Speech #890148931

Mr. President. on October 3. President Johnson. standing before the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. signed into law a most important act of Congress to improve our immigration laws. This legislation. which he recommended to Congress in a special message earlier this year. has abolished the national origins quota system of immigration. As the President Observed in his special message. this system reflected "neither good government nor good sense." For a good many years. thousands upon thousands of people in excess of the numbers we can reasonably admit have desired to come to this country. As a result. the basic problem for our national immigration policy is to maintain a fair system of selection among the applicants for admission. For over 40 years we have made our choice by means of the national origins system. under which quotas were assigned to each country on the basis of the national origins of the population of the United States in 1920. The new law has abolished that system and the injustices it has produced. Now we have turned away from an irrational concern with the place of birth of an immigrantor of his ancestorsand have committed ourselves to a meaningful concern with the contribution he can make or the need for reuniting him with his family. There were many objections to the system we have discarded. First of all. it did not even do what it proposed.