Speech #970145226

Speaker. I learned today that on February 24 in Beijing. China. some people completely misrepresented the new United States immigration law granting a quota to people born in Taiwan as "an attempt to create two Chinas." Anyone who knows the legislative history and intent of that law knows that the one and only purpose of that legislation was to right a wrong. to see that American citizens whose family members were born on Taiwan were not kept from being reunited because of the happy event of United StatesChina normalization. The normalization of relations with China after decades where people in China could not apply for United States immigrant visas led to a sudden surge of Chinese applicants at Peking and Canton who stand at a high level of preference such that the number of immigrant visas for people born on Taiwan was being squeezed out and a big backlog was building. Since the U.S. Congress had already committed itself to guaranteeing that normalizing relations with China would not injure U.S. families who had migrated here from Taiwan. the Congress simply kept faith with its promise in passing the new statutes. Since late in the 19th century. the U.S. record on excluding people from China from immigrating to our country is not one to be proud of. Some people might argue now that it is not fair to limit some 1 billion Chinese people to the same number of immigrant visas as little Belize. Surely the Chinese case has to be seen on its own unique merits. Surely even if we cannot right past wrongs. no injustice is done by this new expanded immigration visa situation. Most important. in righting this wrong in American immigration law. I wanted to make certain that it would in no way infringe the principles of United StatesChina normalization. I made this intent clear to the Government of China and to the Members of Congress.