A sharp rise in the number of immigrants from southern Europe and Asia since the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965 was reported by Acting Attorney General Ramsey Clark yesterday. Thousands of families were re-united last year, the Justice Department official disclosed, in making public preliminary figures compiled by Raymond F. Farrell, Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The statistics showed that 338,000 immigrants were given permanent resident status in 1966, compared with 311,668 in 1965, and that seven countries, which formerly had comparatively small quotas, showed impressive increases. Greece, which listed 3,303 immigrants in 1965, jumped to 14,586 last year; Italy, with a previous listing of 12,520, recorded a total of 38,427 last year; and Portugal, with only 2,277 in 1965 totaled 15,802 in 1966.
However, there was a drop in immigration from Norway and Poland, the former listing 1,444 last year compared with 2,321 in 1965; and 6,663 from Poland last year, compared with 9,529 in 1965. The report, which did not identify immigrants by religion. did not indicate how many of the newcomers may have been Jewish.
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