Joint Distribution Committee resettlement experts from nine European countries last night concluded a two-day conference here called to study the effects of the new refugee immigration act passed by Congress several weeks ago. The JDC men were joined by specialists of the United Service for New Americans and by other leaders in the refugee field.
During the meeting JDC migration officers drafted plans to give assistance to would-be immigrants to the United States and considered ways and means of speeding Jewish refugees to the U.S. It was indicated that JDC and USNA, which sponsored more than two-thirds of all refugees to enter the U.S. in the 1948-51 Truman DP immigrant program, will again sponsor most of the Jewish refugees entering the U.S. under the Eisenhower Administration’s program.
In their reports, JDC officials stressed that most of the refugees registered with the agency’s resettlement department are escapees from Communist countries who previously were victims of the Nazis, As such, it was pointed out, they are eligible to come to the U.S. under the new law.
Among the non-JDC specialists to address the conference were Dr. G. Van Heuven Goedhart, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Ugo Carusi, former U.S. Commissioner for Immigration and Naturalization, former chairman of the Displaced Persons Commission and currently in charge of the refugee program of the Mutual Security Agency.
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