Omnibus immigration legislation pending before the House, the Walter Bill which is being opposed by liberal, Jewish and non-Jewish organizations as “undemocratic” and “discriminatory,” is favored by the State Department, Herve J. L’Heureux, chief of the Department’s Visa Division said today. L’Heureux made this known in an address in New York before the National Council on Naturalization and Citizenship.
The visa chief said that in a letter to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the Department expressed the view that the House omnibus bill is a decided improvement over the existing law. “All the omnibus bills before the Congress would eliminate race as a bar to immigration and naturalization,” he declared. The liberalizing features to which he referred have been described by opponents of McCarran-Walter legislation as “sugar-coating” to offset what they said were numerous objectionable features.
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