Senate. He often said that this legislation would only be deemed a success when the President could exercise the waiver provision. Today. we will submit a concurrent resolution declaring that the Congress will support such a waiver "at such a time as the President has received the appropriate assurances that the Soviet Government is firmly on a course toward sustained high levels of emigration and removed all unreasonable impediments to or against persons wishing to emigrate." At the same time. this concurrent resolution states that the Congress will "continue to monitor with great interest the Soviet efforts to institutionalize its liberalized emigration policy through law and practice." The Soviet Government is well aware of our steadfastness on this issue. In August 1987. I headed a delegation of U.S. Senators who visited the Soviet Union as guests of the Supreme Soviet. We were granted the unusual honor of holding a livepress conference in Moscow at which a Soviet reporter asked when the JacksonVanik amendment might be waived. I replied that "anything less than the established and agreed fact by the community involved that those who wish to leave. have left or have serious prospects of leaving. would not warrant any change in our policy." The increase in Soviet emigration since that time has been dramatic. When we visited Moscow. less than 500 Jews a month were leaving the Soviet Union. During the first 5 months of this year. some 55.000 Soviet citizens. including over 18.000 Jews. were permitted to leave the Soviet Union. Scoop Jackson spoke of an annual rate of 60.000 emigrants a year when he introduced his legislation. At the current rate of emigration the Soviets will be allowing over twice that number of individuals to emigrate during 1989. The decision to submit todays concurrent resolution was not taken lightly. Members of Congress have consulted with the leadership of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration emigrants