Speech #920194519

Patricks Day. to vote for it and to comment on its merits. In 1965. in the rush of Great Society legislation. Congress passed major amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act. The 1965 amendments abolished the national origins quota system. which for decades had guaranteed countries highly represented in our population in 1920 many more visas than they could use. Ireland. for instance. had an annual quota of 17.756. of which she used an annual average of about 7.000. Italy. on the other hand. had an annual quota of 5.666. which was far from adequate. The national origins quota system heavily favored the countries of Western and Northern Europe at the expense of other countries in the Eastern Hemisphere. Under the current eightpoint preference system. the situation has been reversed. Congress has robbed Peter to pay Paul. The system with which Congress replaced the national origins quota system in 1965 was widely hailed as a model of fairness. It is not. It is as discriminatory in its own way as the national origins quota system. We no longer say you can only come here if your ancestors were here in 1920. now we say you can only come here if your relatives are here now. We no longer say. "Give me your tired. your poor"-as long as they come from the right countries. Now we say. "Give me your skilled. your rich"and pat ourselves on the backs for opening our gates to all the world. Under the provisions of the 1965 amendments. immigration from Eastern Hemisphere countries is restricted to 170.000 a year. with a 20.000percountry limit. The immigrant visas are distributed according to an eightcategory priority or preference system. with each preference allotted a certain percentage of the total. First preference is given to unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens. second preference to the spouses and children of permanent resident aliens. third preference to members of the professions and the exceptionally talented. fourth preference to married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens. fifth preference to the brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens. sixth preference to workers in short supply. seventh preferenceconditional entryto refugees. and nonpreference. any unused numbers. to those meeting the labor certification requirement or those not coming here to work. Reuniting families and protecting American labor are admirable goals. However. any immigration law which drastically reduces immigration from the countries of Western and Northern Europe. from our closest allies. from the countries whose people made America great. has something very wrong with it. For example. immigration from Ireland fell to 1.077 in fiscal 1971 and will continue downward unless something is done. Mr. Chairman. John Kennedys great grandfather could not have come into this country under the current preference system. and I doubt if the great grandfathers of many Members of this House could have either. Patrick Kennedy had no close relatives here. and there has never been a shortage of tenant farmers so he would have been ineligible for labor certification. The only preference Patrick Kennedy might have entered under would be seventh preference refugees. limited to 6 percent. He with millions more. left Ireland in the wake of potato blight. which might have qualified as "a catastrophic natural calamity." Refugees from the conflict in Northern Ireland. which recently claimed its 268th life. are not eligible for entry under the refugee preference category. We only accept refugees fleeing on account of persecution or the fear of persecution because of race. religion. or political opinion from Communist dominated or Middle Eastern countries. We do. however. accept those permanently uprooted by catastrophic natural calamities from any Eastern Hemisphere country. The bill before us contains two major provisions. the first of which provides a temporary solution for the unintentional drastic reduction of immigration from among others. Ireland. Great Britain and Northern Ireland. and Germany. For the next 4 years. the life of this legislation. special immigrant visas would be made available to any country which would otherwise receive less than 75 percent of the average number of visas it received annually during 195665. These visas would be supplied in addition to the 170.000 ceiling on Eastern Hemisphere immigration. countries such as Italy which do not need this protection would not have the total number of visas available to them reduced by it. The bill provides that labor certification would not be required of applicants receiving special visas. The first 30 percent would go to the first through fifth preferences. 30 percent plus fall down would go to sixth preferenceskilled and unskilled laborapplicants. and 30 percent plus fall down to nonpreference applicants. The primary purpose of the second provision of H.R. 9615 is to clear up the backlog of Italian brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens waiting for fifth preference visas. Some of them have been waiting a long time. and there is no end in sight without corrective legislation. As a result of her inadequate quota. Italy had a waiting list of close to a quarter million in 1965 when the national origins quota system was abolished. Of these. more than 100.000 were waiting for fifth preference visas. Some have received them. of course. but the majority of the visa numbers have been going to the four higher preferences. The bill before us would provide for special immigrant visas equal to 25 percent of the number of people registered under the fourth preference. the former brother and sister preference. as of July 1. 1964. These would be made available over a period of 4 years to fifth preference applicants on whose behalf petitions had been filed prior to July 1. 1971. Any unused visas would drop down to sixth preference beneficiaries of petitions filed by the same date. The bill before us is muchneeded and longawaited remedial immigration legislation. I hope that it becomes law well before the end of this Congress.