[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 96 (Wednesday, June 24, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6995-S7007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. AKAKA (for himself, Mr. Inouye, Mr. Kennedy, and Ms. 
        Cantwell):
  S. 1337. A bill to exempt children of certain Filipino World War II 
veterans from the numerical limitations on immigrant visas; to the 
Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I am introducing the Filipino Veterans 
Family Reunification Act of 2009. I am pleased that my colleagues, 
Senators Inouye, Kennedy and Cantwell, have joined me in introducing 
this bill. Our bill will reunite Filipino World War II veterans who are 
U.S. citizens and U.S. residents with their children in the 
Philippines, who have languished for years on the visa waiting list. In 
seeking an exemption from the numerical limitation on immigrant visas 
for the children of the Filipino veterans, our bill will address and 
resolve an issue rooted in a set of historical circumstances that are 
now nearly 7 decades old.
  In 1934, the Philippines, an American possession since 1898, was 
placed on the path to independence. The enactment of the Philippine 
Independence Act established the Philippines as a commonwealth with 
certain powers over its internal affairs but with the United States 
retaining sovereign power. It also set a 10-year timetable for the 
commonwealth's independence from the U.S.
  In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to Japan's 
increasingly aggressive military posture in Asia and the Pacific by 
issuing a presidential order that called and ordered into the service 
of the Armed Forces of the United States all of the organized military 
forces of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. The authority for this 
presidential order was the Philippine Independence Act, which retained 
for the United States sovereign power over the commonwealth. 
Accordingly, over 200,000 Filipinos were drafted into the United States 
armed forces, and served honorably during World War II.
  In 1942, Congress passed the Second War Powers Act, including 
Sections 701 and 702, Nationality Act of 1940, which authorized the 
naturalization of all aliens serving in the U.S. armed forces. Pursuant 
to this act, about 7,000 Filipinos serving in the U.S. armed forces 
outside the Philippines became U.S. citizens. Naturalization of the 
Filipinos who had served in the U.S. armed forces in the Philippines 
began in Manila in August 1945, but was halted two months later when 
the American vice consul's naturalization authority was revoked.
  At the time, U.S. officials indicated that the government of the 
Commonwealth of the Philippines had expressed concerns that the 
naturalization, and likely emigration to the U.S., of the Filipino 
veterans would drain the soon-to-be-independent Philippines of 
essential manpower and undermine the new nation's postwar 
reconstruction efforts. Others, however, believed this was a pretext 
for what came to be known as the Rescissions Act of 1946.
  In February and May 1946, the 79th Congress passed the First 
Supplemental Surplus Appropriations Rescission Act, PL 79-301, and the 
Second Supplemental Surplus Appropriations Rescission Act, PL 79-391, 
respectively. Now collectively known as the Rescissions Act of 1946, PL 
79-301 authorized a $200 million appropriation to the Commonwealth Army 
of the Philippines conditioned on a provision that service in the 
Commonwealth Army of the Phillippines should not be deemed to have been 
service in the active military or air service of the U.S.
  It would take Congress more than four decades to acknowledge that the 
Filipino World War II veterans had, indeed, served in the U.S. armed 
forces.

[[Page S7007]]

The Immigration Act of 1990 included a provision that offered the 
opportunity to obtain U.S. citizenship to those Filipino veterans who 
had not been naturalized pursuant to the Nationality Act of 1940. And 
nineteen years later, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ARRA, 
of 2009 included a provision that authorized the payment of benefits to 
the 30,000 surviving Filipino veterans in the amount of $15,000 for 
those who are citizens and $9,000 for those who are non-citizens.
  Of the 30,000 surviving Filipino World War II veterans, 7,000 are 
U.S. citizens and reside in this country. Many of these U.S. citizens 
filed visa petitions for their children, who remained in the 
Philippines. Now in their eighties and nineties, these men continue to 
wait for their children, who languish on the visa waiting lists, to 
join them. The Filipino Veterans Family Reunification Act exempts the 
veterans' children, about 20,000 individuals in all, from the numerical 
limitation on immigrant visas. It does not require any appropriation 
and will serve to not only reunite these veterans with their children, 
but also honor their too-long-forgotten World War II service to this 
Nation.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

                                S. 1337

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Filipino Veterans Family 
     Reunification Act of 2009''.

     SEC. 2. EXEMPTION FROM IMMIGRANT VISA LIMIT.

       Section 201(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 
     U.S.C. 1151(b)(1)) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:
       ``(F) Aliens who are eligible for a visa under paragraph 
     (1) or (3) of section 203(a) and who have a parent who was 
     naturalized pursuant to section 405 of the Immigration Act of 
     1990 (Public Law 101-649; 8 U.S.C. 1440 note).''.
                                 ______