Speaker. the boasted basic standards by which we Americans claim to measure a man are his strength. his integrity of character. his conscientious industry. and his personal ambition. In theory his place of birth has nothing to do with the kind of person he may be. However and unfortunately. our current immigration laws openly contradict this theory. Under present laws. it is. for instance. clearly intimated that the Italian people are about onethirteenth as acceptable for prospective American citizenship as the English and that the Greek people are about 200 times less desirable for American admittance than the English. There is similar discrimination against many other nationalities under the present system. Beyond the objective injustices projected under our current immigration regulations and restrictions I think it is very practical. In our own selfinterest. to point out the adverse effect the antiquated national origins quota method has on the prestige of the United States abroad and the operation of successful foreign policy. I earnestly feel that the great majority of our citizens desire to have our immigration laws brought more realistically into line with the traditional character and disposition of the American people in order to prove we truly mean the inspiring phrase we so often use"All men are created equal." Mr. Speaker. there is now pending before the Congress a bill. actually the first bill our late and beloved President John F. Kennedy sent to Congress. designed to remove the bias. the prejudice. the discrimination. and the injustices of our present immigration laws. This bill is known as H.R. 7700 and I myself have introduced a bill that is practically identical to it. H.R. 8883. These bills. and many others of like nature. would. fundamentally. along with other revisions and reforms. eliminate the present inequitable discriminatory overall quota system and set up a new method. with no great increase. of quota allocations without regard to national origins. they would insure that an individual with special talents that could be used here would not be faced with inordinate delay in admittance because of his birthplace and they would halt the existing hardships on separated families from Italy or Greece or other countries who must now most often experience agonizing postponements of family unity while large quotas for England and Ireland remain unused. Mr. Speaker. I most earnestly hope this Congress will not adjourn without taking action on these pending revisions in our immigration laws that will demonstrate. both to ourselves and the world. that we are really serious in desiring to eradicate discrimination based on race and national origin. At this point I would like to include the testimony I recently presented to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration in support of H.R. 7700. and my own bill. H.R. 8883. and any other bills that would achieve the equitable objective we commonly seek. The testimony follows:
Identified stereotypes
The paragraph suggests that Italian and Greek people are less desirable for American citizenship than English people based on existing immigration laws.