Historians. social philosophers. demographers have pointed again and again to the fallacious reasoning which led to the adoption of the national origins formula.. Forty years of testing have proven that the pattern of discrimination has not only produced imbalances. but that Congress itself. through various acts. has been forced by the realities of a changing world to modify this formula so that today it remains on the books primarily as an expression of gratuitous condescension. In fact. it applies now to only 33 percent of our total annual immigration and even with regard to that 33 percent it is splintered time and time again by legislative patchwork attempting to prop up a crumbling structure. This committee. as is the House committee. is familiar with the vast number of private immigration bills enacted by every Congress. again emphasizing the unworkability of an anachronistic formula. I am firmly convinced that this formula would have been changed years ago had a workable substitute been found. In S. 1932 we now have a fair. a realistic and flexible formula which in our own national selfinterest literally begs for adoption. A378 It is no secret to you. nor for that matter to anyone in Congress. that I have been highly vocal in decrying the national origins system of immigration selection. I have sponsored some and followed closely each Act of Congress which fractured the untenable ratio of selectivity that allots annually some 65.000 quota numbers to Great Britain and some 300 to Greece and 250 to Spain. Congress recognized well what it was doing when it adopted these oneshot acts.
Keywords matched
national origins system immigration