Speech #920194560

This amendment is designed to correct a serious weakness in the bill in its present form. This weakness is that it fails to include any provision to prevent future backlog buildups similar to the present condition which section 3 through 6 of the bill are designed to clean up. In this day of severe unemployment in the United States. it is highly questionable whether we should provide for the admission of more than 160.000 immigrantsover a 4year periodas does this bill. H.R. 9615. in addition to the regular 170.000 annual numerical ceiling for the Eastern Hemisphere. That is the Eastern Hemisphere alone. Of course. these figures are in addition to the 120.000 a year from the Western Hemisphere. A backlog cleanup can only be justified if coupled with provisions to prevent its recurrence. The backlog buildup occurred in the fifth preference by reason of unlimited qualification standards which are in conflict with one of the basic objectives of our immigration policythat is. family reunification. A family. first and foremost. is made up of the head of the family and the unmarried children in it and not of a lot of married relatives who have families of their own. Testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary indicates that the majority of fifth preference registrantsbrothers and sisters of U.S. citizensare married Repeatedly since 1968. the State Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service witnesses have recommended that the fifth preference be limited to unmarried brothers and sisters. The Administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs. Miss Barbara Watson. testified on this point on August 5. 1970. stating that the number of new registrations under the fifth preference would increase markedly if the backlog in the fifth preference were eliminated.