Applicants for U.S. Entry Double in Year

The number of immigrants seeking entry into the United States has more than doubled in the last fiscal year, the State Department revealed yesterday. On June 30, 1939, the number of aliens registered at consular offices as prospective immigrants was 657,353, representing a tremendous backlog which could not be exhausted in years under present quotas. In 1938 the applicants totalled 317,606.

Of the present number, 309,782 are chargeable to the German quota and nearly all of these are Jews. Since the German quota is 27,370 annually, it would take eleven years for all these to secure entrance under the quota even if no more applied for immigration.

During the fiscal year ending June 30, only 58,853 quota and 23,813 non-quota visas were issued by consuls abroad, the Department revealed. This is a gain of only 7,000 over the last year, despite the tremendous increase of those seeking entrance, and it is far below the 258,348 visas issued in 1930.

Annual immigration quotas for all countries totals 153,774, so only 38 per cent of the quota for all countries was filled. This was in large measure explained by the fact that only 3,604 persons sought admission from Great Britain although Britain has a quota of 65,721.

Quotas for the following countries were fully issued during the 1939 fiscal year: Albania, Australia, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Greece, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Palestine, Poland, Rumania, Syria, Turkey, Yugoslavia and the Philippine Islands.

Only five per cent of the British quota was filled, eight per cent of the Irish quota of 17,853, 33 per cent of the French and 75 per cent of the Italian. In quotas, nationality is determined entirely by birth.