Speech #880289751

Washington. D.C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN MILLER: In your remarks on immigration as reported in the New York Times of September 8 from your speech given in South Bend on September 7. you stated that President Johnson has CX- 1388 given top priority to legislation that "would completely abolish our selective system of immigration and instead open the floodgates for virtually any and all who wish to come and find work in this country." May we point out that the proposed immigration bill that you refer to does not abolish our selective system of immigration but in fact increases selectivity. Immigrants to be admitted would still have to pass the rigid selective admission requirements as to mental and physical health. good moral character. literacy. that they are not likely to become a public charge. and that they are not a security risk. The one basic change in selection is that people will ultimately be admitted not according to where they were born but with particular emphasis on whether their skills and abilities are needed by the United States and of family relationship to people already in the United States. Further. the New York Times has quoted you as saying that "if the law were enacted the number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more." According to estimates made by experts. the bill will not increase immigration more than 15 percentfrom 306.260 admitted in 1963 to approximately 350.000. In reference to jobs. it is to be noted that in all imigrant groups approximately onehalf do not enter the labor market as they are the spouses and children of immigrants. They do. however. add to the consumer demand and this. consequently increases work opportunities. The strong support for the legislation given by the AFLCIO should speak for itself. We regret to see that immigration is being made a partisan issue. The leadership for a revised immigration policy has always been in the past the concern of members of both parties. Not only the Democratic platform but the Republican 1960 platform called for revision. President Eisenhower during his terms of office repeatedly called on the Congress to amend the immigration law. as well as Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. We hope we may return to this objective bipartisan approach. Sincerely.