Speech #890119599

Mr. Chairman. I wish to thank the members of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Nationality. who produced H.R. 2580. as amended. This amended bill was made possible by the diligence. the thoroughness. the faithful appearance at hearings. and the active role played by all the members of the subcommittee during the public hearings and in the 18 executive sessions .required. I wish to thank all members of the full committee. The immigration bill now before the House is a clean bill. In all respects a bipartisan product of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Nationality. This is an historic bill. with bold and deliberate purpose to forge the way toward a selective immigration system with qualitative and quantitative controls. Such a system conforms with our needs at this stage of our national development. and is long overdue. This bill in no way avoids or weakens the constitutional responsibility laid upon the Congress to regulate immigration into the United States. It reaffirms that constitutional responsibility through a clearcut. self executing law which delegates no authority to the executive branch which properly and historically rests with the Congress. This bill rejects all proposals which would have blurred the constitutional lines separating the legislative and executive powers and vigorously rejects the proposed delegation of congressional authority to the executive for establishing policy to govern the admission of immigrants into the United States. Our subcommittee conducted 39 public hearings on proposed revisions of the immigration law which opened on June 11. 1964. and closed on June 1. this year. During that time 94 Members of Congress appeared before the subcommittee or submitted individual views for consideration by the subcommittee. The Secretary of State. two Attorneys General. the Secretary of Labor. and other representatives of the administration appeared to testify in public or executive hearings. That testimony was followed by witnesses representing nongovernmental organizations. and by individual citizens. with an interest in this public issue. I will include at the conclusion of my remarks a listing of the witnesses appearing before our subcommittee. A review of that listing will reveal that every shade of official and public opinion on the subject of proposed immigration reformpro and conhas been heard and evaluated. Following the public hearings. our subcommittee met in 18 executive sessions to produce the immigration bill now before the House. In our deliberations the interests of the United States were at all times first and foremost. and those interests are reflected clearly in the bill. There were wide differences among the members of our subcommittee on key issues. but those differences have been reconciled in the bill now before you.