Speech #890119662

LawsClarence Darrow once saidshould be like clothes. They should be made tofit the people they are meant to serve. Our current immigration laws do not fit either Darrows definition or the needs of our society or the desires and hopes of those who look to our shores for a bright future.. They fit in with little but the xenophobic fears and hypocritical sentiments of those who would close our doors to all but those with acceptable credentials. They mirrored the narrow views of those who cried. "America for Americans." and forgot that they too were descendants of immigrants. In 1924 our immigration policy became discriminatory. and exclusive entry became based on a system designed to maintain the ethnic balance of the American population as it existed In 1920. This national origins system has been preserved in all its injustice up to the present time. It has become evident that our immigration policy is unpalatable to our people. Its ineffectiveness clearly demonstrates that. While the law fixes an annual immigration ceiling of 158.000. the actual number of people admitted annually is almost twice as high. This difference is traceable to two sources: the nonquota Western Hemisphere immigrants and the thousands who obtain entrance through the private bills that pass Congress every year and override the laws limitations. What we are trying to achieve now is not only a quality of fairness and justice in our laws and their application. we are also trying to eliminate a dead letter from the statute books so that we may exert effective and temperate control and establish a semblance of order in regard to the highly important matter of immigration. The time has passed when we can freely open our gates to all who may wish to enter. The pressures of population growth alone would make this unfeasible.