Speech #890139724

Peru. Uruguay. and Venezuela. The law further provided that wives. husbands. and children of U.S. citizens would be admitted as nonquota immigrants. together with clergymen and their families. and persons who previously had been American citizens. In 1940. Congress passed the Allen Registration Act which required the registration and fingerprinting of all aliens who were in the United States and those who sought to enter. In 1943. the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. In 1945. the War Brides Act was passed to permit special entry of wives of Armed Forces personnel. The following year Congress permitted Filipinos and persons belonging to races native to India the privilege of admission to the United States. Also in 1946. the Congress enacted the G.I. Fiances Act which permitted entry into the country of fiances of Armed Forces personnel. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 permitted the immigration of 205.000 displaced persons over a period of 2 years. It should be remembered that these special acts passed by Congress during and after the war permitting additional immigration were over and above those admitted under the yearly quota system. In 1952. Congress enacted the Immigration and Nationality Act. which is better known as the McCarranWalter Act. This law repealed all existing immigration and nationality laws and revised and codified all legislation dealing with immigration. Under this act. the total immigration quotas remained substantially the same as in previous acts. however. the first 50 percentfirst preference--of the quota was reserved to certain highly skilled or educated persons whose immigration would be of advantage to the United States. Second preference was given to alien parents of U.S. citizens and third preference to spouses or children of aliens who had been admitted as immigrants. The act also set up maximum quotas of 100 each for colonies and dependent areas of parent countries. The McCarranWalter Act is still the basic law today. and it is this legislation which we are now considering for revision by the proposals contained in S. 500. Since 1952. Congress has amended the McCarran Act and also passed special legislation for the admission of refugees. In 1953. the Refugee Relief Act authorized 209.000 persons to enter the United States as nonquota immigrants. Further changes were made in 1957. and in 1958. Congress made it possible for the Hungarian refugees to come to the United States under Public Law 85559. Minor changes were made in 1961. and in 1962 Congress enacted the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act and provided for assistance to refugees in the appropriation of funds to assist those who came from the Western Hemisphere countries. This was specially designed to assist the Cuban refugees fleeing Communist persecution on that island. Also in 1962. other minor changes were made in the Immigration and Nationality Act which affected preference and priority provisions of the law. At this point in my remarks I would like to introduce a table prepared by the Immigration and Naturalization Service which contains the figures on the numbers of immigrants admitted since 1946 through June 30. 1964.