Chairman. I thank the gentleman from Indiana for those generous remarks about the Irish and. of course. he speaks the truth as he always does. I would like to point out. without plowing the same ground which has already been gone over. we ought to stress the fact that this is temporary legislation designed to correct inequities that resulted from transition from the old national origins plan to the new firstcomefirstserved plan. The legislation would expire after 4 years and would not be part of the permanent legislation on immigration. Congress intended. when it enacted in 1965 the amendments to the Immigration and Naturalization Act. that no country would be disadvantaged by the transition to the new system. and that all existing backlogs would be eliminated during the transitional period. This has not been the case. and this legislation before us today is designed to try to carry out that objective. Immigration from Great Britain. Ireland. Italy. Germany. and some other countries has been sharply curtailed since immigrants from these countries were unable to qualify under the new preference system which required a labor certification or were unable to compete on an equal basis with immigrants from other countries who had earlier immigration dates. Mr. Chairman.
Keywords matched
Immigration Naturalization immigration immigrants national origins plan