Senator KENNEDY. A fourth item on the agenda is the need to further implement the democratic concepts of human dignity and equal opportunity under law. Long overdue, for example, is a statue of limitations in deportations.

An additional immigration objective and one which cries out for immediate action-is the urgent need for legislation and administrative rulings to better regulate the flow of workers from Mexico. Among the pending bills is S. 1694, which I introduced last year, and its companion, H.R. 9505, which, again, was introduced by the chairman of this Subcommittee.

The grinding poverty, high unemployment, and low wages in many of our communities along the Mexican border is well known and a national disgrace. The readily available and generally low-paid work force from Mexico is an important factor contributing to this distressing situation. Some measure of relief is needed now-and I strongly urge that the Subcommittee will give this matter top priority in its deliberations over the coming weeks.

In conclusion, let me say, Mr. Chairman, that it is difficult at this time in our Nation's life-when we are faced with convulsive problems at home and abroad-to concentrate effort and concern on the currently less dramatic aspects of our country's progress and pursuit of justice. But certainly there is much to do in perfecting the policy which governs the oldest theme in our Nation's history. And unless informed citizens, the Congress, and the administration give immigration issues the attention they need and deserve, much chaos will result in a significant area of public policy, which will shorten the hopes of many and needlessly injure America's relations with countries throughout the world.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, on that matter, I think there is a remarkable degree of agreement in terms of trying to make some kind of adjustment to this legislation in controlling the border areas through Mexico to the various border States. Obviously, all of us realize the importance of an open border with one of our oldest friends and neighbors, and with whom we enjoy very warm and friendly relations. I think all of us realize as well, how the labor is exploited in those border areas and how, as a result of the importation of the labor, it brings about a depression of wages and conditions in the areas immediately affected.

I would hope that we would be able to get some adjustments made by legislation. The kind of adjustment suggested in this legislation is every 6 months to have a review of the various greencarders or whitecarders who come into the county so they would be able to review the exact working conditions, the employment conditions, and thereby keep a better kind of control over those who are coming in and going out.

As you know, at the present time a whitecarder can get a pass to come into the United States for 72 hours, and once he comes in he is virtually lost in terms of our whole kind of framework. If he were required at the end of 6 months to once again check in so that the immigration authorities would be able to review where he was working and the conditions under which he was working, and a greater degree of control was given to them and to other authorities, I think it would be useful and helpful, and we could then try to adjust, obviously, to

this dilemma of a freer border, and the fact that these individuals and a depressing effect on the working conditions

good friends bring about

there.

I am sure you are well aware of the fact that there are many companies now that are just going into those border areas for the exact purpose of hiring some sort of sweat labor. As a result it is bringing about certain other dislocations and injustices. I think it is a matter of great importance. Hopefully, it would be drawn to the attention of this Subcommittee.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Thank you very much, Senator, for your very precise presentation, which I know will be very helpful to this Subcommittee. It is my understanding that you have another hearing in the Senate at 9:45 and at 10 o'clock you are to chair another hearing.

Senator KENNEDY. That is right.

Mr. FEIGHAN. You have offered, if requested, to appear before this Subcommittee at another time.

Senator KENNEDY. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FEIGHAN. In view of that situation, would you prefer to return at a future date, or would you care to conclude at the present time? Senator KENNEDY. Knowing the reputation of the Interior Committee in terms of promptness and the importance of the piece of legislation we have over there, I would hope that I might be excused. As I indicated, we are having some important hearings on this Public Council Corporation in the Judiciary Committee in the Senate at 10 o'clock. I would be glad at another time, as the hearings proceed, to come back.

Mr. RODINO. Mr. Chairman, why couldn't we let the Senator go, and hopefully he can come back at some other time?

Mr. FEIGHAN. Thank you very much.

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.

Mr. FEIGHAN. We are very fortunate to have as our next witness Mr. Richard Scammon, who is director of the Elections Research Center of the Governmental Affairs Institute, a private nonprofit social science research organization in Washington.

