Speech #890138283

Local governments are stretching dollars to meet the need for more and more services. The tax dollars are split as finely as possible. Yet we in the Congress are presented with an immigration bill that would admit more and more people to further sap. if not burden. our resources. We have had an influx of immigrants at the rate of some 300.000 per year for the past decade. It has been estimated that this bill will increase that figure by at least another 50.000 and perhaps more. Personally. I would think that another 100.000 per year would be a much more realistic figure. bearing in mind the current unlimited immigration from Latin American countries and the tremendous population increases currently being experienced in those countries. It has been estimated that the present population of 163 million in South America will mushroom up to 600 million by the year 2000. This can only portend more and more immigrants from that area of the world. In addition to the 4 or 5 million immigrants admitted to this country since World War II. we have given asylum to more than 700.000 refugees and displaced persons. This action is a positive manifestation of this countrys humanitarian concern for the oppressed people of the world. I wonder. however. how we can afford to remove the restrictions in our present immigration law and still maintain sufficient flexibility to offer asylum to any future refugees and displaced persons. And the tumultuous events of todays world would certainly indicate that the need for our accommodating refugees or displaced persons has not ended. and there is the strong possibility that it may be tremendously increased. As further evidence of the fact that our present law is not too restrictiveor sufficiently policedas the case may be. consider an estimate by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee that some onehalf million aliens enter this country illegally every year. With the population explosion echoing around the world. attempts to enter this country illegally will undoubtedly increase. as will efforts to further liberalize and dilute any immigration law we might enact. including the bill now before us. The enactment of the pending bill would encourage and invite further efforts to greater liberalization until ultimately. for all practical purposes. we shall have no immigration law. With our millions of unemployedwith our millions of poverty strickenwith our housing shortageclassroom shortagehospital and nursing requirementsand burgeoning citieshow can we hope to alleviate conditions here at home by letting down the floodgates for the streams of ever more immigrants seeking entrylegally and illegallyinto this country? Have we not already reached a reasonable limit? This Congress recently created another Cabinet post designed to take care of the problems of the urban areas. Yet under the proposed immigration bill we will be letting in enough people in 1 year to populate a larger metropolitan area. Where is the rationale in such a practice? By easing the restrictions on immigration we therefore make it easier for those elements who hold beliefs inimical to our own best interests to gain admission. The internal security of this Nation is already threatened to some degree from members of the Communist Party within our borders. More adherents to that ideology will be admitted through the instrument of the pending bill. Will the addition of still more minority groups from all parts of the world lessen or contribute to the increasing racial tensions and violence we are currently witnessing on the streets of our major cities? Will our crime problems be lessened or heightened by the influx of the new hordes from the far reaches of the world? Under the national origins system. an effort was made to bring into this country those people who demonstrated the ability to assimilate readily into our culture and civilization. Will the new people to be admitted under the terms of this bill so assimilate. or will they end to gather into ghettoes? We are told repeatedly that our society is to blame for allowing ghettoes to exist now. and attempts are made to rationalize away riots and acts of violence on the ghetto environment. If that is so. will not the new bill contribute to the creation of still more ghettoes and thus more and more acts of violence and riots? Remember that under this bill. immigration will shift from those European countries that contributed most to the formation of this Nation to the countries of Asia and Africa. We are told that we need this bill. but. Mr.