President Johnson Discusses Easing of Immigration at White House Talk

The hope that the majority of the members of Congress would support the bill to amend the present immigration laws was expressed today by President Johnson in a meeting attended by members of the Congressional committees dealing with the bill and by representatives of 36 American organizations interested in immigration problems.

The bill would gradually abolish the present national-origins quota system, and replace it by objective criteria concerning the qualifications of the immigrant, his relationship to persons in the United States, etc. President Johnson, addressing the meeting, described these new criteria as “full of common sense, common decency, which operate for the common good.”

The President pointed out that his predecessors, Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy, have all asked for a revision of the present statutes. President Truman said that the idea behind the present law was that “citizens of English or Irish origin were better American than those with Italian, Greek or Polish names.” Such a concept “is utterly unworthy of our traditions and ideals,” President Johnson declared.

Pointing at the enormous discrepancies between the supply and demand of immigrant visas under the present law – Britain has a quota of 65,000 and uses less than half of that; while Greece, for example has a quota of 309 and a current backlog of over 100,000 applications – the President urged members of the Congressional committees to act on the new bill under the Golden Rule to “do unto others as we would have them do unto us.” The president stressed that the new bill, when enacted, would serve the national interest.

MAJOR JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS REPRESENTED AT WHITE HOUSE PARLEY

Among the organizations attending the White House conference were: The Joint Distribution Committee, represented by Edward M. M. Warburg and Moses A. Leavitt; United Hias Service, represented by Murray I. Gurfein, president, James P. Rice, executive director, and Ann S. Petluck, director of U.S. operations; the American Jewish Committee, represented by A. M. Sonnabend, president and Irving Engel, honorary president; the Jewish War Veterans and the National Community Relations Advisory Council, represented by Albert Ahrent; and the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League, represented by Dore Schary, president and Herman Edelsberg, Washington representative.

The President was flanked by Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi; Philip A. Hart of Michigan and Kenneth B. Keating of New York; and Congressmen Michael A. Feighan of Ohio, Peter W. Rodino of New Jersey, and Arch A. Moore of West Virginia, members of the Joint Committee on Immigration and Nationality Policy. Present at the meeting were also Myer Feldman, White House assistant; Abba Schwartz, administrator of the Bureau of Consular Affairs of the Department of State; Senator Edward Kennedy, brother of the late President; and Commissioner Ray Farrell, of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Congressman Feighan, chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration in the House of Representatives, in his brief remarks, declared that indeed there should be a revision and a “very extensive look and see at the immigration policy.” He declared that priority should be given to hearings on this bill, and promised as expeditious action as possible. Sen. Eastland, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, however, was somewhat more reserved, promising to look into the matter “carefully and very expeditiously.”