Speech #890060377

Mr. Speaker. I want to take this opportunity to reaffirm my strongest support for the administration immigration program. which I am cosponsoring through my bill H.R. 6022. This legislation is long overdue. Four Presidents of the United States have urged changes in our immigration and naturalization procedures. They and the greater body of American Qitizens have strongly demanded the elimination of the national origins system. Yet. for too long. such action has not been forthcoming from the Congress. Mr. Speaker. the idea of altering our immigration regulations so as to eliminate the national origins system has been proposed again and again. We cannot let that idea escape us once more. The time for action is now. in this year 1965. by this 89th Congress. For all too long. Americas immigration and naturalization laws have been in conflict with our national history and ideals. Before the institution of the national origins system. this country accepted new citizens on the basis of their own personal qualities. and their commitment to our democratic ideals. Yet now our present policy actually discriminates among applicants for admission into the United States on the basis of accident of birth. The national origins system thus implies that people from one country are more desirable than people from another. This is a proposition our history has rejected from its earliest years. Oscar Handlin. perhaps the most authoritative student of American immigrant history. had said: Once I thought to write a history of immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history. This is a sentiment which John F. Kennedy reinforced in his memorable study. "A Nation of Immigrants." In one way. we are all immigrants. None of us can afford to ignore the debt this country owes those people who came here to find a new life and take up new citizenship. We offered them a prize by granting citizenship.