Speech #880241298

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 rigid pattern of discrimination has not only produced imbalances. but that Congress itself. through a long series of enactments forced by the realities of a changing world saw fit to modify this unworkable formula so that today it remains on the books primarily as an expression of gratuitous condescension. In fact. the condemned formula 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. I am firmly convinced that this formula would have been changed years ago had a workable substitute been found. I am offering that formula now in the bill H.R. 7700. 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 successive 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. This committee is well aware of how the Congress shattered the national origin pattern. but whatever the reason. we chose not to call a spade a spade. In other words. we never did admit to the truth of what we were doing. In a sense. each of the acts of Congress I am about to enumerate has been an act of redemption. the slow retreat from the fears and failures of 1921 and 1924. and an open recognition of the unworkability of the basic principle of our immigration law. As soon as Nazi Germanys surrender silenced the guns of World War II. the free world awoke to face the overwhelming task of resettling over 1.5 million victims of Nazi and Communist terror. the liberated inmates of concentration camps and Hitlers slave laborers. in short. the mass of huinanity stamped "Displaced Persons." The United States decided to offer hospitality to what was deemed to be her fair share of the unfortunates. However. the national origins formula of the 1924 law remained an unsurmountable obstacle to what the people of the United States wanted to do. namely. to accept the responsibility which the U.S. position of leadership in the world had imposed. In 1948. the 80th Congress passed the first Displayed Persons Act. Woefuly inadequate as that law was. it permitted the entry of 200.000 displaced persons outside of the national origins quota limitation. but in spite of the objections of many. myself Included. that law imposed an unfair mortgage of the immigration quotas. The 81st Congress passed the second Displaced Persons Act. sponsored by myself. Once again. the Congress recognized that the national origins quota system must be disregarded if this country were to respond to the public demand and discharge its moral and humanitarian obligations As a compromise. the unfortunate mortgage feature of the 1948 law was retained. In 1957. however. under a bill sponsored in the Senate by the late President Kennedy and in the House by my late friend and colleague. Mr. Walter. the mortgage provision was stricken from the statute books in obvious recognition of the.fact that the situation created by the simultaneous operation of the national origin system plus the mortgage. had become untenable. Congress knew that the doors to the United States could no longer stay tightly shut for immigrants born in some 11 countries of eastern Europe which suffered most under Hitlers and Stalins rule. The ink was hardly dry on the basic act of 1952 when. early in 1958. the Congress recognized that while the displaced persons and refugees resettlement problems have not yet been solved. the new law. by carrying forward the national origins formula. left this country without any instrumentality to cope with its responsibilities and the emergent needs of the homeless. A new refugee. admission law was proposed and quickly passed. It is known as the Refugee Relief Act of 1953. It brought to these shores over 220.000 refugees outside of the quota system. outside of the national origins formula and even without the pitiful expediency of the mortgage used in the 1948 and the 1950 enactments. Just as the two Displaced Persons Acts constituted the first loud and public- admission of the obsolescence and the unworkability of the national origins formula of the 1924 law. the Refugee Relief Act of 1953. enacted only 8 months after the 1952 act became effective. remains an equally convincing piece of evidence of the bankruptcy of the system so very unfortunately incorporated in the statute now in effect. Since 1957 every Congress. through the 87th. has been called upon to pass and did. indeed. pass a law further bending. chipping off. and whittling away the national origins formula. Under pressure of inescapable facts. the 85th Congress passed the act of September A3267 11. 1957. converting into nonquota status many thousands of immigrants in the first. second. and third preferences. the highly skilled aliens whose services were urgently needed in this country and the relatives of U.S. citizens and immigrants. Under the same law all unused numbers remaining from the Refugee Relief Act allocations were authorized to be usedagain without regard to national origin of the applicants. - The Hungarian emergency caught the United States again unprepared to cope with the crying and most urgent need for offering asylum to the victims of Soviet terror. A broad interpretation of the law was used and the doors were open but the Congress had to act fast to redress the situation and the same 85th Congress enacted on August 8. 