Speech #890006480

Madam Speaker. as in the past. I am proud to join in the sponsorship of legislation to bring immigration policy in line with the inscription beneath the Statue of Liberty proclaiming to all nations. "Give me your tired. your poor. your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." I am not. however. proud that it is necessary to introduce remedial legislation every session. Substantive changes in our immigration law should have moved through the U.S. Congress many years ago. When President Truman vetoed the Immigration Act of 1952known as the McCarranWalter Acthe was. in fact. vetoing racism and injustice as landmarks of American thinking. This law. unfortunately upheld by Congress. actually is a codification of all the restrictive immigration enactments of previous years. compounded by many new and severer restrictions and injustices under the soporific excuse of national security. The words of President Truman in his veto message still remain a correct indictment of the 1952 restrictive. racist immigration law. that is. the law "discriminates. deliberately and intentionally against many peoples of the world." Then 2 years later we heard the late. great Senator Herbert Lehman put it on the line when he stated: The system presupposes that persons born in one country are better suited to immigrate here and become American citizens than persons born in another. As reflected in our immigration quotas. an individual born in Britain is presumed to be 13 times more acceptable to America than one born in Italy and 200 times more acceptable than one born in Greece. This assumption is not only utterly false on the face of it. it is basically repulsive to the very spirit and traditionto the meaning--of America. And just a short time ago. Madam Speaker. we were privileged to hear in this Chamber. President Johnson in his state of the Union message. declaring. "We must open opportunities to all our people." including "to those in other lands that are seeking the promise of America. through an immigration law based on the work a man can do and not where he was born or how he spells his name." I fully agree with the Presidents goal. In short. I respectfully submit that our immigration law should not be based on a national quota system. but based on a persons need. talent. and above all. our commitment to democratic concepts in judging others. I would hope that the pending immigration legislation. in line with this administrations objectives. would be a priority item for this Congress. Madam Speaker. may I jog our collective national memory for just a moment by pointing out that way back in 1787. during the Constitutional Convention. James Madison said: That part of America which has encouraged them [the foreigners] has advanced more rapidly in population. agriculture. and the "art." History has proved him right and we in Congress have an obligation to go along with the healthy tide of history by repealing the 1952 discriminatory immigration act as part of the law of the land.