Speech #890120694

Greece. where this country instituted the Marshall plan. has a population of almost 10 million. Its quota is exactly 308. More than 100.000 persons are waiting for those visas. Lastly. this Nation has committed itself to the defense of the independence of South Vietnam. Yet the quota for that country of 15 million is exactly 100. Apparently we are willing to risk a major war for the right of the Vietnamese people to live in freedom at the same time our quota system makes it clear we do not want very great numbers of them to live with us. The bill establishes an annual limitation of 170.000 immigrants from outside the Western Hemisphere. and I hope the firm ceiling will encourage favorable votes from Members of Congress who in the past have expressed reservations about immigration law reform. Since the total includes 10.200 refugees. the increased immigration will be only a token figure of about 2.000 a year. In addition. quota immigration from any one country will be restricted to 20.000. The bill makes it clear. I think. that the abandonment of the quota system will not open this country to a flood of immigrants. The law. obviously. must be geared to this countrys absorptive capacity. What we are concerned with is not increased Immigration. but equitable immigration. Another provision of the bill which should win widespread supportnot only in this body. but from the general publicis the stricter regulation of immigrants entering the American labor market. The bill provides that aliens coming here for employment must be cleared by the Secretary of Labor. who must certify that the immigrant will not usurp job opportunities in our labor market or upset competitive wage scales. The provision. significantly covers all immigrants from the Western Hemisphere. who have not. and will not. be subject to quotas. The bill improves upon the existing system of giving preference to immigrants according to family ties and special skills and talents which will benefit the United States. I am happy. also. that the measure will remove the quota restrictions on the parents of U.S. citizens. The admission of parents was one of the key objectives of my immigration bill. Another major provision of H.R. 93 was to set definite limits on the admission of world refugees and escapees from Communist countries. In placing an annual quota of 10.200 upon refugees. the bill under debate today closely corresponds to the measure I introduced 6 years ago. I believe the Judiciary Committee was wise in eliminating the section of the original administr~aon bill giving the Attorney General almost unlimited authority to admit refugees and escapees. The limitation in this bill is both explicit and fixed. and retains congressional control over the Nations immigration policies. Two provisions of my bill have not been included in the administration measure. and I think the omissions are regrettable. The first would have revised the existing provision which deprives any U.S. citizen of his citizenship if he votes in a foreign election. My bill would have permitted citizenship revocation only if such voting was done with the intent to renounce U.S. nationality or to acquire the nationality of a foreign state. The second would have struck from the Immigration and Nationality Act a section permitting the Government to cancel the citizenship of a naturalized citizen for living in a foreign country for a substantial period of time. The section has been found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court and should be expunged. Despite the omissions in the bill before us today. I believe the bill contains much of the spirit and most of the substance of the immigration law reforms I have fought for during my service in Congress. My interest in this legislation stems from the role of New York City. part of which I represent. as the port of entry for most of the immigrants to the United States. I have long felt that our immigration law was unworthy of the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The bill we vote on today. in my judgment. will bring to our immigration law an honesty and flexibility it presently lacks. and will give real meaning to the worldfamed inscription at the base of that statue. The bill will reunite families. many of them in New York City. who are now separated by an arbitrary and outmoded immigration policy. It will give even greater preference to persons of special abilities. And it will insure that immigrants be capable of supporting themselves without endangering the livelihoods of American working people. It should be emphasized that all of this will be accomplished with only a minimal increase in the actual number of immigrants coming to this country. As I indicated earlier. reform does not necessarily entail more immigration. we are concerned here. not with statistics. but with a philosophy. That philosophy is that the American concept of reason and justice applies equally to all men. It is on trial today. For all of these reasons. then. I shall vote for this bill. I hope that those who may be a sonor. like myself. a grandsonof an immigrant will join in approving this legislation. I think that perhaps many of us have ancestors looking over our shoulders. Mr.