Speech #910011932

Mr. Speaker. on January 14 of this year I introduced H.R. 3238. a bill designed to correct certain unforeseen inequities resulting from the 1965 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act. which went into full effect in July of last year. My bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee. and I am hopeful that prompt action will be taken on it. as the problems to which it addresses itself are immediate and pressing. As you know. the basic purpose of the 1965 immigration amendments was to eliminate the 40yearold national origins quota system. whereby the quota from each country was determined by a formula based on the origins of the U.S. population at the time of the 1920 census. Under this system. Great Britains .annual quota was 65.361. and Italys was 5.666. a situation as Irrelevant to the facts as it was discriminatory. In 1964. almost 35.000 of Great Britains allowed .quota was unused. while Italy had an oversubscribed quota--a waiting list--of nearly 250.000. The temporary immigration pool created by the 1965 amendments during the 21/2year transition period between October 1965 and July 1968 did much to alleviate the accumulated backlog. though Italy still has a substantial waiting list. This pooling permitted the unused quotas from the prior year to be used by countries with oversubscribed quotas. The result. to give an example. was that Italian immigrationincluding immediate relatives not subject to the quota limitationrose from 9.986 in fiscal year 1965 to 25.994. in fiscal 1967. On July 1. 1968. the national origins quota system. along with the transitional pooling of unused numbers. was abolished and replaced by a sevenpoint preference category system. with a certain percentage restriction assigned to each category. In general. the system places priority on reuniting families and attracting professional talent and needed skilled labor into this country. The preference system operates on a firstcome firstserved basis. regardless of nationality. within the overall limitation of 170.000 from nonWestern Hemisphere countries. and a limit of 20.000 per country. While eliminating the inequities of the nationalorigins quota system. this new one creates problems of its own. as many of us have become aware. For one thing. national quota oversubscription has been replaced by a different kind of oversubscription. whereby visa numbers are not available in some countries for the lower preference categories because the 20.000 national limit has been reached in the highest categories. As an example. the category of brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens ranks fifth in order of preference. Italy in 1965 had a backlog of approximately 100.000 applicants in this category. and the increase in Italys national quota to 20.000 has done little to decrease this backlog. because most of the visas have been going to the four higher preference categories: unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens. spouses and unmarried children of aliens admitted to the United States for permanent residence. members of the professions and scientists and artists of exceptional ability. and married children of U.S. citizens. It is my belief. embodied in the legislation I have introduced. that the oversubscription problems created by the preference category system can be largely alleviated by pooling. the same method used to absorb backlogs in the transition period before total abolishment of the nationalorigins quota system. My bill would authorize transferral of all visa numbers not issued or otherwise used to an immigration pool for reallocation during the following year. Up to 25 percent of these numbers could be reallocated by the President during fiscal years 1969 and 1970 by proclamation. within certain limitations. toin the language of the bill-"avoid undue hardship resulting from the reduction in the number of immigrants who may be admitted to the United States caused by the operation of the Act of October 3. 1965." The remainder of the visa numbers in the pool would be available to immigrants who would be admissible except for the oversubscription of visa numbers on a national basis. These visas would be allocated from the Immigration pool within the percentage limitations and in the order of priority specified in the 1965 amendments. Section 2 of H.R. 3238 addresses itself to a second problem inadvertently raised by the 1965 amendments. the brain drain and. most specifically the brain drain from underdeveloped countries and other countries which had had low quotas under the old national origins quota system and are now first in line to send us their most talented. As I noted before. third preference is given to members of the professions and others with exceptional skills and education. I would limit the total number of visas available under this category on a national level. not to exceed 1.700 from a single foreign state a year. The need for the measures proposed in this legislation may be only temporary. We are still in the transitional phase. and it is difficult to tell how well the 1965 system will work.