OCR Text |
Show Immigration 'Open Floodgates?' A bill before Congress to liberalize existing immigration immi-gration laws has not yet received final action. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy, it is aimed, among other things, at changing the "quota system" of immigration by which certain preferred countries are allowed a larger percentage of immigrants to the U.S. than others. Certainly, the answer to a justi system if immigration im-migration laws lies neither in the extreme of rigid discrimination and selectivity nor in the indiscriminate indiscrimi-nate acceptance of all foreigners who want to come to the United States to live. One thing is clear, and that is that immigration laws must be determined by the particular needs and conditions existing within the United States. Unemployment, Unem-ployment, production, balance of payments and other matters must be brought into consideration with the broad humanitarian impulse to "let everybody in." Countries like Australia and Israel with liberal immigration im-migration laws have pressing manpower shortages and are in processes of taming frontiers and harnessing the wilderness, much like the United States during the nineteenth century. To allow massive immigration to a ' country where the immigrant's lot would be one of unmitigated misery instead of opportunity seems less humanitarian tha nnot permitting liberal immigration at all. We hope, however, that legislators in Washington Wash-ington are not influenced by the scare tactics of many groups opposing the new immigration bill. These groups claim that the n.ew statute would "open the floodgates of Asia and Africa" for immigration immi-gration into the United States by eliminting the qouta system. Certainly, rational legislation can come up with a modification of existing immigration laws which preserves pre-serves the economi cand social stability of the United States and yet affords a more just and equitable opportunity op-portunity for citizens of other nations who wish to become be-come Americans. |