State Department officials, testifying before a Senate immigration investigation, have advocated a number of basic changes in the immigration code as it presently exists.
The chief suggestion was to change the law from a non-selective one–immigrants are admitted unless a specific rule bars their entrance–to a selective one. Robert C. Alexander, assistant chief of the Department’s Visa Division, assorted that the ideal selective immigration law was that in use in Argentina. When Congressman Ed Gossett of Texas asked Alexander whether the Division had a record of the number of Jews admitted to this country during the past few years, the State Department official said that no such record was maintained.
Eliot B. Coulter, associate chief of the Visa Division, recommended that immigrants are admitted on quotas either of their, countries of origin or of countries of which they are nationals at the time of immigration. Under the present law immigrants are charged against the quotas of countries in which they were born, a practice which frequently works hardships by exhausting small quotas for years in advance and not using up others.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
