Speech #960105931

Mr. President. S. 643 is probably the most important piece of immigration legislation to come before the Congress since 1965. I want to commend the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the ranking minority member for the interest they have demonstrated in this legislation and the consideration they have given to me. both the Senators and the staffs. with respect to concerns I have had about this issue and about this particular piece of legislation. To the extent that the bill would streamline the current uncoordinated ad hoc refugee program I support it. and I hope my colleagues will do likewise. However. the bill goes far beyond this streamlining and. in addition. creates an openended admissions program with little congressional control. It also establishes the precedent of substantially increasing total immigration quotas without determining the domestic impact of such increases prior to making them. S. 643 would make substantial and permanent increases in the U.S. immigration quota at a time when legal immigration to America stands at the highest level since 1924. And. if we include illegal aliens the immigration level may be the highest in our history. I am deeply concerned that at a time when immigration may be at unprecedented levels we are attempting to increase quotas without adequate knowledge of the consequences. This lack of information has been fully and conclusively documented. President Carters Interagency Task Force on Immigration found in its March 1979 staff report that: Little attention has been given to the collection and analysis of data on legal immigration and. as a result. there is presently a lack of data with which to evaluate Immigration policy. If it is true that as late as March the staff experts on immigration law found that there were insufficient data with which to evaluate our present immigration policy. how can we decide a few months later that it is in the best interest of the country to increase the total immigration quota? In fact there are no supporting data for this increase. The testimony on S. 643 all centered ( n the need to assist more refugees and the need for more money to pay for the program. However. the record contains no rationale for increasing the worldwide ceiling on. immigration into the United States. The vast majority of the witnesses were from private organizations whose primary function was assisting refugees or public agencies which administered the assistance programs. There is no testimony given from the standpoint of a general economist. sociologist. or demographer to support the need and appropriateness of substantially increasing the total immigration quota. decision not to increase the quota might The result is that not only do we not jeopardize our efforts to offer assistance know if the increase is justified. we do to refugees next year. However. a decinot know at this tine if the existing sion not to increase the worldwide ceilquota is excessive given present high ing would have no effect on that prolevels of legal and illegal immigration. gram. In fact. if S. 643 had no quota at all IMPACT OF OUR POLICY ON REFUGEE POPULA- for refugees the United States could still TION OF wORLD. MALAYSIA. HONG KONG. AND have a refugee assistance program of the INDONESIA same size and magnitude as that presAt one time this administration rec- ently contemplated by the administraognized the extreme lack of informa- tion under other provisions of S. 643. tion and pursued a policy of not ad- Mr. President. in my judgment. the vocating an increase. even for refugees. most significant failing of S. 643 is that without a great deal more study. In 1977 it is a repeat of the same mistake we the official position of both the U.S. have made in regard to immigration polDepartment of Justice and State De- icy before and which the Select Compartment was to require the deduction mission was supposed to rectify. S. 643 of any increases in refugee- f ---mbersisaPieremeal approach to the immigrafrom the total annual immigration tion issue. It makes no attempt to intequota. Mr. John DeWitt. Deputy Ad- grate the refugee program into a total ministrator for the Bureau of Security comprehensive immigration policy. and Consular Affairs of the State De- There are three major components of partment. testified before the House U.S. immigration which must be considJudiciary Subcommittee on Immigra- ered jointly if our immigration system tion in 1977. At that time he said: is to have any overall purpose and direcThe Department (of State) believes that tion. These components are legal immithe 20.000 limitation on "normal flow" refu- gration which is about 400.000 per year gees should be deducted from the overall and is the highest in the world. a de hemispheric totals . . . in order to preserve facto policy which permits millions of the existing grand total of 290.000. While we illegal aliens to enter the United States recognize that this determination is one for virtually unchecked. and an openended the Congress to make. we favor leaving the refugee assistance program which has no total numerical limits unchanged until there outer perimeters as far as I can deterIs a more solid basis for determining the mine. optimum rate of annual immigration for the United States. The underlying purpose of the Select Commission was to approach the probAt the time this statement was made lem in a comprehensive manner. Conthe world