Speech #900180729

Mr. Speaker. on December 1 of this year the Immigration Reform Act of 1965. abolishing the national origins quota system and establishing a new selective system based on U.S. needs and the relationship of prospective immigrants to U.S. citizens and resident aliens. had been in effect for 2 years. On the second anniversary of the law. as the chairman of the immigration Subcommittee. I wish to report to the Congress on the effects of the law and the need for some modification of the system. The Department of State has just distributed its annual report of the Visa Office with most complete statistical tables and highly perceptive analyses of these tables. Of the 170.000 visas authorized to be issued under the new law. 154.087 were used during the fiscal year ending June 30. 1967. Additionally. 128.583 Western Hemisphere visas were Issued and 37.924 immediate relative visas were authorized. Together with some other special classes. these brought the total of immigrant visas which were Issued or authorized during the fiscal year to a total of 326.553. This figure compares with the 287.679 in 1965 and 311.356 for 1966. More important than the totals and more demonstrative of the effect of the new law. however. are the changes in the classes and in the nationalities of the immigrants. All of the applicants for preference visas that were pending on December 1. 1965. have now been reached. and if still entitled to the preference and otherwise admissible. they have now been issued immigrant visas. with the single exception of the Italianborn brothers and sisters of United States citizens. In this latter group. an extraordinary demand has come up against a national annual ceiling of 20.000. While all the backlogs which existed on December 1. 1965. have been abolished. with the single exception noted. new backlogs are in the process of being created. To insure that the close relatives of United States citizens and of resident aliens would never again be obliged to wait for visas because their classifications were "oversubscribed." we deliberately made the percentages available to these immigrants larger than estimated demand. with provision for utilization of unused numbers in the succeeding relative classes. Thus. as the Visa office report pointi out. the 50 percent authorized for these three classes. 30 percent for sons and daughters of citizens and 20 percent for relatives of permanent resident aliens. totaling an 85.000 potential. was almost more than three times the demand. During the past fiscal year only 30.223 visas were Issued to these classes. amounting to 1712 percent of the total authorized. Most significant is the estimate contained in the State Department report that in fiscal 1969 the total demand in these classes will be only 41.000 or less than 25 percent. On the other hand. the total of 20 percent which was authorized for the professional and worker classes has proved to be inadequate to the demand and both the third and sixth preference classes currently are heavily oversubscribed and the situation will worsen after July 1. 1968. when the present generous nonpreference allowances to Western European natives. particularly from the United Kingdom. Germany. and Ireland are abolished. During the fiscal year 1965. the five leading countries contributing to United States immigration were the United Kingdom. Germany. Poland.