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America Benefits from Refugees “out of Proportion to Their Numbers”, Survey Reveals

December 17, 1945
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The 250,000 refugees from Axis oppression who have immigrated to the United States since 1933 are now almost all well-adjusted, selfsupporting members of the American community and “they have had a beneficial influence upon this country out of proportion to their numbers,” according to an impartial scientific survey by the Committee for the Study of Recent Immigration from Europe.

The full text of the study is now in preparation and will be made public next Spring. Highlights of it, prepared by Prof. Maurice R. Davie, head of the Sociology Department of Yale University, and Samuel Koenig, sociology instructor at Brooklyn College, are given in a brief preliminary report published today, following 18 months of a nation-wide inquiry, in which the National Refugee Service took a leading part.

The refugees, compared with previous immigrants, displayed striking differences in their educational background, previous income level and the nature of their work before migration, the report shows. In reply to the charge that they competed with native Americans, Prof. Davie and Mr. Koenig said the refugees, making up “an utterly negligible proportion of the total population of this country, could hardly offer serious competition to Americans or endanger their way of life.”

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