Labor. and Pensions. and in my Committee on the Judiciary. we have had a few hearings on this at my request in both cases. Very few Senators attended. frankly. Repeatedly the witnesses would say: The first question you people in the United States. you policymakers need to decide is: Is the immigration policy you wish to establish one that furthers the national interest? If you want to further the national interest. then I can give you good advice. If your goal is to help poor people all over the world and to take the national welfare approach. then we can tell you how to do that. You have to decide what your best goals are. If your goal is simply to allow everyone who is a part of a family. even distant relatives. to come. if that is your No. 1 goal. we can create a system that does that. But fundamentally they tell us. when pressed. that an immigration system should serve the national interest. Professor Borias at Harvard wrote a book. probably the most authoritative book on immigration that has been written. The name of it is "Heavens Door." He testified at our committee hearing. He made reference to the fact that we have within our immigration system a lottery. This lottery lets 50.000 people apply to come to our country from various countries all over the world. We draw 50.000 names out. and they get to come into the country. not on merit but just pure random choice. It makes sense under the idea when it was originally created. which was we needed more diversity. we needed people from different countries. and this would give people from different countries a chance to apply. Professor Borjas at the Kennedy School at Harvard. himself a Cuban refugee. came here at age 12. said 5 million people apply to be in that lot from which we would choose 50.0005 million. So if we have 5 million applicants. I ask my colleagues. and we are attempting to serve the national interest. how would we choose from that 5 million if we could only select and allow in 50.000?
Keywords matched
refugee immigration