American Immigration Quota to Be Cut Down to 10 Per Cent: Measure Adopted by Congress Immigration Co

The Immigration Committee of the United States House of Representatives, whose new chairman, Congressman Samuel Dick-stein, is himself a Jewish immigrant, has decided by 12 votes against 9 to reduce the present immigration quota to the United States by 90 per cent., so that only 10 per cent. of the present number of quota immigrants will be able to come in if the measure becomes law.

The Immigration Committee has undertaken, however, to support a measure to include wives and children of aliens who are resident in the United States, as non-quota immigrants, to unite families separated by the existing immigration law.

The Committee has also reported favourably on a Bill already adopted by the Senate, to include in the non-quota category the husbands of women who are American citizens, without regard to the date of their marriage, as well as on a Bill exempting from the quota the parents of American citizens if they are over the age of 60.

The Bill to reduce immigration to the United States to 10 per cent. of the existing quotas was introduced in December by Congressman Johnson, who was then Chairman of the Immigration Committee of the House of Representatives, and who is a leader of the immigration restriction movement and was the author of the existing immigration restriction quota law which was enacted in 1924. He had introduced the same bill in the previous session of Congress, when it was passed by the House of Representatives, but could not obtain the approval of the Senate before the adjournment, so that it had to be held over.

About a fortnight ago Congressman Palmsiano introduced a bill in Congress to suspend for five years all immigration to America, except for specified close relatives of residents, to reunite families, and at the discretion of the Secretary of Immigration and Labour, in the case of immigrants “possessing special qualifications”. There would be no limitation on the number of immigrants to be admitted under these two provisions.

The effect of President Hoover’s instructions to American Consuls abroad to restrict the issue of visas, on account of the existing unemployment in America, has in any case, been to cut down immigration to such an extent that in January, the last month for which official figures are available, although visas could be issued under the quota law to 14,838 intending immigrants, they were granted only to 842, less than six per cent. of the allowable total of visas under the law.

214 Jewish immigrants came into the United States during January, the Immigration Bureau of the Department of Immigration and Labour has stated. In the period from July 1931 to January 1932 the number of Jewish immigrants arriving in the United States was 1,669. During the same period 1,030 Jewish emigrants left the United States, and in January the number of Jewish emigrants was 59.