In the current issue of “Social Forces”, published quarterly for The University of North Carolina Press, Harold Fields indicates that in the states of the Union there is an aggregate of 323 laws or regulations preventing aliens from entering most of the professions as well as many of those occupations where licenses are required. Of those regulations. 235 restrict undertakings to citizens only, the major group of which constitute lawyers and accountants.
In his article, Mr. Fields says, “Throughout the United States there is today a consistent attitude among business men and law-makers alike, that has for its announced purpose the refusal to aliens of the right to engage in certain occupations that involve careful and long preparation, such as medicine, law, accounting, teaching, and kindred pursuits which are fast being limited to non-aliens only.
The issuance of licenses is frequently denied to aliens on the legal postulate that the State has a special interest in the privileges covered by such licenses. In many other types of discriminations there is a legal justification in the fact that the Courts have held that these forms of legislation have not violated the spirit nor the letter of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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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.
