President Eisenhower, in his radio report to the American people tonight described the adoption of the 1953 Emergency Refugee Act as one of the 12 major “accomplishments” of the new Administration.
Tonight’s address contained no mention of the President’s previous request for revision of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, a request he addressed to Congress last year with no results.
The 1953 Refugee Act to which President Eisenhower referred tonight has been described by former Solicitor General Philip Perlman, chairman of a Presidential Commission on Immigration and Naturalization, as even worse than the McCarran-Walter Act.
The President will have another opportunity to repeat his 1952 request for McCarran-Walter revision on Thursday when he makes his State of the Union address to Congress. In his address tonight the President covered the whole field of immigration by merely saying “emergency immigration legislation has been exacted.”
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