President Eisenhower today failed to support the bill to revise the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, sponsored by Republicans. The President told a press conference that while he urged a complete review and study of the injustices in the Act he had not read the bill introduced by Sen. Irving M. Ives, Rep. Jacob K. Javits and seven other Republican Congressmen who submitted it as the Administration’s revision of the McCarran-Walter Act after carrying out the sort of study to which the President referred.
Asked by a JTA reporter about his attitude toward legislation of the nature of the “Administration” measure to revise the controversial immigration act, the President replied that he had not read the corrective bill submitted by the Republicans avowedly on behalf of the Administration. The President did not repudiate or oppose the attempt at revision, but simply failed to support it.
However, the President added that he has in the past urged that there be a complete review of the original act in order that we may take out of it what appear to be palpable injustices and inequities and certainly to study all of them to see whether there is not something we may do.
He said that in asking for the Emergency Refugee Act of 1953 the purpose was to provide an avenue by which refugees and others could come into the United States. It was known, he said, the administration of the 1953 Refugee Act has been slow and difficult. He added that what he has been putting his attention on lately is trying to get the administration of that 1953 act straightened out so that it can work effectively.
A major reason why the 1953 Refugee Act has failed to work effectively, according to Republican advocates of the McCarran-Walter revision bill, is the fact that the 1953 act is based on the inequities of the McCarran-Walter Act which was passed in 1952. They feel that a first step in solving the immigration problem involving the 1953 act involves the revision of the earlier McCarran-Walter Act. Some elements in the Administration sought to portray the 1953 act as the Republicans’ “revision” of the McCarran-Walter Act.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
