Speech #970223894

The question then is whom do we take? How many and what kind of a mechanism do we establish to make the determination as to who shall come and who shall not? The Senator from Massachusetts has already indicated in his comments that there is competition existing among the various categories of immigrants who want to come to this country. and he wants to eliminate some of that competition. Well. there is a competition existing. and always has existed. among all categories and among all individuals who want to come to this country because of that single irrefutable fact that we cannot take everybody who wants to come here. I have indicated before. and I think it is accurate. that there are at least 16 million refugees in the world. In our wildest dreams I have not heard anyone suggest that we ought to open our doors and welcome them all to this country. Obviously. we cannot. There is another question. and that is is the United States really a part of the solution to the refugee problem in the world or are we a part of the problem? There is a significant amount of evidence. there is a significant amount of opinion that it has been the overly generous policies of the United States. the willingness of the United States to rush in and try to solve every problem that exists in the world with a gigantic resettlement program. the policies of the United States that amount to a recruiting policy that the State Department has followed particularly in Southeast Asia. which have contributed to the large flow of refugees that still exist in various parts of the world. The problem of refugees is an international problem. If it is ever going to be solved it will be solved by international actions and not the action of any one country. But. the fundamental fact is that: Of course. the United States can no longer take all who want to come. I hope the Senate of the United States will face up to that during the debate and will decide that that being the case we ought to determine ourselves what the number ought to be and how we go about selecting that number. In recent years. the immigration flow into this country has been determined more by Fidel Castro than it has by the Senate of the United States. It has been determined more by the despots in Southeast Asia than it has by the Senate or the President of the United States. The question is.