Speech #880228509

Mr. Speaker. I am introducing today a comprehensive revision of our immigration laws. Our present immigration policybased on national originsis seriously discriminatory. Our quota system is sadly out of date. 44 years out of date. It is still figured on the census of 1920. It discriminates flagrantly in favor of northern and western Europeans and against southern Europeans. Is there any justice in the fact that Italy. with 51 million people. has a quota of only 5.666 a year while Great Britain. with 53 million. has a quota of 65.000? Is there any logical reason why Greece with 8.500.000 people is allowed only 308 immigrants per year while Sweden. with less than 7.500.000. has 3.30010 times as many? Nor is that the end of the unfair differences of treatment. An American who has a Swiss brother can get him admitted at once. But his neighbor. whose sister is Italian. may have to wait years to get her a quota numberunder our regular immigration law. Both are Americans and both have the American sense of fairness. and both. therefore. would be equally offended by such unequal and inequitable treatment. We make a fetish out of the quota system. yet the facts show we ignore it about as often as we use it. In the last 10 years. one million immigrants came here under quotas which would have allowed 1.500.000 to enterwhich means onethird of those quotas were wasted on countries which did not use them. In the same period 1.500.000 other immigrants came in outside the quotasunder special and temporary legislation and exceptions. such as were needed. for example. to give asylum to the gallant freedom fighters of Hungary. That means that 3 out of every 5 immigrants during that decade came in outside the quotas. Since we wanted them to come. it seems clear that they should have been able to come within the basic law rather than as exceptions to it. I submit that when threefifths of a laws results are exceptions to it. it is high time to change the law.