Following service in World War II, Mr. Scammon was head of the elections branch of General Clay's staff in Berlin, charged with developing democratic German electoral institutions. In 1948 to 1955, he was chief of the Division of Research for Western Europe in the Department of State. From 1961 to 1965, he was Director of the Census. In 1963, Mr. Scammon was Chairman of the President's Commission on Registration and Voting Participation.

He is one of the Nation's authorities on elections in this country and overseas. His articles on elections have appeared in the Journal of Politics, American Political Science Review, and in other prominent publications. He is editor of the biennial series of the national election statistics, named "America Votes."

Section 21 of Public Law 89-236 of October 3, 1965, established a Select Commission on Western Hemisphere Immigration. Mr. Scammon served with distinction as Chairman of that Commission. It was the privilege and pleasure of Mr. Rodino and me to serve with Chairman Scammon, and we had a first hand opportunity to observe his exceptional talent and ability.

On behalf of the Subcommittee, Mr. Scammon, I would like to express to you a very warm and cordial welcome. We are very confident that you will be very helpful to us in our deliberations.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD SCAMMON, DIRECTOR OF THE ELECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER OF THE GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS INSTITUTE

Mr. SCAMMON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate a chance to come back and meet with those of you who served with me on the Select Commission and with the staff members of your Subcommittee and Committee who were with us on that work several years ago.

This morning, if I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to confine my comments to the materials laid out in this brief statement that I believe you have and to questions which are outside the preference system, which I know is a major area of your concern.

You will recall that in the work of the Select Commission on Western Hemisphere Immigration, the matter of preferences was casually raised but not discussed in any detail, since it was felt that the larger issues we were concerned with would take up the time that was available to us.

I would express, then, only a personal opinion, that if we are to maintain ceilings, as we have them now, over the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, it would seem to me inconsistent that we maintain a preference system in one part of the world and not in the other; that if we are going to have as many as 290,000 or, I believe, 300,000, or 250,000, whatever the overall international ceiling may be, that this should in equity be operated under a preference system which applies to both areas. This is just a personal judgment and has nothing to do with the work that our Commission engaged in before.

I would like to speak, however, to three specific matters in this larger field of immigration policy.

First, I would like to endorse the proposals that have been made for treating refugees arriving in this country on parole or under the exceptional circumstances of national calamity and persecution, to treat the entry into and the regularization of status of such refugees as a separate problem from that of our regular, normal immigration channel. Specifically, not to count persons regularizing their status who have arrived in this country from Cuba or under comparable circumstances from other countries as chargeable against whatever numerical ceiling may be applied.

This is the view which was expressed by the majority of the Select Commission on Western Hemisphere Immigration in its report of January 1968, and I would commend this opinion to the Subcommittee. Secondly, I would like to urge that the Subcommittee consider, as a matter of immediate concern, the general question with respect to green card commuter border crossers on both the Canadian and Mexican frontiers. I treat of this question not in terms of its larger social and economic patterns. There are many others who have discussed this question-indeed, you recall the Commission, itself, held hearings on this matter-but, rather, because the use of the green card as a work permit cuts down the total number of potential immigrant visas that are effectively used as immigrant visas.

If, in other words, there is a ceiling and some part of that ceiling is used by a Mexican or Canadian national to, in effect, acquire a work permit, rather than a bona fide visa to immigrate, what happens is that the total of 120,000, or 300,000, or whatever it may be, is simply reduced by that many, in terms of a program of bona fide immigration, from those who propose to come into the country, live in it, and become a part of it.

I would urge the Subcommittee to reconsider seriously the possibility of so amending the immigration law as to establish a new kind of card under appropriate legislation and control, which would permit contiguous country nationals-Canadians and Mexicans-to come into the United States and to work under appropriately controlled circumstances without having to waste, in effect, one of the all too few visa quota numbers that are available.

Thirdly, my experience in questions of immigration is limited but I have always been impressed with the fact that in discussions on immigration we never really talk about the net number of people who are coming into the United States. We are always talking about the number of visas issued. We know that there is some migration of Americans to other countries-Canada, Australia, for example. We know that some who take up visas as immigrants come into this country and later return to their own country of origin.

