Speech #890002500

Mr. President. I am opposed to changing our immigration laws as recommended this week by the President. His proposals are substantially the same as those of President Kennedy in 1963. and include some steps that have been advocated for 20 years. While there will be disagreement on the exact number of immigrants to be expected. there certainly will be some increase. and every immigrant will be competing with an American citizen for a job at a time when unemployment remains a major economic problem. And I do not see how anyone can categorically say the number of immigrants would be increased by less than 7.000. if no quota whatever is to be placed upon the Negroes to be admitted from Jamaica. Trinidad. and Tobago. Thousands from those former British possessions already have flooded England. creating a serious economic problem. Neither can I agree that our present immigration laws are incompatible with our basic American tradition. Our American tradition is that the first settlers were of Nordic stock. and came from Great Britain. Shortly after the Revolutionary War. there was a substantial immigration. from Germany. of those seeking religious and economic freedom. With the division of the Northwest Territory into States. the area was settled by a fine group of farmers from the Scandinavian countries. Ever since 1882. we have had laws prohibiting imiigration to this country of Orientals. Those laws have been only slightly modified in recent years. That was the basic American tradition. until broken in the early part of the current century by some ruthless industrial magnates. who brought thousands of workers from southern Europe into the coal fields and steel mills of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. to break the back of a young and weak organized labor movement. The Immigration Act of 1924 was passed for the deliberate purpose of protecting organized labor and of preserving the basic national characteristics of our Nation. Following World War II. the United States. out of sympathy for stricken peoples. departed from its basic immigration policy. by passing. between 1948 and 1953. temporary laws under which thousands of displaced persons and refugees were admitted to the United States. But in 1952. Congress reaffirmed its basic immigration policy. by passing the McCarran Act. which preserved the quota system and strengthened the safeguards against admission of Communists and other enemies of our democratic institutions. President Kennedy said. and the claim is now repeated. that emphasis would be placed upon admitting immigrants who possess skill. That term is as vague as the word "discrimination" in the civil rights bill. and can mean anything that any bureaucrat sees fit to make it mean. But the door is left wide open to those without skill if they can claim relationship to someone already here. Most of the new immigrants will be of that character. In other words. the removal of the limitation of national origins quotas is somewhat akin to removal of the gold backing for our currency. It is not a perfect system. but it furnishes an automatic brake. free from administrative manipulation. If it be politically expedient at the present time to remove the handicap of the Immigration Act of 1924. why will it not be equally expedient at a later period to eliminate all restrictions. and to accept a flood of immigrants? History has no example to equal the generosity shown by our Nation since the end of World War II to all of the socalled havenot nations of the world. and especially to the nations of southern Europe. who now are exerting pressure for the admission of more of their nationals. We have loaned and given away about $105 billion. and the end is not in sight.