Implications of the new law for admission of displaced persons to the United States were discussed here today at a conference of the United Service for New Americans attended by representatives of 100 civic organizations and welfare agencies. Principal speakers at the gathering was Harry N. Rosenfield, a member of the Displaced Persons Commission.
“The Displaced Persons Act is an immigration law, but it is an immigration law with “the New Look,” Mr. Rosenfield said. It is unique in American immigration practice, he stressed, because it is as much a resettlement law as an immigration law. “Hitherto, our immigration laws brought people to the shores of our country without any attention to what happened to them thereafter,” he said. “This law is different. It is interested in where they are going, what they are going to do when they get there, and where they are going to live. The resettlement aspects of the DP law loom very large, particularly to organizations of the kind represented by United Service for New Americans.”
Calling for cooperation between voluntary organizations and the DP Commission, Mr. Rosenfield emphasized that “without such cooperation the program is doomed to failure.” He analyzed the various aspects of the DP law and pointed out that some of its provisions “have the effect of discriminating against DP religious groups.” Other speakers who addressed the conference on current aspects of the U.S.N.A.’s program were William Rosenwald, honorary president of the agency, and a national chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, Joseph E. Beck, U.S.N.A. executive director, and Edwin Rosenberg, president of U.S.N.A., who presided at the meeting.
Mrs. Louis Broido, chairman of the conference and first vice-president of U.S.N.A., said that the parley had been summoned to “develop an expanded program to facilitate the settlement and adjustment of immigrants coming to haven on our shores under the DP law.” Technical aspects of the agency’s programs and cooperating local groups in New York were discussed at special panel sessions addressed by experts in the fields of vocational guidance, family service, reception and resettlement, migration and religious problems.
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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.
