Recently. it has been learned that Dr. Brailovsky will become eligible for early release from internal exile this September. I urge Soviet authorities to grant this dedicated scientist and cultural activist his one wish: to emigrate to Israelthe land of his peoplewhere he can live reunited with his family. Mr. Speaker. the tragedy of Viktor Brailovsky is only one example of what occurs on a regular basis in the Soviet Union. While we in the United States often take many of our freedoms for granted. nothing can be assumed there. One freedom in particular we tend to assume is the freedom to emigrate. So close is this to our national spirit that when Emma Lazarus wrote her inscription for the Statue of Liberty she called upon the nations of the world to send "your tired. your poor. your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" and "the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." The spirit of openness contained in these passages says much about us as Americans. It says first of all that we are a land of immigrants. And it says that we naturally expect that those who desire to come to our shores will be allowed to come. Unfortunately. the Soviet Unionthe most perverse political system ever to darken the human recorddoes not respect the fundamental freedom to emigrate. What we in the United States assume as a natural inalienable right is flagrantly disregarded in the Soviet Union. On August 1. 1975. in Helsinki.
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emigrate immigrants