The House voted by a better than two-thirds majority today for immigration legislation permitting more than 60, 000 additional immigrants to enter the United States in the next year.
The House approved by 293-58 the Senate-passed bill which provides for minor revision of the McCartan-Walter Act. The House also passed technical amendments which are expected to receive swift Senate approval, ensuring enactment of the immigration measure before adjournment this week.
Of particular importance in the bill is the re-allocation of 18, 656 visas which were left unused under the Refugee Relief Act of 1953. Of these, 14, 000 are earmarked for escapees from Soviet orbit areas. The remainder will be available for Jewish refugees from Egyptian persecution as well as other persecutees. The bill drops mortgages against quotas of certain Iron Curtain countries, including the Baltic States, and provides for the admission of 2, 500 German expellees.
House Majority Leader John W. McCormack, in a statement to the JTA, said the bill was good as far as it went and paved the way for extensive liberalization of the immigration statutes in future sessions.
Chairman Emanuel Caller (Dem. , N. Y. ) of the House Judiciary Committee, emphasized that the bill passed today was not only acceptable and certain of enactment but had good features, such as a provision making possible the reuniting of families by lifting certain immigration restrictions. Caller was largely responsible for the overwhelming vote in favor of the bill.
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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.
