Speech #900101176

Mr. President. today I have written another letter to the Secretary. While I appreciated very much the Departments extensive exposition of its views on this situation. and while its support of past efforts to assist refugees escaping from Communist China and other areas of Asia and the Pacific I find to be indeed commendable. I was absolutely not satisfied with the points raised by the Departments letter. In effect. the Departments letter simply underlines its policy of refusing to accept political refugees from Asia and the Pacific. It is a fiat refusal by the Department to reconsider this unfortunate policy. and as such I strongly believe that the Department is guilty of gross discrimination against Asia and the Pacific. This racial discrimination is being practiced wholly without sanction of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act. but rather by administrative flat. The problems which are outlined In the Departments letter have been raised only for the purpose of avoiding the full implementation of a law that has been duly passed by the Congress. There is no -question that the overriding public policy underlying every single aspect of that 1965 law is the complete elimination of race discrimination from our basic immigration statute. This transcendent public policy is made abundantly clear in statements of President Johnson. when he submitted the bill to Congress and when he signed the measure into law. and in all the legislative history of the law. When that public policy is applied.to statutory provisions dealing with political refugees. it is plain to me that such refugees in the Asia and Pacific areas should be placed on exactly the same footing as political refugees in Europe and the Middle East. Mr. President. the language contained in the reports of the Committees on the Judiciary of both Senate and House regarding the implementation of section 203(a) (7) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which was noted in the Departments letter is: The conditional entry. of refugees as proposed in this bill is not unlike the parole procedure utilized during the existence of the so called Fair Share Act . . . and is intended that the procedure remain the same. This language of the Senate report clearly indicates that procedurally it follows the Fair Share Act. But nothing in the report says that the refugees should be only those covered by the Fair Share Act. As the Department itself points out on page 2 of its letter: With regard to the language of Section 203(a) (7) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. the Department is in full agreement with you that the language of the statute would permit the conditional entry of refugees from Communist China. I can well understand the problems outlined in the Departments letter with respect to political refugees in Asia. particularly those In. Hong Kong. But I am convinced these problems are exactly what the Department has had and. is experiencing in most of the seven nations where it has established refugee offices. To be sure. there Is the problem. of administering the huge number. of Hong Kong applicationsparticularly in comparison with the small number of refugees to be admitted annually under the 1965 law. This again appears. however. to be a problem common to political refugees the world overwhether they may come from Europe. the Middle East. or Asia. The reason for this is the limited num-