Speech #890120686

I am proud that this House has acted in a meaningful way to meet our obligations to these sectors of the population by the approval of the MedicareSocial Security Amendments of 1965 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and. hopefully later this week. the Higher Education Act. Future students of history will wonder at the amount of fuss and bother that had to be raised before these things could be done. It will be the same with immigration. For over 40 years this country has been saddled with an immigration quota system that is an aberration from the steady progress we have experienced in our national traditions and institutions. Enacted during the period of isolationist hysteria following World War I. this quota system is completely out of step with our standards of today. Unfortunately. its hoary age alone has helped to clothe it with some of the trappings of a solid institution which it does not deserve. There are some who believe that it alone can safeguard the country from an avalanche of undesirable immigration. Tamper with it and you will open the floodgates. they ominously proclaim. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The quota system is. after all. primarily a means for limiting the number of aliens who will be allowed to enter the United States for permanent residence. Surely the human mind is capable of conceiving more than one method of accomplishing this purpose. In my judgment. the most sensible. just. and practicable method is embodied in the bill that is now before this body. This sets up a system of preferences in these broad categories: First. close relatives of United States citizens. second. scientists. artists. and other professionals. third. workers needed to fill specific domestic labor shortages. fourth. refugees from communism. This policy will end the tragic separation of families occasioned by the harsh quota restrictions and will admit applicants on the basis of their talents and skills instead of on the fact that they were born in certain countries. The national origins quota system is based upon a belief that the people of one nationality or race are superior to those of another. Most Americans would agree. I am sure. that such a belief. however popular it once might have been. has no place in the laws of our Nation today. It is no secret that when the first permanent immigration quota law was adopted in 1924 it was purposely designed to curtail the new immigration from southern and eastern Europe while not interfering with the old immigration from northern and western Europe. This is apparent when one merely examines what the quotas are. Great Britain. for example. has an annual quota of over 65.000more than onethird of the total quotas of all the countries of the world. most of which goes unused every year. Germany and Ireland also have liberal quotas. reflecting the many early settlers from those countries. At the same time. a country like Greece whose immigration quota is oversubscribed by some 105.000 visa applications. has a quota of 308. Italy. with 51 million people. has a quota of 5.666 annually. A citizen of the United States who has. say. a Swiss brother can obtain his admission promptly. But his neighbors must wait an indefinite number of years before they can be joined by their brothers from Greece and italy. Surely. equity demands that American citizens be accorded equal consideration in bringing their loved ones here. A nation of immigrants should make no such jarring distinctions among its own people. We have a situation in which the immigration quotas allotted to certain countries are larger than they can use. while other countries are given quotas which are paltry in relation to their needs. And all of this ii determined by the accidents of historywhich countries had contributed the most stock to the U.S. population as it existed in the year 1920. The pending bill affords us an opportunity to improve the method of controlling immigration numerically. without substantially increasing it in numbers. This bill would establish a more realistic and integral system than we now have under the national origins formula. The present system has necessitated the enactment of numerous special laws to allow many thousands of worthy individuals to enter the country since the end of World War II. These have included the Displaced Persons Act. the Refugee Relief Act. and other laws granting nonquota admission to special groups. not to mention the great number of private immigration bills that have been enacted. Were it not for the lack of sound reason in the national origins formula. few of these special laws would have been necessary. The national origins quota system is as foreign to our national ideals today as is the once accepted institution of slavery. It has made its appearance on the national scene and has stubbornly refused to make its exit. I suggest that we finally take action where it has been postponed for too long and remove this anachronism from our laws this year.