Speech #920000692

Mr. Speaker. today I reintroduced a bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that parents of lawful resident aliens will be eligible for second preference immigrant visas. As you will recall. a major purpose of the 1965 immigration amendments was to promote reunification of families. With this end in mind. for instance. the parents of adult U.S. citizens are granted immediate relative status. and thus bound by no preferencecategory limitations. I would agree with Charles Gordon. who testified before the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee last year in his capacity as General Counsel of the Department of Justices Immigration and Naturalization Service: We favor inclusion of the parents of a permanent resident alien In the second preference. if the resident alien child is at least 21 years of age. The present statute grants immediate relative status to the parents of adult United States citizens. We believe the principle of family unity also supports the granting of second preference status to the parents of permanent resident aliens. Under the present law. 20 percent of the 170.000 immigrant visas available annually for the Eastern Hemisphere are allotted to the spouses and unmarried children of permanent resident aliens. Parents must either meet the labor certification requirement and enter under the sixth preference or. as is more frequently the case. establish that they will not be entering the labor market. and wait for a nonpreference slot. Unlike the second preference category. both the sixth preference and particularly the nonpreference category are heavily oversubscribed for most countries and involve long waits. The provision of this bill was included in two major omnibus immigration bills introduced during the 91st Congress. one by the thenSubcommittee Chairman Michael Feighan. and in H.R. 18923. introduced in August 1970 for the Nixon administration. I do not doubt that interest in immigration will continue to mount during this Congress. and that similar bills. again embodying this provision. will be introduced. However. rather than enacting it at the end of a long and necessary process of hearings. consideration. and debate on major immigration reform. I would urge enactment of the bill I am introducing in this chamber today. This provision in itself is neither complex nor controversial. nor will it involve many people. However. to the people who are involvedthe parents wishing to come here and their childrenit is a matter of utmost importance. We are talking here. remember. about the parents of children who are over 21. They are not young. and there is no reason to prolong their separation from their children while we debate major immigration reform. I urge that this legislation be enacted as quickly as possible.