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American Legion Officers Ask Congress to Strengthen Immigration and Deportation Laws

April 22, 1947
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Emphasizing that the American Legion is opposed to any relaxation of the existing immigration laws, Col, Thomas Taylor, the Legion’s legislative director, today told the House Sub-Committee on Immigration that there were thousands of “so-called refugees” in Europe “conniving and waiting and scheming to get into this country.”

“Instead of finding some way to get them in, can’t we find out some American way to get such people out of here,” he said, urging Congress “to strengthen the immigration and deportation laws.” He spoke at a hearing on the Fellows Bill to permit the Attorney General to suspend deportation of aliens “of good moral character” who had lived in the United States for five years or more. Janes O’Neill, another officer of the American Legion, also testified in opposition to the bill.

John K. Scott, assistant legislative director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said his group considered the bill “repugnant to our national immigration policy because it represents a marked whittling down of our immigration structure.”

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