Strong pleas for the adoption of the Dickstein bill admitting parents, over 55, of American citizens, outside of the quota, were made yesterday in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Dickstein and La Guardia. Both also unsparingly attacked the resently filed minority report opposing the bill.
Describing the minority report as full of misstatements and erroneous conclusions, Congressman Dickstein pointed out that both the Republican and Democratic national conventions in 1928 had adopted planks in favor of liberalizing the immigration laws, and he demanded that these planks now be carried out in legislation.
After pointing out that the Department of Labor had approved the bill, Congressman Dickstein said “there are a number of parents of American citizens who are waiting to join their children in the United States. Owing to our quota limitations, some of them may never enter this country, in spite of the preference. Some of them will come ultimately, but it will take years, and since they are old, they may die before their turn should come. Is it not a humane act to let them come in now irrespective of what country they come from?”
Congressman La Guardia denied that the bill would aggravate the immigration problem. He charged that any immigration problem that exists is caused by cheap Mexican peon labor, against which there is no restriction, and he accused the House Immigration Committee of inconsistency in having failed in all these years to make provision for reuniting families on the ground that it would disharmonize with restrictive immigration, while parts of the country were being flooded with Mexican peon labor.
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.
