When Congress incorporated the national origins quota system in the McCarranWalter Act and passed that act by twothirds majorities over a Presidential veto in 1952. its purpose was to establish a definite and uniform formula or rule of law to do four things: First. To limit the annual number of quota immigrants who can come to the United States. Second. To determine the nationality of those who come so as to maintain the historic population pattern of the United States. Third. To put all quota nations on an equal footing in respect to the law. and Fourth. To keep the immigration problem beyond the reach of politicians and pressure groups. The national origins quota system formula or rule does simply this and nothing more. When it adopted this definite and uniform formula or rule of law with the view to maintaining the historic population pattern of the United States. Congress did not act upon the theory that the people of one nation are superior or inferior to those of another. It recognized the obvious and natural fact that immigrants admitted under the national origins quota system are more readily assimilated into American life and ways because of the similarity of their cultural backgrounds to those of the principal components of our population. As the Christian Science Monitor editorialized at the time: It is no reflection on the many fine American citizens of all races. creeds. and national origins to recognize realistically that some nations are far closer to the United States in culture. customs. standards of living. respect for law. and experience in government. Those who would supplant the McCarranWalter Act by the administration billS. 500make the following arguments: First. That S. 500 will enable the United States to acquire persons possessing skills which are needed by the United States. and Second. That S. 500 will abolish the national origins quota system and substitute for it a unified system applicable to all the nations in the Eastern Hemisphere which will operate solely upon a "first comefirst served" basis. When one analyzes the McCarranWalter Act and S. 500. he finds there is no real difference between the capacity to obtain persons possessing needed skills under the act and the bill. Under the McCarranWalter Act. a 50percent preference is given to quota immigrants possessing skills needed urgently in the United States. and under S. 500. a 50percent preference is given to persons possessing skills especially advantageous to "the United States." This change in phraseology is a mere exercise in semantics and creates a distinction without making a difference. The public should not be deluded by the fact that both the act and the bill give a first preference to persons possessing skills. This is true because only a few people come into the United States as skilled persons under this preference. As a matter of fact. the total number entering the United States as skilled persons under this preference of the McCarranWalter Act during the last fiscal year was only 2.475. All the other thousands of quota immigrants entering the United States during the last fiscal year under the McCarranWalter Act entered under other provisions. approximately 80 percent of them entering under nonpreference provisions. There is no valid reason to anticipate that any substantial increase will be made in respect to obtaining highly skilled persons from abroad because the bill will authorize the admission of persons possessing skills "especially advantageous to" the United States rather than persons possessing skills "urgently needed in" the United States. CXI262 The only permissible inference to be drawn from the slight change of phraseology between the McCarranWalter Act and S. 500 is that its purpose is to detract the attention of the unwary from the drastic alteration In our immigration policy which would be made by the other provisions of S. 500. If the bill were enacted. it would substitute for the definite and uniform formula or rule of law embodied in the national origins quota system the arbitrary and tyrannical will of Federal administrators subject to no Limitations except the limitation that no more than 10 percent of the quota immigrants could be drawn from any one of the 89 countries in the Eastern Hemisphere. and that the act would be administered on a firstcome firstserved basis. Those who have had experience with laws whose administration is committed to Federal agencies know that there is no substance to any firstcome firstserved system. This is true because the firstcome are often quite different from the firstserved in such cases. The firstserved are always those whose public relations apparatus can raise the most ballyhoo. and whose friends and supporters can put the tightest squeeze on the politicians who control the Federal agencies. Besides. the 10percent limitation affords no real assurance that there will be any equity in the administration of the law on a hemispherewide basis. This is true because the administrators of the law could assign virtually all of the quota immigrants allotted to the entire Eastern Hemisphere to 10 nations selected by them. This is precisely what the proponents of the bill want. They wish to substitute for what they erroneously call the discriminations of the national origins quota system of the McCarranWalter Act virtually unlimited discriminations for the countries they favor. As Senator McCarran stated. one of the chief virtues of the national origins quota system established by the McCarranWalter Act is the fact it places the control of quota immigration in the hands of the mathematicians rather than in the hands of the politicians. S. 500 would reverse this by casting a definite mathematical formula or rule of law upon the scrapheap and substituting for it the virtually uncontrolled will of politicians. In addition to these objections. S. 500 is also subject to another serious objection. that is. an efficient and equitable execution of its provisions would be an absolutely impossible administrative task. I have spoken of the Eastern Hemisphere only down to this point because immigrants from the Western Hemisphere. with the exception of Jamaica and Trinidad. are nonquota immigrants and are not subject to the provisions of the national origins quota system. I do not claim that the McCarranWalter Act is a perfect piece of legislation. but I shall not vote to abandon the national origins quota system formula or rule it establishes until someone devises a better rule sufficiently strong and certain to insure that immigration to the United States is controlled by the rule of law and not by the caprice of men. For these reasons. I wish to say that I favor retaining our basic immigration law in substantially its present form. If new conditions should arise requiring us to meet emergencies. Congress can pass special legislation to deal with them as it has on many occasions in the past.
Identified stereotypes
Generalization that immigrants admitted under the national origins quota system are more readily assimilated because of the similarity of their cultural backgrounds.