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Kohler Sees Discrepancies in Text of Reed Bill

December 7, 1930
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Discrepancies between the text of Senator David Reed’s bill to bar immigration for two years as introduced in the Senate from that announced before the bill was offered are charged by Max J. Kohler, chairman of the immigration committee of the American Jewish Committee, in a telegram to Congressman Dickstein and Senator Copeland, both of New York.

Mr. Kohler points out that, while the bill as originally announced would have exempted from the provisions of the Reed bill near relatives of resident aliens lawfully admitted, the text of the bill exempts only husbands, wives, minor children and aged parents of citizens. This, Mr. Kohler claims, is “wholly inconsistent with the avowed purpose (of Senator Reed’s bill) of merely reducing ‘the number of newcomers into the United States who come here for the purpose of seeking employment,’ for practically none of these near relatives would be seeking employment and scarcely any are of the bread-winning class.”

Mr. Kohler also notes that in the annual report of the secretary labor, it was recommended that immigrants coming to join near relatives already in the country be exempt from any plan of control. President Hoover’s order to consuls also that account be taken of prevailing unemployment conditions in the United States in issuing visas also exempted near relations of the residents of the United States, Mr. Kohler declares.

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