Attorney General-designate Nicholas Katzebach today opened testimony to support the Administration’s immigration bill before a Senate Immigration Subcommittee. The President’s proposals, which are destined to eliminate the national origins quota system, were submitted in a special message to the Congress last month.
Mr. Katzenbach, urging abolition of the present system, said: “In such a system of selection, personal pedigree is an intolerable standard; inhumane rigidity is an intolerable method; and national self-deprivation is an absurd sacrifice.” He charged that the present selection factors “are most alien to America” and must be changed. The purpose of the new legislation, he said, is “to help us chose among potential Americans according to standards that are fairer to them and more beneficial to us.”
Senator Jacob K. Javits, New York Republican, appeared before the subcommittee in support of a proposal he and Senators Wayne Morse, Cregon Democrat, and Joseph Clark, Pennsylvania Democrat, are introducing to expedite elimination of the quota system.
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