Speech #900002495

The employment offices throughout the country are cluttered with alien clearance forms which sometimes take up to 6 months to process. Instead of devoting themselves to actual employment of persons needing jobs. these agencies are weighted down with forms and procedures which may never result in bringing jobs and applicants together. The labor certification requirement has not only increased Government paperwork. without benefiting our immigration or labor practices. but over a period of time. will actually restrict immigration to a mere trickle. Already. statistics compiled by the visa office show that the flow of immigrants. who are not related to American citizens. has dropped sharply since the labor certification requirement went into effect. Of 278.538 visas issued under the new law from December 1965 to July 1966. only 4.145 went to workers. The rest went almost entirely to relatives. Our countrys greatness has been built on the contributions of our immigrants. and halting the flow of immigration in this manner could only result in restricting the growth and prosperity of our Nation. My measure would reinstate the labor requirements as they appeared In the old immigration law. This provision of the old law has survived the test of time and useit has worked. and worked welland only by returning to it can we further strengthen our new immigration law.