Speech #880143907

I cosponsored S. 747. introduced by Senator HART. and S. 1932. the administration bill which Senator HART later introduced. Other bills for the same purpose have been introduced by other Members. I fervently hope that in the welter of proposals the main point Is not lost sight of: That the national origins quota system must be changed in a meaningful way in this Congress. I believe the major changes which must as a minimum be made are as follows: First. Modernize the quota number allocation system so that either the quota system Itself is gradually eliminated. as the administration bill proposes. or quotas are placed on a current status. based now upon the 1960 census and reallocated after each decennial census. and then pooled when unused. This would eliminate the severe discrimination against the southern European countries in the present law. which imposes waiting lists dozens of years long on southern and eastern European immigrants while leaving unused and unusable quota numbers for the British Isles and other northern European nations. Second. Eliminate the quota provisions which discriminate against Asiatic and colonial peoples. a kind of racial discrimination which is akin to that being fought in the great civil rights revolution now going on in our Nation. Third. Establish a Board of Visa Appeals in the State Department to review questions involving the denial of visas and the application or meaning of State Department regulations applying to Immigration. Fourth. Eliminate the discrimination Inherent in the present laws treatment of naturalized. as distinguished from naturalborn citizens. These are. in my judgment. the minimum requirements of a meaningful bill. Finally. Mr. President. this represents the freedom of movement of people in the world for which we are contending for so strongly in the Atlantic Community. Though this reform of the immigration law has been buried for so very long. it still remains a vital necessity in the international field. as civil rights legislation does in the domestic field. and is very much the same kind of issue. We are discriminating by not offering to certain people in the world. whatever may be their skills. the hospitality of our country. people from southern and Eastern Europe. from the AsiaPacific triangle. those in the Caribbean. This is the time to end such discrimination.