Speech #960173217

How does H.R. 2816 respond to these pressures? By ignoring them. On top of the 500.000 legal immigrants the United States takes every yearseveral times the number of any other nation on Earth takeson top of the million illegal immigrants to the United States every yearwhom we are making no serious effort to stopthe Refugee Act of 1979 proposes that the ceiling be lifted within the bill to accommodate more refugees. that the President have the power to lift the ceiling again at the beginning of every calendar year to take more refugees. and that the President be empowered to raise the ceiling again a third time if he determines that there is an emergency. While the number of all other classes of immigrants will remain the same. the number of refugees will essentially be set by Presidential fiat. and all refugees will be added on top of other immigration quotas. The President is mandated to consult with Congress about his decision. but the consultation process would more properly be called an information process: The President makes his decision and then tells Congress what it is. I trust that we can all agree that President Carter can and should be trusted to determine how many Indochinese refugees should come to our country. But what do we know about the next President. what his or her policies will be. how many refugees fit into the next Presidents program? What do we know about the next wave of refugees. from where will they come. and in what numbers? Will the next President commit us to take all of the next wave of refugees: If Congress abrogates its power now. it has no control then. The American people are generous. open hearted. and touched by the boat people. We want to help. But we do not want to give up the power to determine how many new Americans there will be each year. We have lowered our birth rate significantly. in large part because of our concern for America. our feeling we were growing too rapidly. overpopulating our part of the Earth. Must all of our efforts to be responsible in our population growth come to nothing because the rest of the world will not face up to its responsibility to share the refugee flow? We need not raise the ceiling on immigration continually. and the Congress need not cede to the President its power to set the immigration ceiling in accordance with the wishes of the American people. I intend to support three amendments to H.R. 2816. when it is taken up on the House floor later this week: The first would require that refugee admissions above 50.000 be subtracted from our overall immigration quota for the following year o n a 2for1 basis. In. other words. for every two refugees admitted over 50.000. one number would be deducted from our regular immigration quota. The second amendment would put a sunset clause on the Presidents power to raise the immigration ceiling. If there is an emergency which will last only 1 or 2 years. we do not need to give the President power for all the years to come to add thousands to our immigration. The third amendment. would require the Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate to hold hearings on -proposed admissions over 50.000 and to require a report to completely and totally inform the Congress on proposed increases. A