Speech #970225608

I am not quite sure how many hundreds of thousands of people are involved. but certainly this bill has to be regarded as an enormous gesture of our friends from Mexico. It is. indeed. quite correct in so doing. and it is. indeed. quite correct in its effort to control the flow of people across our borders because. as the Senator from Wyoming has so correctly stated to me on a number of occasions. one of the first duties that a country owes to itself is to control its borders. The number of immigrants in this country who have come from countries other than Mexico is very large. I am not sure whether the Senator from Wyoming is familiar with the numbers. but it seems to me that the number of immigrants who now live in this country and who have come from countries other than Canada or Mexico is certainly far larger. much larger. than the number of immigrants who have .ome from those countries. To give those two countries such a large. disproportionate share of the total number of immigrants that we allow into this country. in my judgment. does not represent equity. We will allow a total of 350.000 immigrants in under the various preferences. 80.000 of those would be attributable and assigned to only two countriesMexico and Canada. All other countries would have the remaining 270.000. and any other country would not be allowed to have immigrants to this country in excess of 20.000. Mr. President. it is not equitable that one country have perhaps as many as 80.000 and all other countries of the world be limited to just 20.000.