A State Department visa official today welcomed “constructive criticism and cooperation” on immigration laws from interested citizens and groups, but insisted that the McCarran-Walter Act is law and “we cannot take liberty with its language or intent.”
Frank L. Auerbackt, special assistant to the director of the visa office, spoke before a meeting of the American Immigration Conference held at the annual forum of the National Conference of Social Work here. He said that “whenever the law vests us with discretionary authority we have made and will make every effort to give it the most reasonable interpretation.”
The official spoke on the three major principles underlying U.S. immigration laws: the national origins system of quota laws, the good neighbor policy according non-quota status to natives of independent Western Hemisphere countries, and the principle of family unification.
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