Speech #890133077

These include pollution of our rivers and streams. and the air we breathe In our great metropolitan areas. the first serious water shortages in the northeastern part of the country. progressive extinction of wildlife. and everincreasing welfare costs as the nonproductive segments of our population continue to expand. A good deal of the legislation we have enacted in recent years has been directed toward finding solutions to these problems. Liberalizing our . immigration policies cannot help but compound such problems. In my opinion. revising our immigration laws by removing the AsiaPacific triangle provisions will add to the many social problems that now confront us across the Nation. What effect will all the "new seed" immigrants that will be allowed to enter under the bill have upon these social crises? I doubt that they will add stability. to our. population in meeting these problems. Moreover. the crime rate is increasing alarmingly in our urban centers. The great bulk of immigrants in recent years have settled in these metropolitan areas. I would not claim that. generally speaking. immigrants as a class are especially prone to criminal conduct. but I should think that their increased migration into the cities would add to the problems that are already there. Another point raised by those who would have us scrap the national origins quota system is that a new system of selection will be devised which will be in the national interest. In other words. they would have us believe that our foreign policy will be ineffective and hampered if we retain the national origins quota system. This is pure drivel. Why have other advanced nations not felt it in the interest of their own foreign policies to let down their immigration bars? The plain fact is that there will always be cries of rage from people who would like to get into this country and cannot. One can live more comfortably on relief in a New York tenement than under the most advantageous conditions existing in most of the areas of Asia. Africa. and Latin America. We are also told that the proposed new immigration legislation is needed to reunite families. But the Congress of the United States has always been sympathetic to requests for entry of separated families. As to Italians. Lebanese. and other immigrants who wish to unite with their families already here. I have personally introduced legislation many times to reunite husbands and their wives. and parents and their children. and I shall continue to do so as the necessity arises. I believe that this system is workable and should be continued. But. Mr. President. if we scuttle the national origins quota system. we will have many years and many reasons to regret it. I do not claim that the existing national origins quota system is perfect. but it has provided a reasonably effective means of controlling immigration. and where it has not worked. we have enacted special legislation to alleviate special problems as they have arisen. The national interest must come first. Sentimental slogans have been all too adroitly exploited. and the time is at hand when we must resist the pressures for sharply increased immigration of persons with cultures. customs. and concepts of government altogether at variance with those of the basic American stocks. We must not throw open the gates to areas whose peoples would be undeniably more difficult for our population to assimilate and convert into patriotic Americans. The alien inflow to America from potential waiting lists of applicants from Jamaica.