existing law and is the result of long and careful study by experts in the field. As originally introduced in the 87th Congress. as S. 551. the bill was thoroughly reviewed by the Committee on Federal Legislation of the association of the bar of the city of New York. a distinguished group of experienced attorneys who performed an extremely valuable public service by issuing a detailed report. The report described the bill as "most desirable" and recommended enactment. The present bill takes into account various recommendations made by the committee as well as the developments in the law since that time. It also incorporates additional features so that. in its new form. it presents a complete proposal for immigration reform. I note that hearings on general immigration legislation which had been scheduled by the Senate Immigration Subcommittee for this week have now been postponed. I urge that they be rescheduled promptly and that this bill be included in the subcommittees deliberations along with S. 747. introduced by Senator HART and of which I am a cosponsor. and with other measures on the same subject. since the present bill Includes a number of features not incorporated In the other measures and in some instances provides a different approach to the problems sought to be resolved by all the bills. The bill also includes liberalized provisions relating to refugees. displaced persons and escapees from various forms of tyranny. including the Castro tyranny. We continue to this day to be unable to do anything should we be faced with a national emergencyas we were at the time of the Hungarian uprisingin which refugees and escapees may come streaming in from East Germany. from Hungary. or from some other place and it would be very desirable to take them. We would then face. as we did before. a new situation. Again we would have to improvise action.