Speech #900183736

Mr. President. this amendment adds a new subsection to section 212 of the Immigration Act. which lists the grounds for exclusion of aliens and waivers of inadmissability. The amendment is geared specifically to regulating more effectively the influx into the United States of Nationals from Canada and Mexico under the socalled alien commuter system administered by the immigration and naturalization service. This systema creature of administrative ingenuity without a statutory basepermits Canadian and Mexican workers who have been lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence. and who hold alien registration receipt cardscommonly known as "green cards"-to reside in Canada or Mexico and regularly commute across the .border to places of employment in the United States. For reasons difficult to understand. commuters have never been routinely identified in the operating reports of the Immigration Service and consequently there is no accurate count of their current number. Sample counts have been taken from time to time. howeverthe last on January 11 and 17. 1966. At that time. at least 54.375 commuters entered the United States. of whom 43.687 entered from Mexico.