President Hoover’s message to Congress to-day came as a great shock, because instead of recommending the liberalisation of the immigration laws, as had been hoped, he came out, instead, for the first time, for the registration of aliens.
On the question of immigration, President Hoover asks in his message that the present drastic restrictions exercised by the United States Consuls abroad should be enacted in law, thereby placing it “upon a more definite basis”, as he writes.
The registration of aliens is recommended by the President so that “aliens lawfully in the country should be protected by the issuance of a certificate of residence”.
The President also recommends the tightening up and strengthening of the deportation laws.
President Hoover was regarded as a friend of immigration liberalisation in America, and when he came into office the immediately found himself in conflict with the Senate over the National Origins Act of the Immigration Law, which he opposed. Finally, he had to give way, however, and the National Origins Act was put into effect.
The growing unemployment in America has given added influence to the anti-immigrationists in Congress, and the drastic powers of restriction at present enjoyed by United States Consuls abroad came into effect as a result of a proclamation issued by President Hoover.
During the last session of Congress Jewish organisations continued to co-operate with Christian and non-sectarian bodies in America which favour a liberal attitude in regard to immigration to oppose the enactment of further restrictive legislation and to bring about changes in the present immigration law which would have the effect of facilitating the admission of relatives of aliens who are already in the country and make the administration of the law humane in other respects.
For years the American Jewish organisations, particularly the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress, have been combating the scheme for the registration of aliens, which the Immigration Department has been advocating for a number of years. Representatives of these organisations have repeatedly appeared in hearings before committees of Congress and Senate to put the views of the Jewish organisations against the proposed alien registration measures.
The American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress have, however, found themselves compelled to confess that in spite of all their efforts the attitude of the Congress is largely a negative one in respect of both the liberalisation of immigration and the naturalisation laws and that efforts were to be expected to make these laws even more restrictive in character.
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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.
