Speech #890038186

The pooling arrangement for unused quota numbers probably would mean that all of the 300.000 quota would be used each year. Of the present annual quota of about 158.000 only about 103.000 actually are used. Thus the bill would result in an additional quota immigration Into the United States each year of almost 200.000 persons. I am not quixotic about this bill. I recognize that many Members of the House will feel that this figure is too high. Very well. then. let us amend the bill. Let us say: the United States can absorb only x number of immigrants each year. Congress. if it wishes. can base the yearly annual quota at onetenth of 1 percent of the 1960 population. This would establish an annual quota of about 180.000. an increase of only 22.000 above the existing quota. Mere numbers are not the problem. I am concerned. not with statistics. but with a philosophy. My objective. which is shared by a good many Members of this body. is to give the country an honorable policy with which to govern our immigration and to move toward the abandonment of the national origins system. It should have been done long ago. The system is unworthy of the United States. The second major change in H.R. 93 would place alien parents of U.S. citizens In the nonquota category. They now are subject to quotas. and receive second preference standing. A family relationship Is the most important standard of all in assigning immigration priorities. Wives. husbands. and children of U.S. citizens are not subject to quotas. and I think parents should be similarly favored. Thethird major immigration policy overhaul proposed in my bill concerns the relief of refugees and escapees from Communistdominated countries. Of all immigration problems. one of the most explosive and tragic is posed by refugees. According to the most reliable evidence available. there are up to 10 million unsettled persons outside the Iron Curtain. In the years since World War II over 40 million human beings have been involuntarily uprooted from their homes and have crossed frontiers. artificial or traditional. in search of asylum. The tragic proliferation of refugees all over the world is one of the legacies of an era of global wars. revolutions. civil conflicts and surging nationalist movements. Refugees are both the product of political tensions and the cause of new unrest. Wherever there is an unsolved refugee problem. there is both a tragic human situation and a potentially explosive political situation. When refugee problems are neglectedas they all too often have beenhuman misery abounds and political tensions are aggravated. In the autumn of 1956. I served as the representative of the Attorney General of the United States in Austria and West Germany in setting up the machinery under which almost 40.000 refugees from Communist tyranny in Hungary were brought into the United States. Many an early dawn I stood on the Austrian side of the bridge at Andau. walked the Hungarian border. and saw courageous freedom fighters. women and children. come over the freezing swamps and canals. It was a sight and experience that I shall never forget. Anyone who has witnessed the chaos. the fear. the suffering of human beings in mass flight from their homeland can never again think of the plight of uprooted peoples as anything less than an urgent and compelling demand on individual conscience and human compassion. In the autumn of 1960 I had the opportunity in the course of a world tour of refugee camps to study the living history of four significant. concentrations of refugees. Arab refugees in the territories around Israel. Tibetans in India. both Moslem and Hindu refugees in India and Pakistan. and Chinese in Hong Kong. In crowded wretched campsin bitterness and often in deprivationindividuals. children and adults exist without hope in a world they cannot understand. without the conditions of human dignity which we Americans have come to accept as a basic part of our birthright. To any refugee problem. there are three possible solutions: repatriation in the country of origin. integration in the country of asylum. or resettlement elsewhere. Some combination of integration. resettlement. and repatriation Is essential in meeting all refugee problems. In suggesting lines of action to alleviate the world refugee problem. we should. wherever possible. encourage programs of relief and rehabilitation under the auspices of the United Nations and through the machinery and resources of the International Committee on European MigrationICEMwhich has done excellent work with European migration problems. The United Nations and ICEM should expand their mandates to encompass all world refugee problems instead of limiting themselves to the declining problem of Europe. I would like to pay credit to the remarkable work that has been done by voluntary agencies in each of these areas. They have accomplished miracles in the distribution of food and supplies. transportation and relocation. The enactment of Public Law 87510 in 1962 enabled the United States to continue its participation In certain refugee programs to provide assistance to refugees after they have arrived in the United States. It authorized the President to use up to $10 million to meet unexpected refugee developments which are outside the scope of regular appropriations. This was helpful legislation but again. as in the case of stopgap immigration measures. piecemeal temporary solutions are being sought for permanent. festering problems. The refugee problem should be considered as an integral and essential facet of overall immigration policy. To make some headway toward meeting this tragic and tensionridden world problem. my proposed legislation moves away from the piecemeal approaches of the past. The legislation first tackles the knotty problem of definition. It defines "refugee" to mean any alien who because of persecution or fear of persecution on account of race. religion. or political opinion has fled or shall flee from any Communist territory or from a country in the general area of the Middle East. The definition also includes persons who because of war. political upheaval. or natural calamity. are unable to return to their former homes. The bill then empowers the President to parole into the United States 10.000 refugees in emergencies like the Hungarian revolt. After a period of time. these persons would become eligible to apply for permanent residence. Congress at all times would receive detailed reports and would retain veto power over all admissions. Apart from emergency situations. 20.000 special refugee visas would be authorized for a 2year period in order to relieve some of the pressure on existing unsolved refugee concentrations. Up to 10.000 of these special visas would be available for unsettled hardcore refugees now in refugee camps under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Finally. the bill authorizes the Secretary of State to make limited grants to public and private agencies in the United States to finance the resettlement of these refugees in the United States. Our country can scarcely press other countries for meaningful solutions to world refugee problems without offering to accept a fair share itself. Some of these unsolved refugee concentrations are explosive and it is to our own interest to remove the fuse. We have an obligation. in advancing an overall resettlement plan. to participate in such a plan by offering refuge within our own country to a reasonable number of refugees. By so doing. we will let the world know of our desire to bring this problem closer to a solution and we will be giving notice that Americas belief in freedom and humanity remain enduring tenets of our democratic credo. Let me emphasize that the provision for refugee and escapee Immigration in my bill in no way resembles the provisions of section 13 in the administration bill. Section 13 would give the Attorney General almost unlimited authority to admit. by parole or otherwise. as many refugees and/or escapees as he deems proper. My bill writes definite limits into the law and they may not be exceeded except by a subsequent act of Congress. My bill is hardly the carte blanche the administration would give to the Justice Department. I wish to call the attention of the House to two other aspects of H.R. 93. First. The bill strikes from the Immigration and Nationality Act a provision that naturalized citizens could be deprived of their citizenship for taking up residence in a foreign country for a specified period of time. This provision has been found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States and should be expunged. Second. The bill revises a provision under which any citizen. born or naturalized. loses his citizenship if he votes in a foreign election. My bill states that citizenship be revoked only if such voting is done with the intent to renounce U.S. nationality or to acquire the nationality of a foreign state. Mr. Speaker. I ask unanimous consent to insert in the RECORD following my remarks today a sectionbysection analysis of H.R. 93. a resolution in support of reform recently adopted by the National Council of Churches of Christ In the U.S.A. and three tables showing the number of immigrants admitted to the United States since 1921. total ImmigratioD broken down by categories during the year ended June 30. 1964. and the number of admissions under quotas from 1960 through 1964. Mr. Speaker. I believe that this legislation. which I and other Members are sponsoring. is the best omnibus reform of the McCarranWalter Act that has yet been offered. It Is comprehensive. progressive. and reasonable. it should command wide support. and It can pass. I commend it to all of my colleagues and especially to the Subcommittee on Immigration of the House Judiciary Committee. I am not a member of the subcommittee. but I am the full Judiciary Committee. and I pledge my full and complete support to enactment of this muchneeded reform. Mr.