THE IMMIGRATION SNARL
Corsi, Edward
The Immigration Sriarl Our Quota Laws Are Discriminatory and Outdated By Edward Corsi Industrial Commissioner, State of New York Chairman, New York State Committee on Displaced Persons THZ...
...In 1920 post-war turmoil in Europe alarmed many Americans into the belief thut they would have to cut off the stream of immigration into this country in order to preserve our domestic institutions...
...We have quota allotments which, as in the case of Great Britain, are never tilled...
...Today, both the facts and our npprecatlon of the facts are different...
...In 1920 the trade unions viewed immigrants as elements which undermined and frustrated union organization...
...Those who ore today listed as foreign-born have in the years-since 1920 become well integrated into our society...
...The time has come for an objective and realistic reappraisal of our whole immigration policy both from a domestic and international viewpoint This is the task of Congress...
...In large part, they are entirely gratuitous...
...The quota system itself, the European sphere of our immigration policy, is based upon conditions and considerations that have ceased to exist...
...today there ore less than 3 per cent...
...There are no quotas on emigrants from South and Central America, whether they are peons, laborers or professionals and ¦whether they speak Spanish, Portugese, Italian or English...
...They recognize the secure establishment, over the past decades, of minimum wage laws and other types of social legislation...
...Southeastern Europeans do net rate as well as Northwestern Europeans...
...Circumstances .re now more desperate...
...WHS* THE QUOTA LAWS were first area ted, their most vigorous proponents -were the trade unions...
...The displaced person must find a home...
...They feared the competition of cheap man , power...
...They are good material for American citizenship but they cannot leave the country and reenter legally because the quotas of their respective countries are virtually closed for years to come...
...They understand that labor standards can today be maintained without any danger from immigrants...
...The world has grown smaller...
...We have husbands, wives and children whose immediate parents und relatives cannot join them for years to come . The innumerable human tragedies resulting from this situation are known to every social agency in the land...
...Yet it weuM take Set yearn far the Cssoheaseesalan stasia end Sfeeea years far She Fbuv ' «sb 'SjtSsa to Html I as snisnr iarintu .ae-tssniss|sassSlUMsresn tea in the one year of 1940...
...it is forbidden to use quotas from the past or borrow quotas from the future...
...in fact they provide a ready bond with which to hasten tho assimilation of any further arrivals...
...In the face of this inescapable moral obligation our government stands fettered by an immigration policy thai •* obsolete and incongruous...
...In fact, it is from trade union leaders, as well as from others, that we have heard testimony to the effect that in portions of our economy, such as agriculture, domestic work, and certain fields of manufacturing, the productivity and prosperity of this country would be significantly advanced if immigrant labor were to be more freely available...
...These are not 'displaced" but "stranded" persons for whom there is no real relief under present laws...
...The foreign-born amount to less than 8 per cent oiour white population and they are a rapidly diminishing percentage...
...Wes it the intention of those who wrote our immigration policy more than 20 years ago that Latin Americans should find easy access te Skis country but that democrats ef Chechoslovakia, who are so indUtihgulshStale from ourselves, should he vtrroaUy barred...
...Even these numbers do not fully express our conquest, during the past twenty years, over the problems of assimilation...
...Those who want to come here are the economic, political and social victims of dictatorship...
...World War I had interrupted the flood and in 1920 it began once again...
...The Immigration Sriarl Our Quota Laws Are Discriminatory and Outdated By Edward Corsi Industrial Commissioner, State of New York Chairman, New York State Committee on Displaced Persons THZ QUOTA SYSTEM of immigration, enacted by the laws of 1921 and 1924, was a specific response to specific conditions...
...a WAC or WAVE who married a foreign man cannot...
...A fundamental reappraisal of our immigration policy can no longer be avoided...
...We cannot perpetuate these tragedies without feeling their full impact on the whole of our family and community structure...
...Veterans groups were active in demanding the immigration policy that was then adopted...
...Today these very same elements are unionized...
...Today ft is our failure to overhaul immigration policies which costs the taxpayer money...
...We cannot continue to separate families without sacrificing the precious good will of millions throughout the world...
...A GI who married a foreign woman can bring her home...
