Speech #920194468

Mr. Chairman. the bill before us essentially does two things. In the first place. it operates to permit additional immigrants and additional visas for and during a temporary 4year period from certain countries which were disadvantaged immigrationwise by the changover in the basis of the immigration statutes which was accomplished here in 1965. Now. the bill does this in the following manner: It provides that if in any fiscal year after June 30. 1970. the total number of immigrants admitted from any foreign state was less than threequarters of the average annual number admitted from that state during a 10year base period from 1956 to 1965. that in that case. and in the case of a country which finds itself in that situation. there shall. during the 4 years ensuing after the passage of the bill. be made available to immigrants from such a country an additional number of visas for the succeeding fiscal year which will be equal to the difference between the number of visas made available to them in the preceding year and threefourths of their average in that base period. For example. in the country of Great Britain the 10year average in the base period was 27.574. Seventyfive percent of that figure is 20.680.