TO AMEND THE IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1970

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE No. 1

OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

Washington, D.C.

The Subcommittee met at 9:40 a.m., in room 2237, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Michael A. Feighan (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Feighan, Rodino, Eilberg, Dennis, and Mayne.

Also Present: Garner J. Cline, counsel, and Donald G. Benn, associate counsel.

Mr. FEIGHAN. The Subcommittee will come to order.

We are pleased, again, to have with us Father Joseph A. Cogo, S.C., executive secretary of the American Committee for Italian Migration. We had the privilege of having Father Cogo testify last week, at which time we were forced to close our hearings because of time limitations.

Father had presented his testimony and we were in the process of asking questions. So perhaps this morning, Father you might like to make some observations or a résumé before we proceed with the questions.

Father CoGo. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Again I express on behalf of the Subcommittee a very warm and cordial welcome to you. We are very pleased to have you, and appreciate your contribution to the work of this Subcommittee.

STATEMENT OF FATHER JOSEPH A. COGO, S.C., EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ITALIAN MIGRATION— Resumed

Father CoGo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I should like to make a summary of the contents of my testimony before you July 29th and here are the salient points:

We like the law as it is because we feel the principles are sound, the priority for relatives coming to join their families justified, the system of preferences and percentages substantially realistic.

To make the law even more fair and workable, we suggest amendments to include parents of alien residents in the preferances.

We approve of the suggestions offered to reduce the first preference from 20 percent to 10 percent and to increase 5 percent each the third and sixth preferences.

We reject the suggestions offered to eliminate the category of married brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens for fear that backlogs will, otherwise, always recur.

Backlogs under fifth preference are now existing only in Italy and in the Philippines. In Italy, because it is an accumulation of many years of discrimination of the old law; in the Philippines because the third preference preempts all visas.

So in both cases the backlog is not caused by imbalance of demand and supply. In the case of Italy, the last 5-year experience shows an average annual demand of 6,000, which is perfectly within the number allotted under the present law.

The Italian fifth preference backlog, which to date amounts to about 30,000, should be cleared.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Pardon me.

Father CoGo. My sources indicate that the following are the numbers of new registrations: 1966, 14,882; 1967, 6,297; 1968, 5,509; 1969, 5,092; January through June 1970, 3,271, which is a total of 35,051.

I quoted 30,000 instead of 35,000 because possibly some of the 1966 petitions may have already been processed, and I omitted the incomplete count of January through June 1970. This is why I quoted 30,000 instead of 35,000.

Mr. FEIGHAN. I do not doubt the accuracy of your statement, nor do I doubt the accuracy of the statement saying 46,000, but one of them is probably in error. I do not know which.'

Father Coco. Would you like me to disclose the sources of the figures?

Mr. FEIGHAN. Yes.

Father CoGo. The State Department, as recently as July 23, 1970. Mr. RODINO. Was that in a communication to you?

Father CoGo. Yes; that is correct.

Mr. RODINO. A communication to you?

Father CoGo. Possibly not an official communication. These figures have been submitted to me as a result of my inquiry during a private conference with the visa section.

Mr. RODINO. Unless the chairman and I are mistaken, I recall the State Department testified and the figure that they gave, presented to this committee, was around 46,000.

Father CoGo. They probably included also the unfinished petitions of 1965. I disregard that backlog as the priority date now is January 1,

1966.

Mr. RODINO. I see.

Mr. FEIGHAN. They are talking about the backlog.

Father Coco. The priority date is January 1, 1966. As I said before, the State may be counting the registrations which are being handled presently.

Mr. FEIGHAN. For the purposes of the record, Mr. George Owen, of the Visa Office, is here and-off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. FEIGHAN. Mr. Owen, would you give us the statistics as you have had them compiled?

STATEMENT OF GEORGE OWEN, VISA OFFICE-Resumed

Mr. OWEN. I think, when we make up these tabulations of numbers, there are many factors, sometimes, which will appear in one set of figures and which will not have appeared in another.

The difficulty, here, is that the figures Father Cogo has exclude some 19,000 applicants reported by Naples and Palermo, after a canvass of their waiting lists, as the number that probably will not really show up for visas, as being the kind of people who have either decided not to come or who are unable to come.

So there is a difference here of about 20,000.

For those who have priority dates prior to January 1, 1966, the figure that Father Cogo has, is 26,000; 46,000 is the figure Miss Watson said yesterday. This includes those whom Naples and Palermo reported probably would not show up. I think that is the main difference.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Thank you very much for that clarification since Father Cogo, I believe, used the Visa Office as the source of information.

Mr. OWEN. Yes.

Also, every month there are new registrants with very early priority dates, because there are new children, new dependents of fifth preference registrants. These figures can change every month.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. OWEN. I think that explains the discrepancy between the figures. We cannot say that those who are likely not to show up to get their visas will surely not do so. They may appear 10 years later to resume their application.

Mr. FEIGHAN. There is a certain amount of conjecture. We cannot assume any guess, however educated it may be.

Thank you.

Father Coco. We feel that the backlog should be cleared because it is not caused by the new law, but it is a vestige of old law. Therefore, if we want the new law to really be fair, it should start with a clean slate.

The skilled workers should always be allotted their minimum share, even in each country. The sixth preference Italian problem and the problem for lower categories than the third in the Philippines should not be allowed to occur.

To this end, we suggested that, also, the per country limitation be applied in the administration of the law to allow each preference in every country to receive its minimum share.

