President Eisenhower was told today that Jewish women in this country “are deeply dissatisfied with our nation’s present immigration laws.” This view was presented to him by Mrs. Moise S. Cahn, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, at a breakfast with the President at the Sulgrave Club here. The breakfast was arranged for the purpose of exchanging views between the President and twenty women leaders.
Mrs. Cahn, who was the only Jewish leader in the group, appealed to the President to make specific recommendations to Congress for revision of the McCarran-Walter immigration law during the present session.
She pointed out that the late Professor Albert Einstein was “the number one refugee in America but it is quite possible that he would not be admitted to our country if he had to apply today.” She also declared that “in countries of the world where America needs favorable public opinion, the McCarran-Walter Law gives America a black eye.”
Referring to the experience of the National Council of Jewish Women in its long-standing program of services to the foreign born, Mrs. Cahn urged “immediate and basic revisions” in the McCarran-Walter Law to “increase the total immigration quota and give consideration to the pressing needs of refugees and displaced persons”; “eliminate racial and religious discrimination in the distribution of the quota”; and “give persons of foreign birth who are in America equal protection under the law with the native born.”
The Daughters of the American Revolution, assembled in a convention here, adopted today a resolution opposing any revision of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act.
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.
