Speech #960235105

Mr. President. once again. with thousands of Cubans entering our country in flight from a repressive regime. we are confronted with the fact that neither the Congress nor the President has firm control over our immigration levels. Neither do we have control over the amount of taxpayer money that we will have to spend to screen. process. and resettle these new immigrants. The fact is that Fidel Castro. the Marxist dictator of Cuba. with assistance from the Cuban exiles in Florida. has usurped U.S. immigration policy. This countrys tradition of opening its doors to oppressed people from throughout the world is well established and has played a significant role in the development and strength of our Nation. However. even the most ardent supporter of our opendoor policy concedes that there are limits to the number of immigrants and refugees we can accommodate without imposing serious and unacceptable burdens on our citizens. The present Cuban refugee crisis and the plight of approximately 30.000 Haitians who have come to our country illegally points up the difficulties of our uncontrollable immigration policy and the problems it creates. Fidel Castros efforts to embarrass the Government of the United States as he rids his island kingdom of those discontented with his rule have brought us to a crisis stage. Yet this crisis is not the total problem. The real problem is hidden and has been growing virtually unnoticed for 15 years. It is time we did something about it. The problem I am referring to is our unchecked immigration. growing at an unprecedented rate. We in this Congress have the distinction of serving our country at the time of the highest immigration in American history. Legal immigration was over 600.000 last year. Estimates of illegal immigration run between several hundred thousand to almost 2 million people yearly. Even in the peak years of immigration at the beginning of this century. immigration never topped 2 million persons per year. "America is a nation of immigrants." We have all heard this phrase. and the stirring inscription on the Statue of Liberty: Give me your tired. your poor. your huddled masses yearning to be free. And America is generous. We accept more refugees and more immigrants than all the other nations in the free world combined. Our response to the plight of the Indochinese refugees is characteristic: By the end of this year. we shall have accepted more than a halfmillion Indochinese refugees. No other country. save the Peoples Republic of China. has taken more than 100.000 for permanent settlement. America is. and will continue to be. the most generous country in the world.