Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins today opposed the Reynolds alien restriction and deportation bills as a return to the European system of police surveillance, and Senator Robert R. Reynolds (Dem. ,North Carolina) counter with an attack on German refugees as taking away Americans’ jobs.
In a statement read before the Senate Immigration Committee by Mr. Shaughnessy of the Immigration Service, Secretary Perkins declared that registration of aliens would be a departure from the American system and a return to the European system of governmental and police patrol of the individual.
Senator Reynolds said he was opposed to Miss Perkins as secretary of Labor and would rather have a Secretary who would deport every single alien than one who would not deport any. He attacked the admission of German refugees, asserting that they were taking jobs away from Americans, and submitted affidavits to the committee in support of his contention.
The committee heard other testimony for and against the bills. All five of the measures were opposed by Ralph Emerson, representing the CIC National Maritime Union. Evelyn Hershey, of Philadelphia, representing an Americanization, opposed registration and fingerprinting of aliens. John B. Trevor, head of the “American Coalition of Patriotic and Societies,” supported the bills, declaring it was time to stop “the howls about reunited families and such sob stuff.”
The bills provide, among other things, for suspension of all permanent immigration to this country for ten years, or until the nation’s unemployed were back at work; deportation of criminal aliens, exclusion of aliens inimical to the public interest and registration and fingerprinting of aliens.
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.
