The House of Representatives today passed a DP immigration bill increasing the number of DP’s who may enter this country from 205, 000 in two years to 339,000 in three years. The bill also eliminates a number of features of the old DP law which President Truman assailed as “anti-Semitic.” The measure, which was passed by a voice vote, now goes to the Senate.
The vote followed a lengthy and heated debate in the Souse during which opponents of the measure, led by Rep. Ed Gossett of Texas, made anti-Semitic assertions. Gossett also asked what measures were being taken to provide for the Volksdeutsche expelled from Poland and Czechoslovakia and for the Arab refugees from Palestine. He suggested that the DP’s be sent for resettlement to Kenya, in Central Africa.
Gossett was supported by Reps. Frank Fellows of Maine and Karl Stefan of Nebraska, both of whom spoke about the plight of the Volksdeutsche and against Jewish refugees.Rep. Jacob K. Javits of New York asserted that Israel has taken more than its share of DP’s–about three times as many as the total number so far brought to the United States under the DP Act of 1948. “It is a source of deep gratification to me at this time that there is no necessity of having to debate about displaced persona who are Jews,” he said. “The heroic people of Israel have thoroughly taken care of that.”
Specific replies to Rep. Gossett’s attacks on Jewish DP’s were made by Reps. James G. Fulton of Pennsylvania, Kenneth B. Keating of New York and Frank L. Chelf of Kentucky, all of whom had visited Jewish DP comps. They denied his charges that the Jews in the camps are Communists.
Among the provisions of the bill is one advancing the “cut-off date” from Dec. 22, 1945, to Jan. 1, 1949.The legislation, which was drafted by a Judiciary Committee subcommittee, headed by Rep. Emanuel Celler of New York, also abolished special priorities for Balts and agricultural workers, which were major bottlenecks of the old law. It provides for the entrance of 18,000 former members of Gen. Wladislaw Anders Second Polish Corps, 4,000 Shanghai refugees and 2,000 DP orphans. However, the bill makes no changes in the requirements that a DP be guaranteed a job and a home before he is admitted.
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