Speech #900234967

During each of the 3 years. onethird of the annual quota of each quota area would be put in a pool. This scheme. I felt then as I feel today. would have had the effect of causing countries with large quotas to realize and fully anticipate the day when they too would have to compete on a worldwide basis for visas. By reducing such quotas annually. priority dates could have been established which. on July 1. 1968. would have led to a more equitable. reasonable and workable firstcome. firstserved approach. My major concern and principal objective in considering the immigration legislation pending in 1965 was the immediate repeal of the national origins systems. The system had been proven to be unworkable and repeal was long overdue. The repeal was accomplished. but not without some compromise in the area of the phaseout provisions. As we are all aware. a 3year phaseout period was adopted and unused quota numbers were put in an immigration pool. However. by compromise. no part of annual quotas was deducted with a consequence that countries such as England and Ireland found it more facilitative to use their great abundance of nonpreference numbers and thus avoid a buildup of priorities under the preferences. Thus. for those countries there was. in effect during the phaseout period. business as usual under the national origins concept. There was an additional impediment to immigration from some countries. such as Ireland. because of the labor certification provision. By guaranteeing that countries such as Great Britain. Ireland. and Germany. would not be disadvantaged by quota deductions during the phaseout period. the law only served to place these countries at a disadvantage in July 1968. Therefore. I think the time has arrived to take direct action and call a spade a spade. We in the Congress are concerned. as are people throughout the country. about the drastic decline in immigration from Ireland and the probable decline in immigration from England. Germany. and Scandinavia. This tragedy we cannot permit. I. therefore. by my bill seek to continue the flow of immigrants from Ireland and at the same permit the Irish to create priorities over the next 2 years so that they can compete on a fair and equitable basis with other intending immigrants. I have refrained from adopting a complicated. mechanical formula which would disguise the true objectives of affording the Irish an opportunity to emigrate to the United States. as well as to decrease existing backlogs for visa issuance. Although I recognize the need for a revised preference system and have introduced legislation to amend that system which would guarantee a more reasonable breakdown in preferences and a guarantee of visas to nonpreference immigrants. I feel that at this time when we are fast approaching July 1. we can best avoid hardship by delegating to the President authority to reserve up to 25 percent of the unused numbers from fiscal 1968 for use over the next 2 fiscal years to make visas available to prospective immigrants who unfortunately because of recent amendments to the law are denied visas. Time is of the essence and a direct approach is demanded to alleviate what may be complete curtailment of immigration from Ireland. Therefore. to summarize the provisions of my bill: Section I provides that the President may reserve up to 25 percent of the unused numbers from fiscal year 1968 for use during fiscal years 1969 and 1970. if he so proclaims. to avoid undue hardship resulting from the deduction in the number of immigrants admitted from any country. Section 2 would make available unused CXIV- 691Part 9