The letter addressed to President Roosevelt by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, in behalf of a number of prominent American women, asks that American consular officers be instructed to give sympathetic consideration to applicants for visas who are victims of political, racial or religious persecution. The letter refers to “the executive order of President Hoover, issued as a news release in September, 1930, which authorized the State Department to warn American consular officers to require definite proof that an alien applying for an immigration visa will not become a public charge in this country and thus add to our unemployment problem.”
The letter further points out that “the total number of refugees from Germany of all races and creeds admitted to the United States, since July, amounts to less than 600.”
Under the immigration law the German quota is 25,957. The number of immigrants from Germany admitted to the United States during the past year was the smallest in many years.
It should be remembered that the so-called “Hoover executive order,” which did not bear his signature, was issued in 1930, long before the political, racial and religious persecutions in Germany had commenced. During the fiscal years of 1931 and 1932 more German applicants were granted American visas than during 1933, when the persecutions reached shocking proportions.
It is gratifying to learn that the Department of State and the Department of Labor are now elaborating plans for a liberalized interpretation of the immigration laws in the cases of bona fide political, racial or religious refugees. As the greatest democracy and the foremost tower of moral power, the United States could hardly justify at this particular time the abandonment of its historic traditions of asylum for victims of political or religious persecution.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
