Speech #890120696

In addition. it establishes a category to which 10 percent of the total annual allotment is assigned for skilled and unskilled persons whose capacities are needed to remedy deficiencies in the United States. The Secretary of Labor is held responsible for the certifying of labor shortages which this provision is meant to remedy. This and other laws make it quite clear that the Secretary is not to authorize the admittance of immigrants to displace American labor. But if there appears a shortage.of labor which Americans cannot fill and of which there is an abundance abroad. the Secretary can take action to satisfy the need. American labor is not hurt thereby and the American economy is helped to prosper. It is important to note. that this bill also reaffirms the great American tradition. symbolized by the Statue of Liberty and the inscription on its base. of offering a haven to the victims of oppression anywhere. This bill sets aside an annual allotment of 10.200 places for the entry of religious. political. or racial refugees. It carefully establishes conditions which guarantee against any influx of refugees who might be openly or covertly hostile to American principles. But it permits the President. under the supervision of Congress. to act with dispatch in assisting the oppressed to find relief in the United States from danger. This provision enables this country to acquit with a minimum of administrative difficulty that obligation we have always assumed toward those whom Emma Lazarus glowingly called the "huddled masses yearning to be free." Finally. this bill makes a variety of other improvements. some major and some minor. on previous immigration legislation. It eliminates. for example. the "AsiaPacific triangle" provision of the existing law. which points a particularly discriminatory finger at oriental peoples. It further takes into. account the recent independence of Jamaica and TrinidadTobago by relieving them of all quotas and including them in the category of "special immigrant" countries. in which all the other free nations of the Western Hemisphere are included. This bill maintains the policy of freely admitting our neighbors from the Western Hemisphere. but instructs the President to inform Congress if the practice begins to threaten population balance or national values. This is with reference to the proposed amendment of the gentleman from Minnesota . We have built into this bill. as Chairman CELLER stated earlier. a protection that in the event immigration from the Western Hemisphere. exceeds a certain amount the President can go back to Congress for a remedy. I join with the chairman in urging the rejection of the MacGregor amendment. because we have the protection at the present time. and I believe that we are crying "wolf" when the wolf is not present. The measure also retains the exclusionary provisions of its predecessors. designed to assure that the United States does not become burdened with persons who are physically or morally unfit.