Speech #910006244

Mr. Speaker. on January 6 I reintroduced legislationH.R. 2118which I submitted in the 90th Congress to resolve the problem of immigration from Ireland and other Western European nations that has developed following full implementation of the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 on July 1. 1968. I firmly believe that present U.S. immigration policy. established by the 1965 act. is just and realistic. It is a policy founded on three basic principles: Reuniting families. giving preference to those who will contribute to our expanding society. and offering asylum to refugees. With approval of the 1965 act Congress eliminated the last vestige of the odious national origins quota system as a basis for the selection of immigrants to the United States. That discriminatory system recognized neither passage of time nor the dignity of the individual. It was conceived during an era of unrealistic fear of immigration accentuated by a period of economic uneasiness. The immigration quotas which it established based on place of birth were designed to serve a twofold purpose: To restrict numerically the volume of immigration into the United States and to select immigrants In such a way as to preserve the balance between the various ethnic elements in the American population. The system. however. was highly unsatisfactory from every viewpoint. In the first place. it failed to maintain the ethnic balance of the American population as it was designed and intended. since the nations favored with high quotas left them largely unused. In fact. statistics establish that only one of every three immigrants since World War II actually was admitted to the United States as a quota immigrant. Most repugnant. too. was the systems builtin discrimination and lack of imagination which is antithetical to the very concepts of freedom and equality for which the United States stands. As the late President Kennedy said. in submitting a special immigration message to Congress to accomplish needed reforms: The enactment of this legislation will not resolve all our important problems in the field of immigration. It will. however. provide a sound basis upon which we can build in developing an immigration law that serves the national interest and reflects in every detail the principles of equality and human dignity to which our Nation subscribed. But despite the fundamental equity of our immigration policy. it is a fact that the 1965 act created unintended problems and inequities. One of the most serious is the drop in immigration from Ireland and other Western European nations which were traditional sources of immigration to the United States. The difficulty developed as a result of the 3year phaseout period before the 1965 act became fully effective. During this period unused quota numbers were put in an immigration pool. However. no part of annual quotas was deducted. so countries such as Ireland found it easier to make use of their great abundance of nonpreference numbers and as a consequence there was no buildup of priorities under the preferences. Thus. for those countries there was. in effect. business as usual under the national origins system during the phaseout period. But by guaranteeing that countries such as Ireland. Germany. and Great Britain would not be disadvantaged by quota deductions during the phaseout period. the law only served to place them at a disadvantage after Mr. Speaker. I believe the bill I have introduced represents a fair and flexible response to this problem that will. at the same time. avoid any retrogressive move in the direction of national origins favoritism and thereby negate the objectives of the 1965 act. Under H.R. 2118. which has been cosponsored by my distinguished colleague from Pemnsylvania . 50 percent of the unused visa numbers from fiscal year 1968 would be reserved in a pool for use by the President to alleviate undue hardships such as in the Irish immigration situation. Furthermore. the bill provides that the remainder of the numbers not reserved may be reallocated on a firstcome. firstserved basis to those preference categories which are presently oversubscribed. The bill. therefore. will accomplish two objectives: First. Permit Irish immigrants to continue to come to the United States during its proposed 2year operation. and Second. Eliminate some of the backlog in the preference categories. thus allowing Ireland and other countries of Western Europe to compete favorably for visa numbers. Statistics clearly indicate that my bill should resolve the problem. For example. during the phaseout periodDecember 1. 1965 to July 1. 1968Ireland had an annual quota of 17.756 visa numbers. Yet the total of visas issued. conditional entries and adjustments of status for immigrants born in Ireland was only 3.188 in fiscal year 1966. 2.816 in fiscal year 1967 and 3.916 in fiscal year 1968. It is evident that heretofore Irish immigration has not been limited by a lack of visa numbers. However. the very fact that the Irish did not have to wait for visas CXV110Part 2