Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill to Amend the Immigration and Nationality Act.

I HAVE TODAY approved S. 2792, a bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act. This measure, while making improvements in present practices, is a disappointment in that it fails to deal with many of the serious inequities inherent in the Immigration and Nationality Act. The new law puts into effect some of the recommendations which I made to the Congress on January 31, 1957, but it does not include many other important changes which I recommended at that time.

1. I think that it is particularly regrettable that the Congress did not provide a method whereby the thousands of brave and worthy Hungarian refugees who have suffered so much at the hands of Communism, might in the future acquire permanent residence, looking forward to citizenship.

2. There is also a serious omission in the legislation in that Congress has failed to legislate specific policies as to the future methods of admission into the United States of refugees and escapees from persecution and oppression.

3. I am also disappointed that the Congress did not provide for basing the immigration quota upon the census of population for 1950 in place of the 1920 census, so as to substantially to increase the quota, and further that no provision has been made for the distribution of unused quota visas.

These and other important recommendations which I made last January deserve the careful attention of the Congress and should be promptly considered at the beginning of the next session.