I hope it would be possible, within the Subcommittee perhaps, to develop some plan whereby we could know how much loss there is on this total immigration picture. When we speak now of 300,000, we don't really mean 300,000. What we mean is 300,000, not counting the Americans who leave the country or immigrants who come into the country and then leave it and go back where they came from.

Mr. RODINO. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question?

Mr. FEIGHAN. Mr. Rodino.

Mr. RODINO. Mr. Scammon, in view of your expertise in this area— and I know you work extensively on population figures you touch on something that I think is something very significant. Is there any present indicator now as to how we might arrive at this number?

Mr. SCAMMON. I think you might arrive at it more quickly with respect to Americans emigrating to foreign countries than you would on the basis of the number of immigrants who come in with the green card, establish residence, and then move back.

My recollection-I may be wrong on this-is that the President of the Dominican Republic, Mr. Balaguer, was at one time a landed green card immigrant in this country during a period of difficulty back home. He has now, of course, returned to his country.

Now, as to the ease of securing data of this kind, I have no idea. It doesn't appear to me it would be easy. On the other hand, it might be possible, perhaps by estimation.

Mr. FEIGHAN. If I may interrupt-it is my understanding, Mr. Scammon, there is no record whatever by any agency of the Government of whether those who come here as aliens get their citizenship or not or return to their native country.

Mr. SCAMMON. This would be my understanding, too, Mr. Chairman. I think you would have to raise with the immigration authorities and with the State Department the possibility either (a) as to whether estimates could be made and would be acceptable in the Con

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gress and the administrative agencies, or (b) whether there was really any ability to determine any kind of number that would be meaningful here. It may be that it is not. That is why I think it would be easier to determine the emigration of Americans to other countries. The point I would like to make with the Subcommittee is that we have always been talking, it seems to me-looking at this again as one who has not had a long period of work in the area-we are always talking of gross numbers rather than net numbers. Actually, when we speak of 300,000 immigrants, it is not 300,000 people coming into the United States to settle as immigrants, because there is a loss at the other end of the funnel-of the Americans going out and of immigrants who have come here who are returning to their own countries. Whether we could determine these with ease, without an expenditure of too much of our resources in funding, I don't know. But I would commend it to the Subcommittee as an area which they might wish to look into and see if there is anything that could be done here. If one, for example, were able to add these as quotas in what has been proposed, I think both in your legislation, Mr. Chairman, and yours, Mr. Rodino, with respect to that last 10 percent, the "new seed" immigration, the "he came to this country as a 6-cents-in-hispocket" immigrant, which is so vital, in our American immigration policy, if we could add these extras, it might be helpful.

Let me close with those three observations, if I may, Mr. Chairman, and ask that the detail of the statement be included in the record.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Mr. Scammon, could you generally comment about population trends, economic factors, and other relevant elements and their effect upon prospective immigration from the Western Hemisphere?

Mr. SCAMMON. As you know, Mr. Chairman, immigration from the Western Hemisphere generally has been greatly assisted by air traffic. In the old days when you had to get on a boat, we will say, in Buenos Aires, and come all the way around to New York, this made it difficult, to say the least. But now, particularly from the West Indies, air traffic into the United States is a matter of hours, not of days and weeks and months.

I think another of the reasons for current immigration is that conditions are not worsening but are improving. They are improving to the point at which more people want to make a quantum leap into orbit, so to speak, rather than to stay where they are. And these people have just enough to do it.

Again, I may be wrong, but I would presume that the sentiment in the Congress would never return to the kind of open immigration that we had before the First World War, when we were admitting on the average of a million people a year which, under our present population structure, would be about 2 million entries a year. We take now, say 15 percent of what we would have taken if our older policy were still in effect. I presume that this is bound to be the general opinion in the House and Senate and that the limit will continue to be the national policy.

It would seem to me that what we can best do-and perhaps this is speaking too much from a purely national view-is to see how best we can adjust the character of our national immigration policy within those limitations to improve our own situation. With all respect to our