Speech #890138275

Each of us in our everyday life discriminates with every choice. be it with friends. commodities. or facilities. And regardless of some of the inane laws passed by the Congress or twisted by the Supreme Court. such discrimination will persist. for it is a natural compulsion of the human mind. If so many people are. opposed to changing our immigration policy as expressed in the WalterMcCarran Act. then why the big rush.to enact the new law? Well. this concerned me.too. and I reviewed again the testimony of administration witnesses before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Secretary of State said that he has often been approached by foreign ministers who believe that the national origins principle discriminates against their countries. This. according to the Secretary. creates difficulties in establishing good relations required by our national interest. Following this perverted logic to its end conclusion would have the national Congress taking a poll of foreign ministers or getting a consensus from foreign countries before acting on legislation in many fields. How utterly silly it is to base our immigration policy on the complaint of a few foreign ministers who feel that our policy is discriminatory. The cry to amend the present law for the sake of the tin god of discrimination does not move me either by logic or emotion. Nor. apparently did it move the drafters of the original bill. who proposed the retention of the discriminatory unlimited provisions of the present law in regard to foreigners in the Western Hemisphere. The Senate Judiciary Committee did amend the bill to impose a 120.000 limitation on Western Hemisphere immigration beginning in 1968. but since a similar provision was defeated in the House. the final version of the bill may well continue this discriminatory aspect of the original bill. Another witness before the committee. Attorney General Katzenbach. also relied heavily on the discriminatory features of the national origins system in making his plea for enactment of the pending bill. He complained that the system creates an image of hypocrisy which can be exploited by those who seek to discredit us abroad because we profess that all are equal yet we use the "discriminatory national origins system." Mr. President. if we exclude anybody by law from immigrating to our country. to that extent we discriminate. The only way to have absolutely no discrimination in an immigration policy is to repeal all immigration law. and let them all stand equal. We might as well be honest about it. We are discriminating with this law.