Speech #890120784

Chairman. I most earnestly hope this measure. H.R. 2580. to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act and for other purposes. will be promptly and resoundingly approved by the House. I think that most Members here will agree that the need to equitably revise our current immigration laws is one of the most vitally important subjects that today challenges our national moral conscience and the legislative prudence of the Congress. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee that developed this Immigration revision bill. I can testify that the committee members diligently and studiously sought the answer to this challenge throughout extended hearings and exhaustive review of expert testimony. On this score. the Congress and the country are deeply indebted to the dedicated leadership of the distinguished and esteemed respective chairmen of the subcommittee and the full committee whose combined guidance. together with the nonpartisan cooperation of the committee membership. has led to the presentation of this legislative solution of one of our greatest national problems. No one will pretend that this bill is the complete and perfect instrument that will immediately correct and dissolve all the difficulties and deficiencies inherent in and projected by our present immigration laws and regulations. but I do believe that after full and open discussion and examination of its provisions the great majority here will recognize and approve it as a great forward step in the equitable correction of an outmoded and discriminatory immigration system that has too long prevailed. Even a very brief review of our present law reveals that the current national origins system. which determines a nations immigration quota by the proportion of the U.S. population of that national extraction in 1924. visits a most unfair and unpopular discrimination against the majority of the nations of the world. This persistent discrimination has increasingly weakened our position of world leadership and has unwittingly delivered into skillful antiAmerican hands an effective instrument for Communist propaganda against the United States as the proclaimed hope and .asylum of the poor and the persecuted and the homeless. As a glaring example of discrimination. under this national origins system. a very heavy priority is given to immigrant applicants of the countries of Great Britain. Ireland. and Germany. yet there were more than 34.000 unused numbers in the last British quota. On the other hand. Israel and other Asiatic and African countries are permitted only about 100 immigrants per year into the United States. An examination of the situation in other countries. in southern and eastern Europe. demonstrates similar and even greater discrimination. For example.