U.S. Eases Immigration Laws

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31662, 24 April 1968, Page 8

U.S. Eases Immigration Laws

(Fr Am

FRANK OLIVER.

N.Z P A

lipecial correspondent)

WASHINGTON, April 23.

Although America’s new immigration laws do not come into full force until July, the authorities have for some time been easing the restrictions, and the pattern of immigration into the United States is showing a distinct change.

The Oriental influx has reached considerable proportions and shows every indication of increasing. “Jet aircraft flying in from the Orient have become twentieth

century Mayflowers," says one Newspaper. When one jet flew in to Los Angeles recently from Hong Kong 80 of its 120 passengers were Chinese immigrants. Indeed, so great has become the traffic in Chinese immigrants from Asia that airlines are using Chinesespeaking stewardesses to serve Chinese food; and airlines are quoting one-way flights from Hong Kong to the United States at a 25 per cent discount for immigrants. Fewer British, Dutch and German nationals are coming in, but many more Italians, Greeks, Chinese, Portuguese, and Filipinos are. And the change is expected to become even more pronounced after July 1, when the last traces of the "national origins quota system” disappear, after 40 years.

The quota system sought to preserve the balance that existed when the 1920 census was taken, but was not maintained.

Britain and Ireland, for instance, had 70 per cent of the quota for that hemisphere but never filled it. Britain was allotted over 65,000 immigration visas a year, but never came near using all of them—in 1965, Britain and Ireland sent about 30,000 immigrants to the United States, but in 1967 the figure dropped to just over 23,000. Meanwhile, emigration from Canada and LatinAmerica was allowed to continue without numerical restriction.

Asians were all but excluded from the system, which, over the years, resulted in a good deal of smuggling of Chinese into Florida from such places as Cuba.

The new law, wiping out all national origin provisions, permits 170,000 immigrants a year to come from Europe, Asia and Africa, and 120,000 from Canada and LatinAmerica.

The differences are easy to see, Britain, under the old law, received 65,000 visas, and Germany nearly 26,000 but Japan was restricted to 185 and the Philippines to an even 100. Now, relatives by blood and marriage of United States residents will be allowed in—some of them without being counted against the quota. A considerable proportion

of the quota will be reserved for professional people and the skilled and semi-skilled, and more than 10,000 visas will be reserved for refugees and others who do not fit into the main categories.

As the old rules have been gradually phased out, the formerly low quota countries have been rapidly expanding their flows of immigrants. Almost any person who now wants to enter the United States can obtain a visa easily if he can prove he has professional standing in his own country in any of the 18 fields of activity, such as accounting, architecture, engineering, nursing or pharmacy. Any foreigner who is a pilot, cabinetmaker, typewriter mechanic or any other of 75 different occupations can readily gain entry by obtaining the promise of a job in any State where the Labour Department says there is a shortage of workers in the immigrant’s particular field. In addition, the new law makes it much easier for a foreign student in the United States to exchange his student visa for a permanent one.

Nevertheless, many foreigners try illegal means of prolonging their stay, and many come to America on a tourist visa, not for sightseeing but to find means of staying permanently. In 1967 the authorities ordered no less than 142,343 aliens out of the country because they had no legal right to stay, an increase of 47,000 on the 1965 figure.