Speech #880071752

Through the introduction of strong civil rights legislation. including equal employment opportunities legislation. we are attempting to put an end to a deplorable situation that has racked many a conscience and kind heart. and which on a very practical political level. has always lowered the prestige of the United States in the eyes of the rest of the world. Now. I say. it is time to put an end to another deplorable and discriminatory situation. that of inequitable and outmoded immigration procedures. Because we have been basing our immigration on this 1920 census. we find ourselves denying admission to this country of so many persons. especially of Greek. Italian. Polish and Asian origin. These nations for many years have had way oversubscribed quotas and backlogs up to 100.000 persons trying to gain entrance to the United States. Mr. Speaker. there are those among us who might fear that the passage of these new immigration laws would result in an indiscriminate flood of immigrants to this country. This is not so. All it would mean is that we would probably fill our present quota of around 157.000 with the addition of a possible few thousand more. and that we would be in a position to allow persons from the countries I have mentioned as well as others. to make use of the unused quota allotments by such countries. for example. as Britain and Ireland. who for years have not filled their immigration quotas. To me. this is the very least we can do to fulfill our promise of long ago and to justify to ourselves and to the rest of the world the eloquent message of welcome and hope. written on the base of the Statue of Liberty. which greets so many of those who come to America for the first time. In offering others an opportunity to live in America we are also offering many of our own American citizens the chance to be reunited with many of their relatives of other countries. from whom they have long been separated. With the passage of new immigration laws. we could end the kind of situation in which an American citizen of Greek origin must wait a year and a half to be reunited with his mother and father. or his brothers and sisters. or as happened in my own congressional district. an American citizen of Turkish origin faces an indefinite waiting period to have her sister join her in the United States. We have another reason for opening our gates a little wider. a reason that has long been part of the American tradition. This great country was built. as we all know. by immigrants and is today the country of their children and their childrens children. whether their parents originally came in the 18th century or the 20th century. We are a melting pot of many people from many lands. What Is it we have to fear by adding a little more fresh variety to the melting pot? My esteemed colleague. the gentleman from New York. the Honorable EMANUEL CELLER. who as the longstanding chairman of the Judiciary Committee has had years and years of experience with the immigration problem has expressed his views in no uncertain terms in a report he recently released to the American people. and I quote: The system of national origins has. over the years shown itself to be completely unworkable and unrealistic. For humanitarian reasons. for emergency purposes. and under pressure of world events. there has been. through a variety of acts of Congress. superimposed upon that principle. a structure of special laws. special exceptions. special private laws. and a contrived technique of seeking and finding loopholes in the law until the law itself has become a maze of contradictions. It is my considered opinion that the Presidents bill offers a broad and firm basis for a long overdue revision of our policies and practices in this most important area of domestic and foreign human relations. I am in complete accord with the gentleman from New York [Mr. CELLERI. and I would like to strongly urge my colleagues to join with me in supporting with as little delay as possible this new and farreaching immigration proposal of the Presidents. introduced by the gentleman from New York . as H.R. 7700. I have today introduced a similar bill to indicate my full support of the bill of the gentleman from New York .