Our Declaration of Independence. our Constitution. and the Bill of Rights charge us with the task of protecting the freedom of the individual. within the law. to live by the dictates of his conscience and of his personal beliefs. Included in these rights. and a most important aspect of them. is the right of the individual to freedom of movement. within the framework of international treaties and conventions. At this time. the world is witnessing a most flagrant violation of the rights of the individual to freedom of movement. as the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics imposes on its Jewish citizens a virtual ban on their emigration to Israel. The form of this repression is cynical in the extreme. in that Jews desiring to go to Israel must now pay for an exit visa in a sum that is almost 20 times greater than the cost of an exit visa was just 2 years ago. This cynicism and repression is further compounded by the fact that where the Soviet authorities feel that the Jewish applicant for an exit visa may be able to pay the exorbitant exit fee. his permission to apply for exit is refused. The Soviet Government seeks to justify these punitive measures by relating the exceedingly high cost of the exit visa to the cost to the state of having educated the wouldbe emigrants in the Soviet Union. The transparency of this claim is obvious. While we must recognize the understandable reluctance of any State to lose from its midst. some of the best brains among its citizenry. we must be even more determined to be faithful to the principles of individual freedom on which our own Nation was conceived and structured.
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emigration visa emigrants