1958. the law authored by Mr. FEIGHAN granting permanent residence to upward of 40.000 Hungarian refugees. The principle of national origins received another body blow. From 1957 on. this trend of congressional action in the field of immigration became obviousand permanent. Every year. through 1962. brought new laws admitting outside of the national origin system highly skilled specialists. relatives of U.S. citizens and permanently residing aliens as well as refugees. always. however. on a piecemeal basis. never reaching the core of the problem. In 1958. the Congress passed four such laws. the acts of July 25. August 8. August 21. and September 2. The last onePublic Law 85892had an additional significance since it selected nationals of only two countries for relief. the Portuguese victims of the earthquake which took place on the Azores and the Dutch expelled from Indonesiaa truly convincing admission of the inadequacy of the national origins quota system. as the quota for the Netherlands is relatively large. while the Portuguese quota is very smallboth equally inadequate to achieve congressional intent to help. The 86th Congress acted twice along the same lines. The act of September 22. 1959. granted nonquota status to relatives of United States citizens and permanent residents who had already experienced a waiting period on the consular registers exceeding 10 to 15 years. The act of July 14. 1960. admitted more Portuguese and more Dutchmen as well as authorized the paroling of refugees with the builtin provision permitting the Attorney General to adjust their status to that of permanent residence after they had spent 2 years in the United States. National origin was again totally disregarded. The 87th Congress did not deviate from this now almost traditional course of action. Again. under the act of September 26. 1961. the reuniting of immigrant families was expedited by exempting large numbers of registrants from the national origin restrictions. Following that. under the act of Qotober 24. 1962. the Congress enlarged on the categories of relatives permitted to enter on a nonquota basis and for the fourth time since 1957 has extricated first preference applicants. the skilled specialists. from the national origins straitjacket. Thus. year after year the Congress continued to tear away bits and pieces of the national origins system until a situation was created where that system. as of fiscal year 1963. governs the admission of only 33 percent of our total immigration intake while the onus of it remains nailed down to our entire immigration code. In view of this history can we honestly say that we are now faced with a radical proposal? Are we really suddenly and dramatically departing from that which we presumably had held sacred for 40 years? Obviously. no. Instead of clean surgery we have Indulged ourselves in operations of occasional blood infusion into a moribund system. And you. gentlemen. know best how much time. effort. blood. and sweat you. yourself. put into the patchwork repair job of our immigration laws when you sit each week and examine thousands of private bills. never reaching the bottom of the barrel. In H.R. 7700 careful provision is made for proper transition from the medieval formula into modern times. For 5 years each quota allotment willbe reduced 20 percent until at the end of that period there will be no national allotments. The unallotted numbers will be placed into u general pool and issued in chronological order within statutorily defined preferences favoring highly skilled specialists and uniting of families. Special provisions are made for emergency situations. thus eliminating the need for emergency legislation which we have been called upon to pass over the years. At this point I want to make it clear. since every discussion surrounding immigration changes is obscured by arguments about our unemployment. our lack of classrooms. our housing. etc.. that these arguments are totally irrelevant since the bill before you in no way significantly increases the basic numbers of immigrants to be permitted entry. We are not talking about increased immigration. we are talking about equality of opportunity for all peoples to reach this promised land. We freely acknowledge the fact that we are a land of immigrants. that this amalgam of blood has given us the richness. the diversity. the creativity that no other country in history has been able to achieve. From the builder of tunnels to the atomic scientist. we have drawn from the pool of world talent and have created a pluralistic society whichand I do not exaggerateremains the wonder of all living historians. In this complex age. therefore. shall not we as a Nation have the means whereby we can choose freely from all corners of the earth the talents and the skills we need and not limit our own choice because one man of genius was born 5 miles east or south of an arbitrarily traced boundary.