New Immigration Bill Would Admit 15,000 Above Quota in “humanity and Justice” Cases

A bill which would give the Secretary of Labor discretion to admit 15,000 immigrants per year free of any quota limitations in cases where the “dictates of humanity and justice demand,” was introduced yesterday into the House of Representatives by Congressman William Sirovich of New York.

This bill would take care, for example, Congressman Sirovich said, of orphans having American relatives and other cases of extreme hardship and separation of families now barred by technicalities in the law. Another provision of the bill proposes a change in the present law by restricting preference visas for agriculturists to five per cent of the quota, instead of twenty-five percent, which Congressman Sirovich said is now alloted to this class under the law which sets aside fifty percent of the quota for sharing between certain relatives and agriculturists. Congressman Sirovich’s bill provides that this difference of twenty per cent should be set aside for preference to brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces.

Explaining his bill, Congressman Sirovich declared that he really favors eliminating visas to non-preference quota immigrants entirely and confining quota visas to relatives only because the number of quota immigrants allowed to enter annually is so small. He said relatives would have a much better economic opportunity in America, whereas non-relatives must inevitably experience a difficult struggle with no one to assist them. He further declared that there is a great moral justification for reuniting relatives.

Congressman Sirovich said that Chairman Johnson of the House Immigration Committee had expressed himself as being sympathetically inclined toward the bill.