refugee picture was not sig- gressman EILBERG. who floormanaged nificantly better than it is today. Fur- the bill on the House side stated that: ther. we knew from the Cuban experi- Our Immigration law has not been reviewed ence that we would face unexpected In over 25 years and that almost every aspect situations when the United States would of the American community is affected by be expected to admit large numbers of immigration. In my judgment. it is vital that refugees. Even though the administra- every effort be made to reevaluate our immition was aware of these facts. its policy gration policy and that it be done in a comrightly reflected the need to lnou more prehensive fashion. about immigration in this country before making permanent and substantive changes. Last year the Congress concurred in the determination that we need more information and a comprehensive review of immigration and refugee law. This concurrence was in the form of legislation creating the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. The general mandate to the Commission was to "study and evaluate * * * existing laws. policies. and procedures governing the admission of immigrants and refugees to the United States and to make administrative and legislative recommendations to the President and to the Congress." However. the Commission was "particularly" instructed to "assess the social. economic. political. and demographic impact of previous refugee programs and review the criteria for. and numerical limitations on the admission of refugees to the United States." In order to accomplish this goal the Commission has been given a budget of about $2.5 million. Although the Commission will probably issue its final report by December of 1980. the Congress is being told that it should not wait before substantially increasing our immigration quota. I would be able to understand this if the Many have tried to obfuscate the issue by arguing that increasing the permanent yearly refugee quota to 50.000 could not possibly have any adverse impact upon the United States. If this were the only immigration number we were dealing with. their argument would be valid. However. it is not the only number and that is the vital point which must be understood. We are dealing with millions of illegal aliens. hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants and. as would be established by this bill. undetermined hundreds of thousands of refugees. I believe that we have passed the point where we can safely continue to consider these three components in an isolated manner. Other major immigrantreceiving nations also seem to have reached this conclusion. Some have recently completely revamped their immigration laws. The interagency task force found. in its comparative study of other nations: All the major immigrantreceiving nations have conducted recent reevaluations of their immigration policy. All have moved away from racially and ethnically discriminatory laws in favor of more universalist policies which are tied to articulated national goals. Since 1976 both Canada and Australia have enacted new immigration statutes. each of which is tied to its nations goals in the areas of population growth and economic development. Since 50 percent of the population growth in the United States may be attributable to immigration. I sincerely believe that we should also enact comprehensive immigration legislation as soon as possible. Many Americans have voluntarily made the decision to have fewer children in order that they and their children may enjoy more of the benefits this country has to offer. However. this personal decision is being undermined and overshadowed by our current uncontrolled immigration policy. which is being fed by the worldwide population explosion. high unemployment and political unrest. All the reports in this regard say the samethe outlook for the next 20 years is ominous. The Population Reference Bureau warns that the millions of unemployed and underemployed will move into the already overcrowded cities of the Third World. Of the additional 2 billion people expected worldwide by the year 2000 the Third World countries will gain about 1.2 billion. or an increase of 162 percent. According to the Bureau: These two aspects alone. a growing labor force and increased urbanization. pose the threat of mounting social and political tensions. massive unrest. and spreading conflicts. The Library of Congress underscored this projection when its August 1979 report on the world refugee crisis found that: The Crisis shows no sign of abating. On the contrary. the findings in this report indicate that the refugee flow around the world will continue and that the number of refugees will probably rise markedly over the next few years. This increase will be in addition to the 14 million refugees who are in the world today. And. it is this growing pool of millions of people which will fit within the new expanded definition of refugee under S. 643. Any immigration legislation which allows our national ceilings to be breached by unlimited numbers must contain appropriate safeguards to assure that that discretion is always exercised responsibly and with full knowledge of the implications. One of the major problems with our existing refugee program is that neither the Congress nor the public have had a complete disclosure of information prior to the decision to admit more people. Unfortunately. S. 643 does not correct this.