Speech #890060377

Our national energy and conscience are committed to that fight and its quest for equality. The past Congress dramatized that commitment when it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yet the same specter of discrimination. which we so firmly oppose in our domestic affairs. still appears beneath the surface of our immigration and naturalization policies. Such an inconsistency cannot be allowed to remain untouched. What may appear to some as a technicality. appears to others throughout the world as a deep injustice. The national origins system is archaic as well as unethical. It seems clear to me that the effect of the national origins has deeply confused our immigration procedures. The system heavily favors northern Europeans who rarely fill their quota. and severely limits immigration from southern and eastern Europe. Africa. and Asia where there are lengthy waiting lists. Over 90 percent of the total immigration quota is reserved for European countries. Due to Its inflexibility the McCarranWalter Act actually governs only about onethird of total immigration to the United States. The majority of immigrants enter under private immigration legislation. Surely we can devise a program which is more in touch with present realities. The proposed new immigration program is based on a technique of preferential admissions which seeks to attract to our country persons with ceptional skills. training. or education. It acknowledges the special continuation of that tradition. and replaces the unethical system of national origins quotas. Yet we are not concerned simply with attracting skilled foreigners to our country. A newly defined immigration policy will be humanitarian as well. We should have provisions which take into special account cases where families are needlessly separated from 4one another by outofdate regulations. We will continue and fortify provisions which admit political refugees and refugees from catastrophe. The central feature of a new immigration and naturalization program. however. must be the elimination of the national origins system. We must repair the damage dopne to those who have been denied entrance to this country on the basis of outdated procedure and unjust criteria. In so doing. we must. for example. be prepared to permit quota numbers not used by any country to be made available to countries where they are deeply needed.