Speech #890216051

Chairman. and Delegates to this Twentyfifth Session of the Council of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration: It is indeed my privilege to join with you in your discussion and deliberations on the recent activities of this humanitarian Committee and to contemplate activities for the forthcoming year. As I reflect upon the great assistance rendered by this Committee to people In need over the years. I must correlate these reflections with what my own Government has done in helping refugees and displaced persons since the close of the last great holocaust. The United States is extremely proud of its history of assistance to refugees. In 1948. the 80th Congress passed the first Displaced Persons Act. which. with subsequent amendments. enabled some 341.000 displaced persons to enter the United States as permanent residents outside of the basic immigration laws then in existence. Then again. to assist in the completion of refugee movement. the United States Congress enacted the Refugee Relief Act of 1953. This legislation brought to our shores approximately 220.000refugees. The majority of these refugees were assisted In the processing and subsequent transportation by ICEM. In 1956. the United States approved the admission of 39.000 Hungarian Refugees and. again I might add. ICEM assisted in the processing and the transportation of these unfortunate. brave people. I also recall legislation for the Portuguese victims of the earthquake which took place in the Azores and the Dutch expelled from Indonesia. Then. of recent vintage. was the Fair Share Law. which enabled the United States to open our immigration gates to thousands of refugees who were left behind in Europe. I do not fail to note the relief which the United States gave to the acute pressure problem in Hong Kong caused by the exodus of the many thousands of Chinese who sought the protection and freedom of the Crown Colony. By direction of our late President. 13.619 Chinese displaced persons entered the United States from Hong Kong. In January 1959. the Government of Cuba was taken over by a revolutionary group. and for the first time in her history the United States became a country of first asylum for refugees. The United States responded to the exigencies of the situation In following the traditional pattern of offering asylum to all who seek refuge from tyranny and persecution. It has accepted over 300.000 Cuban nationals and has appropriated over $200.000.000 for assistance to the Cuban refugees. I am privileged and honored to be Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. House of Representatives. a Committee composed entirely of lawyers.