Speech #890039083

Mr. President. the Immigration and Naturalization Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee has pending before it important immigration reform legislation in the form of S. 500. introduced on behalf of a number of Senators by the Senator from Michigan . Another measure pending before the subcommittee is S. 1093. an immigration reform bill. which I introduced on February 10 together with the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Oregon . Some of the ways in which this measure differs from S. 500 are: First. provisions to accelerate the 5year phaseout of the national origins quota in line with the prompt elimination by the bill of similar discrimination in the AsianPacific triangle. second. establishing of authority for judicial review of claims to U.S. nationality under the Administrative Procedure Act or Declaratory Judgment Act. third. the establishment of the 10year statute of limitations for deportation cases. and. fourth. the creation of a Board of Visa Appeals in the Department of State to review. upon the request of the Secretary of State. any consular officer concerned. or of any person aggrieved all decisions denying or revoking visas or extensions thereof or the application of any State Department immigration regulations. The latter two proposals were endorsed by the Association of the Bar of the State of New York in 1961 during Its consideration of S. 551. immigration reform legislation which I introduced in the 87th Congress. On April 1 of this year. the report of the Committee on Federal Legislation of the New York State Bar Association was published. The report urges the prompt enactment of S. 500 and favors the Inclusion in S. 500 or enactment of separate legislation containing the provision of S. 1093 establishing a 10year statute of limitations for deportation cases. On March 29. the New York County Lawyers Associations Committee on American Citizenship issued its report also favoring enactment of S. 500. I hope that the subcommittee will give both S. 500which I have cosponsoredand S. 1093 its serious consideration. along with other measures. pending before it. and that prompt and favorable action will be taken by the Senate to enact badly needed immigration reform legislation during this session of Congress. It is time for the patchwork and piecemeal approach to immigration reform to be overhauled and a comprehensive new law codified. It has been a decade since our immigration wall was perpetuated by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. better known as the McCarranWalter Act. Time and experience have more than dramatized the fact that. as its opponents contended 11 years ago. it Is perhaps as unique a law as we have on our statute books. But these 11 years have also produced an atmosphere of political helplessness to exasperate even the most determined immigration reformers. so that today most are resigned to the now annual practice of settling for piecemeal revisions or temporary relief. rather than an effective overhaul of our entire policy of immigration. The backdoor methods Congress has used to cover up deficiencies in the basic law is the greatest proof of the laws inadequacies. Since the McCarranWalter Act was enacted. Congress has passed special. shortterm immigration and refugee legislation which has had the cumulative effect of admitting into the United States more than twice as many persons as permitted under the basic McCarranWalter Act. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD the report by the Committee on Federal Legislation of the New York State Bar Association.