Their Jewish citizens are happy. thank you. say they. clapping a heavy hand of repression over their attempt to speak out. So I support the measure originally introduced by my colleague from New York that would allow some of them to escape with our help. All we would have to do is provide 30.000 special refugee entry visas for Soviet Jews who would be permitted to leave and who evinced a desire to come here. We would challenge Russia to let them go. We would show them and the world there is a place for them to come for refuge. * Presently they cannot be admitted. because the entire annual refugee quota for the Eastern Hemisphere stands at 10.200. and it is continually oversubscribed. There is much past precedent for such action. In the past we have passed unique legislation allowing groups of refugees to enter under special quotas such as are provided for in this measure. After the 1956 Hungarian uprising. 30.000 Hungarian refugees entered the United States under such a dispensation. In 1968. 10.000 Czechoslovakian refugees immigrated to America under another such piece of unique legislation. Up to today. a minimum of 565.000 Cubans have come to live in the United States under special dispensation by our Government. The 30.000 such visas would allow persecuted Jews to leave a nightmare of Soviet discrimination and bigotry. After all. who knows such treatment for a longer time and in so many places than do the Jews? Shall this Nation. founded as a refuge for the oppressed. turn its back upon these heartrending pleas from innocent people?
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immigrated refugee visas refugees