Sen. Herbert H. Lehman, who has led the Senate fight for liberal immigration legislation, said President Eisenhower’s recommendations today to Congress for immigration reform and for improvements in the Refugee Relief Act “are promising, but do not get to the heart of the matter–the bigoted national origins quota system.” (See President Eisenhower’s recommendations on page 1.)
Chairman Emanuel Celler of the House Judiciary Committee said that the President’s recommendations in the State of the Union message for changes in immigration laws were “a keen disappointment.” “We will accept them,” Mr. Celler said, “but this is contrary to all our expectations. We had been promised a worthwhile program by the Administration. This is nothing. It strikes me that the mountain labors and gives us a mouse.”
Rep. Francis E. Walter, chairman of the House Immigration Subcommittee and coauthor of the controversial McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, spoke out against “any attempts to make a Roman holiday in this election year” out of proposals to amend the immigration law.
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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.