...On the other hand, we have quotas of the smaller countries of Europe which except for wartime interruptions ore always filled—quotas too small to enable us to deal fairly and lustly with the subjects of these countries...
...The quota laws were adopted out of fear that the newer waves of Immigration would add a great public burden...
...he goes wherever a door is opened...
...They wrote rigid rules that preclude any supple adjustment to unusual conditions...
...In 1920, 11 per cent of the foreign-born could not speak English...
...In 1920, 7 per cent of our people were aliens...
...From 1900 to the outbreak of World War I, immigration averaged about a million persons a year...
...Close to a million find it impossible to return to their native lands and have no place to rebuild their homes in security...
...Orientals do very bealy...
...Our quota law's discriminate between American men und women...
...it is simply taken for granted that any new arrival will find a ready home and proper place within the 'fcanks of organized labor...
...no practical objective is served...
...The decision to emigrate and the place to which an < migrant is to go are hardly any longer u matter of choice...
...e * • THOSE WHO WROTE the quota laws did not forsee emergencies such as the recent war...
...The foreign-born amounted to more than 13 per eent of our white population and a very large part of it consisted of fresh emigrants centered in congested areas...
...It is the task of all ef us who are concerned with the problem of Immigration as 4t effects ear neighbors and our reentry...
...Those conditions have changed radically over the past two decades...
...That compares with the average of only sixty thousand per yeah which we have received from 1924 through 1946...
...The quota laws were adopted at the crest of the greatest wave of immigration this country has ever known...
...This would not mean the end of all discrimination, but it would at least tell millions of Asiatics that we no longer rate them as less worthy human beings than Italians or Czechs...
...When Jefferson wrote that "all men are created equal," he held to be self-evident a truth which science has since confirmed...
...It was at that point that quota restrictions were enacted...
...Our quotas are fixed so as to limit admission in any one year to a little over 150,000 persons...
...Formerly bullions came to America as a land of opportunity...
...THERE ARE THOUSANDS of aliens in this country, illegally here and subject to deportation, who have American-born spouses and children but whose status cannot be legalized because of our quota system...
...Their number is incalculable...
...Events of the past ten years have forced a repatriation of a large number of American women who had been residing abroad...
...But its form is so rigid, so at variance with the natural tendencies of immigration, that in the years since 1924 only 23 percent of the quota limit has been used...
...In- many cases they hud married foreigners and brought up children...
...Today tthat picture is entirely changed...
...Our quota restrictions enforce lor years to come a separation of these women from their husbands and of their children from their fathers...
...The racial and national discrimination -which our immigration laws embody aee a contradiction of truth, a contradiction which we can no longer afford to tolerate...
...The leaders of organized labor, both AFL and CIO, have spoken out convincingly in favor of admitting displaced persons and of a relaxation in present quota restrictions...
...At that time, there was a real problem of assimilation...
...The average age of the foreign-born resident is 50 compared to the average of 29 years for our entire population...
...It is a moral obligation inseparable from the war wheh we have fought to do our fair share in helping these people to a useful life...
...EVEN IN THE ACCOMPLISHMENT of its unworthy discrimination, our immigration policy is curiously inequitable, if not partly ineffective...
...The lightness with which our inherited policy dispenses its insults can almost be measured...
...today it can be estimated at less than 4 per cent...
...But there are severe quotas on Spain, Portugal, and Italy...
...They know that their unions are firmly established...
...Those who were born in North or South America are graced with the highest ranking...
...The war uprooted millions of persons from their homes...
...Those circumstances have radically changed...
...II is a quaint relic of a racist attitude which we have just fought a war to defeat...
...Our laws express a brusque and summary judgment on the peoples of the world, arranging them In castes according to whether they will make desirable American etneens or not...
...Rarely has this country faced a clearer moral obligation than to shoulder its fair share of the burden of helping to provide a haven for those whom war and dictatorship have made homeless...
...If the Asiatic peoples were brought into the quota system, it might mean a total immigration of 100 persons a year from each of the affected countries...
...If in the post-war period, there is an emergency in which quick and adequate response can save human lives, there is no flexibility...
...At great expense, our government helps to maintain thousands of displaced Europeans in debilitating idleness...
...If a war interrupts the flow of migration, the quota is lost...
Vol. 32 • June 1949 • No. 25
