John F. Kennedy on Families & Children

Find simple, effective, inexpensive fertility control

Actually Kennedy had long been concerned about the implications of population growth for economic development. In 1959, for example, John Cowles made a speech on the population problem, arguing that "unless we want to see the conditions that exist in India and in Egypt spread over the rest of the world, the scientists must find some method of simple, inexpensive and effective fertility control"; and Kennedy inserted it in the Congressional Record as "a challenging panorama of the developments abroad which will shape our foreign policy during the next decades."

Remove barriers to reuniting immigrant families

First, parents of American citizens, who now have a preferred quota status, should be accorded nonquota status.

Second, parents of aliens resident in the US, who now have no preference, should be accorded a preference, after skilled specialists and other relatives of citizens and alien residents.

These changes will have little effect on the number of immigrants admitted. They will have a major effect insofar as they relieve the hardship many of our citizens and residents now face in being separated from their parents.

These changes will not solve all the problems of immigration. But they will insure that progress will continue to be made toward our ideals and toward the realization of humanitarian objectives.