Speech #900236437

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 system. 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 xlith 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 provisions. 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 Scandanavia. This tragedy we cannot permit. I. therefore. by my bill. seek to continue the flow of immigrants from Ireland and at the same time 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 immigrate 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 use up to 17.000 numbers 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 1 provides that the President may. during fiscal years 1969 and 1970. reserve up to 25 percent of the unused numbers from fiscal year 1968. 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 numbers from fiscal 1968 for reallocation. notwithstanding the percountry limitation or overall ceiling to preference immigrants on oversubscribed preference lists. Section 3 is designed to prevent one foreign state from getting a disproportionate share of third preference visas to the detriment of other states to equalize and make this a fair approach no country will receive more than 10 percent of the visas under the third preference. The Department of State estimates that at the end of fiscal year 1968 there will be approximately 70.000 visa numbers that will go unused. The American Irish Immigration Committee has indicated that there is a need for 5.000 numbers annually to meet the demands of immigration from Ireland. The authorization for the President to set aside in reserve 25 percent of the available unused numbers will satisfy the needs for Ireland as well as make numbers available to alleviate hardship from the United Kingdom. if such arises. Testimony has also been developed that under present circumstances the inequities in the disproportionate number of immigrants from some countries will level off in 2 or 3 years so long as intending immigrants proceed to register for immigration to the United States. I think that my bill will meet the needs that exist today and overcome the discrepencies that the present law has developed. There are other bills pending before the Judiciary Committee which seek to accomplish the same aimssome increase the number of possible immigrants and others tend to reactivate the principles of national origin. I sincerely maintain that we cannot return even in the faintest degree to the national origin concept. My bill does not increase the overall ceiling on immigration but merely authorizes use of those visas which will go unissued.