Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts introduced in the Senate today a bill to admit 89,000 emergency immigration cases, including 5,000 persons–Jews and others–expelled from Egypt.
In a statement to a luncheon of the American Jewish Committee yesterday, Sen. Kennedy expressed the hope that Congress would examine the entire immigration policy “to adapt it to the needs of our present role of world leadership.” He said a new policy should “shape immigration to foreign policy.” He called for “some measure of flexibility to take care of sudden developments like the expulsion of Jews from Egypt or the revolt in Hungary.”
The Senator said he regards as “inadequate” the reasons given by the Attorney General for failing to offer Egyptian Jewish refugees the same emergency parole entry facilities provided to Hungarian refugees. Sen. Kennedy said the Executive Branch possesses “a legal measure of flexibility now in the parole provision.” He said “it has been used only in the case of the Hungarian escapees; and the Attorney General has declined for what I consider to be inadequate reasons to apply it equally to the Middle East.”
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