Speech #960113896

Mr. President. I am introducing today a bill to bring urgently needed remedial reform to our immigration laws. and to improve the efficiency of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It also provides an increase in the number of annual visas available to our contiguous neighbors. Canada and Mexico. The responsibility of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to administer and enforce our immigration laws has become extremely difficult in recent times. The complexity of our laws. and the sensitivity of the issue. make it imperative that we. remove all unnecessary barriers which presently hamper the Service from providing the American people and our prospective immigrants with an efficient Service. with humane. flexible immigration procedures. Mr. President. the proposed bill is strictly remedial in nature. It does not seek drastic changes in our immigration laws or policies. That important task has been assigned to the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. which has now begun its work. Their mandate is to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the Immigration and Nationality Act. and to propose substantive -long term reforms. The bill I am offering today will facilitate the administration of the immigration process by repealing or updating antiquated and unnecessary reporting requirements. saving the American taxpayer over a million dollars every year. There is universal agreement that these changes are needed. Second. the bill will remove some needless barriers to naturalization for a group of immigrants who have long been denied this privilege due to no fault of their own. This provision will restore eligibility to U.S. citizenship to those legal resident aliens who at the time of application for exemption from U.S. military service were nationals of foreign states which had a treaty or international agreement with the United States exempting such nationals from U.S. military service. Finally. Mr. President. the bill addresses the question of increasing the number of annual visas made available to our contiguous neighborsCanada and Mexico. This is a provision I have introduced in previous years and closely follows recommendations made by many experts in the immigration field. I have not. in this working bill. specified the number of visas to be increasedthat will be explored in hearings by the Judiciary Committeebut I do believe it is important that we provide additional numbers and begin to address this issue now. Presently Canada and Mexico each have the same 20.000 annual visa allotment as all other countries. which fails to reflect our special ties to both of our neighbors. Under my proposal the annual visa allotment would be increasedto at least. I would agree. 35.000. This modest increase would alleviate several serious backlogs which are causing severe and unnecessary hardships to prospective immigrants. Presently. spouses and children of U.S. legal resident aliens. who have been declared eligible to immigrate. must wait up to 9 years because there are inadequate numbers of visas available. Without an alternative many choose to join their families. in any case. thus adding to the problem of illegal migration. The principal goal of this provision is to strengthen our traditional immigration objective of family unity. The increase that I propose is modest. The benefit to our country would be enormous.