Speech #880266866

Mr. Speaker. revision of our basic immigration laws is a most desirable objective and I am hopeful that the Congress will soon have the opportunity to act on pending proposals to liberalize the quota restrictions. I note that the administrations proposals in S. 1932 call for the reallocation of unused quotas and the creation of a quota reserve pool to help ease the current immigration restrictions. In this respect. Mr. Speaker. back in 1953 I first introduced legislation to create a pool of unused immigration quotas to enable many Americans to bring close relatives to this country. My proposal differs from some pending proposals in one important respect in that beneficiary countries would repay quotas whenever immigration rates rise in those countries not using all of the quotas authorized by law. This particular provision would protect nationals behind the Iron Curtain who are being refused exit permits by their governments once freedom is restored to these unhappy lands. Just recently. I was pleased to present my views on my bill. H.R. 1106. to the Subcommittee on Immigration of the House Judiciary Committee. This bill would amend section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act so as to provide that all quota numbers not used in any year shall be made available to immigrants in oversubscribed areas in the following year. and for other purposes. I think it can be readily seen from the title of the bill that it would accomplish very worthwhile objectives without increasing immigration quotas. and that would seem to me to promote desirable reform of our immigration laws. I favor every reasonable proposal to increase quotas and liberalize the law. As Members of the House so well know. there are some countries in northern Europe where the quotas are now undersubscribed. and some countries in southern Europe where the quotas are heavily oversubscribed in varying degrees.