Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Statement by the President Following House Judiciary Committee Action on the Immigration Bill.

August 03, 1965

TODAY, the House Judiciary Committee in an act of justice reported out the immigration bill. It is a breakthrough for reason, a triumph for fair play.

Since my first weeks as President, I have labored to bring realism and understanding to the immigration procedures of this Nation. Today, the House Judiciary Committee, in enthusiastic bipartisan concert, determined to redeem the pledge of this Nation to posterity--that free men have no fear of justice, and proud men have no taste for bias.

Families can now be united; skillful artisans whose trades are depicted here can now fill those voids--and we need no longer turn away from what is just to accept what has been alien to the American dream.

This bill does not signify that the floodgates are open. But it does say, without doubts, that the national origins procedure, which has since 1924 shamefully governed immigration in this country, will be forever abandoned. Now the country of a man's birth does not need to disbar him from our society.

Walt Whitman once sang his American saga in these words: "These states are the amplest poem; here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations." This new immigration bill sings the same kind of melody.

I congratulate the House Judiciary Committee, Democrats and Republicans alike. I urge the prompt consideration of this reported bill by the House. I hope the Senate will report this bill swiftly and that both Houses of the Congress will wash away a stain on our national conscience and in its place engrave the mark of a just and hopeful country.

Note: The bill amending the Immigration and Nationality Act was approved by the President on October 3, 1965 (see Item 546).

Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President Following House Judiciary Committee Action on the Immigration Bill. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241267

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