Speech #1040190338

I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like first of all. before yielding to my colleague from California. to put in historical context a couple of statements that my friend from California made. He mentioned the high immigration level at the early part of this century. In point of fact. in the current decade of the 1990s we will admit more immigrants than any other decade in this countrys history. In fact there was a high level of immigration from about 1915 to 1924. but i. was followed by 40 years of extremely low immigration levels. No one here is asking for that. In addition to that. of those individuals who came in in such great numbers at the turn of the century. about onethird returned to their home country rather than staying here permanently. Also I am reminded of a quotation by John F. Kennedy. who wrote a book in 1958 entitled "A Nation of Immigrants." He said in arguing for a limit on legal immigration that the reason we should have a limit is because we no longer need settlers to discover virgin lands and we no longer have an economy growing at the rate as at the early part of the 20th century. When John Kennedy made that statement. legal immigration rates were onefifth of what they are today. Also in regard to the point my colleague made about the extended family members. what this bill does is to follow the recommendation of the Commission on Immigration Reform. which said when we have millions of people waiting to come in and the waits are decades long. we have to set priorities. The priority we chose and the priority other commissions have recommended is to put the interest of the close family members first. In other words. the reason we have reduced or eliminated the extended family members is to make more room for the close family members.