With reference to the Western Hemisphere, we approve, in principle, that the same system of preferences and percentages be applied as in the Eastern Hemisphere and that the ceiling for both hemispheres be eventually combined.

However, we think this is premature to enact at this time when there is lack of experience as to the nature of the immigration from the Western Hemisphere. Therefore, we suggest the system of preferences and percentages be applied, but the ceiling be kept separate until such time as enough experience has been obtained.

We approve of the proposal to increase the per country ceiling up to 25,000 or even 30,00 as a practical way to meet real problems and needs of several countries.

Regarding the new seed immigration, we are not unhappy with the amount of people admitted, for instance, in 1969, 14.1 percent, plus the refugees, plus also, in a way, all those under the third and sixth preferences.

This concludes the contents of my testimony, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Thank you very much, Father Cogo. I would like to ask you, in view of the fact that H.R. 9112 and H.R. 17370, and H.R. 17856, introduced by Chairman Celler, Mr. Rodino, and Mr. Eilberg, would place the refugees within the parole authority of the Atttorney General and outside the numerical preference system; H.R. 15092, which I introduced, would retain the seventh preference for refugees and the Attorney General would retain his authority to parole additional refugees into the United States under emergency circumstances. Would you care to comment on the differences in approach taken in each of these bills?

Father CoGo. First of all, we are not experts on refugees, although recent developments in Libya seem to indicate that Italy may still be confronted with refugees. Newspapers report that some 30,000 Italians may face eviction from Libya.

I feel, however, that a certain fixed number for refugees should be established in the law. In addition, there should be a provision in the law that would allow the administration or the Attorney General to parole additional refugees in in times of emergency.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Of course, as you know, the preference allowance for the refugees reached its maximum numerical limitation before the end of this fiscal year. The full Committee wrote to the Attorney General requesting that he use his parole authority to parole those who were in excess of the number under the law.

That is being done, or was done. I do not know offhand just the exact number in excess of the 10,200 that were allocated under the law. In other words, that is more or less what you had in mind?

Father CoGo. Yes.

Mr. RODINO. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. FEIGHAN. Mr. Rodino.

Mr. RODINO. Father Cogo, bearing in mind that Italy some time ago experienced a terrible catastrophe in Sicily, the Sicilian earthquake, there was quite a clamor here, and there was a good deal of demand on the part of some of the people who were displaced at that time and were seeking refuge, who made it known to people who had sympathies with them over here that they were seeking some kind of relief. The question then arose whether or not we should do it by some legislation. I was interested in legislation. So were many, many of the others who understood the problem, which in my judgment seemed catastrophic, at least at that moment.

Would that be the kind of situation when you talk about emergencies? Because you know emergency is a very broad term. Would that be the kind of situation that you would contemplate?

Father CoGo. Yes, sir; exactly that.

Mr. RODINO. That there be that kind of flexibility on the part of, say, the President?

Father Coco. That is right. I was thinking of that exact circumstance.

Mr. RODINO. That is all I have on that score, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Mr. Eilberg?

Mr. EILBERG. Yes. I am curious. I do not know how relevant this is. But where are the principals in the country located? Do you have any statistics or information along those lines as far as the backlog in the fifth preference is concerned?

Father CoGo. In Italy?

Mr. EILBERG. I meant to ask how many of the families, percentagewise or numerical, live in Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, for example. Father CoGo. I see. I do not have the exact statistics but I think that the major concentration of Italians is in the New York metropolitan area, where we understood about a third of the new immigrants would settle. Then a good number is also in Chicago, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. These are the major points of concentration of newly arrived Italian immigrants, while is a reflection of the old immigration, also.

Mr. EILBERG. If you increase the percentage of numbers available to the third preference and have a fall down from the first two preferences to the third preference, is it not true that the Philippines would be the principal beneficiaries of this change in the law?

Father CoGo. That is correct. That is why I was suggesting that a per country limitation be applied so that no one higher preference would preempt visas to lower preferences.

Take the Philippines as an example. If we apply a per country limitation as well as we apply it worldwide, then this would not happen because the Philippines third preference would only take the numbers allotted to first, second, and third category, and the other numbers will go down to the lower categories.

Mr. EILBERG. Also, by a fall down in the first and second preferences to third preference, is it not so that the fifth preference for brothers and sisters would be disadvantaged since first and second now fall to fourth and fifth?

Father CoGo. It will be a disadvantage only in the sense that the brothers and sisters will not actually be able to receive as many numbers as they do now.

It is more proper to say that their present privileged situation is causing a direct disadvantage to lower categories, primarily the skilled workers. If a backlog has to be faced on account of imbalance between demand and supply, I think it is more readily tolerable under fifth preference which, after all, represents the loosest kind of family relationship.

Mr. RODINO. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. EILBERG. Sure.

Mr. RODINO. To revert back to the question that was asked by Mr. Eilberg, your answer, Father Cogo, that you would like to see a per country limitation as to preference, do I understand you to mean that the numbers that now apply in various preferences you would want to relate to the particular countries too?

Father CoGo. That is correct.

Mr. RODINO. In other words, if one country were about to use up or absorb most of the numbers allotted to that preference, you would limit, instead, to either a percentage or the number of the preference?

Father CoGo. Exactly, yes. I think that should not be excessively difficult, especially in view of the fact that only a few countries have the problem of few higher categories preempting all the visas.