Speech #890138271

Mr. President. there is another unusual provision in the bill which seems to leave a great deal of discretion in the hands of the administrators. The section of the bill which provides for the allocation of 6 percent of the quota numbers for conditional entries to be granted refugees contains a proviso that in lieu of the total number of conditional entries authorized. immigrant visas in a number not to exceed 50 percent may be made available to refugees in the United States. This language is unique in two respects. The first is that immigrant visas can only be issued by consular officers and consular officers are only present at posts outside the United States. and second. no provision is made for the adjustment of the status of these refugees to whom the visas are made available. In other words. in the absence of specific language. an interpretation would be required by the administrators of the law. The framers of the bill must have had something in mind with reference to the manner of adjustment and if so. why was it not written into the law where it properly belongs? The conclusion is that this is another instance of where the framers desired to retain for the administrators the authority to write their own rules. There is another provision in H.R. 2580 which I believe should be viewed with some alarm. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act. as you all know. all immigrant applicants have always received fair treatment because of the specific provisions that their applications must be processed strictly in accordance with the priority of their registration on quota waiting lists. This becomes particularly important to the nonpreference quota applicants where the demand has always exceeded the supply. Under the language of H.R. 2580. the numbers made available to the nonpreference category will be issued strictly in the chronological order in which they qualify.