Congressional leaders today gave a cold reception to President Eisenhower’s request for legislation to correct injustices in the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act. It appears that there is no chance of securing any revision during this session of Congress.
Sen. Arthur V. Watkins, chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee which received the President’s plea for consideration of liberalizing immigration changes, said he has no present plans to schedule hearings. “It is too early to start writing amendments to a law that has only been in operation two or three months,” he stated.
Rep. Francis E. Walter, a co-author of the controversial law, joined with Sen. Watkins in sharply disagreeing with Mr. Eisenhower on certain aspects of specific objections against the Act. Rep. Walter said the President has “joined the army of critics who have failed to read the Act they criticize.”
(In New York today, the Herald Tribune, editorially called for Congressional action to admit to the United States 240,000 immigrants over and above the regular quotas during a two-year period, as requested last week by President Eisenhower. The newspaper said that the U. S. “can, by example and leadership, inspire other countries to do their share in the resettlement of these people.”)
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