Speech #1010216635

Mr. Chairman. today we have an historic opportunity to take a giant step toward a fairer immigration system. H.R. 4300. the Family Unity and Employment Immigration Act of 1990. is a fair balance between the rights families have to remain united and the need to diversify the sources of immigration. In 1965. our immigration system was overhauled to allow. for the first time. significant numbers into the United States from nonEuropean nations. That goal was accomplished. but over the years the system has progressively tilted in favor of 13 nations who now receive over 65 percent of the visas allocated each year. It is time to rectify these inequities and attempt to set up a system that is balanced and which will remain balanced for years to come. To achieve this goal. H.R. 4300 contains a crucial regional diversity provision. This provision divides the world into high admission regions and low admission regions. These regions are then given the inverse proportion of diversity visas relative to the percentage of immigrants sent to the United States in previous years. Not only will this provision diversify immigration sources. it is selfcorrecting. Once a particular region is no longer underepresented. its share of diversity visas will drop. The Family Unity and Employment Opportunity Act contains two other provisions that will diversify the immigration patterns of this country. The first is the preference given to citizens of the 36 countries adversely affected by the 1965 immigration laws when applying for employmentbased visas. From fiscal years 1992 through 1996. 20.800. of a total of 65.000. employment based visas will be made specifically available to citizens of the countries that were hit the hardest by the 1965 law. Second. section 201 of the bill would provide 25.000 transitional visas per year for natives of adversely affected countries who have entered the United States before 1990 and who have an employment commitment for one year or more. This is also a very important step towards bringing greater diversity to the system and. in addition. meets important needs of American employers. I want to emphasize that while this bill is crucial to diversifying our immigration system. it also protects family unity. the principle that undergirds our entire immigration system. Waiting times for many relatives of permanent residents and citizens is measured in years and decades. These are spouses and children who are waiting. not second cousins and great grand aunts. This bill provides important relief for those on the waiting lists of the second and fifth preferences. Second preference includes spouses and unmarried sons and daughters of permanent residents and the fifth preference includes brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens. Under the provisions of H.R. 4300. 50.000 visas will be allocated each year for 5 years to address the problem of backlogs in these two preferences. The Family Unity and Employment Opportunity Act is a compromise bill. It reflects the concerns and interests of the entire range of opinion on immigration matters. It has been carefully scrutinized at both the subcommittee and committee level and has been the subject of extensive hearings. It is not as comprehensive as I had hoped. but I believe it is a fair bill that we can all support.