Canadian Jewish Congress Asks I.l.o. to Probe Anti-jewish Discrimination in Migration

Delegates of the Canadian Government to the International Labor Organization now in session here have been urged by the Canadian Jewish Congress to present to the governing body a series of observations on anti-Jewish discrimination in migration, it was reported today.

The Congress charged that discriminatory restrictions against immigrants based upon ethnic origin or religion have played a prominent part in the immigration policy of some countries. “A particularly unjustifiable practice has been that by which under administrative regulations, citizens of European countries who are of Jewish ethnic origin have not been admitted as immigrants into some countries under the same conditions as other citizens of the same countries who are not of Jewish origin,” the Congress complained.

The Canadian delegates to the I.L.O. were requested to bring before the governing body or before the intergovernmental committee which exists to study the problem of discrimination in migration the suggestion that in the cases of refugees who are victims of religious or racial persecution the usual technical restrictions, such as those requiring immigrants to possess proper passports and continuous passage, or prohibiting assisted immigration, should be waived; the status of enemy aliens should not be applied to those citizens of enemy lands who had fled them to avoid religious and racial persecution and an international migration committee should be set up to furnish documents of identity like the Nansen passports after the last war to displaced persons and other victims of religious, racial or political persecution.