Can We Afford to Lose Our Heads?
BIELEY, I. PEGCY
Can We Afford To Lose Our Heads? By I. Peggy Bieley Since the McCarran-Walter Act, U.S. immigration quotas have affected scientists, scholars and ministers Two Presidents have expressed their...
...I. Peggy Bieley, an economist, has worked with the National Manpower Council and has taught at Stanford...
...The various Asiatic-exclusion acts, and the "contract labor" laws??which did away with the practice whereby employers could import foreigners under contract to work in their shops??never applied to journalists, architects, entertainers and other members of the recognized professions...
...Even more important, according to the Department of Labor there is a critical shortage in this country of agronomists, chemists, clinical psychologists and at least 17 other types of professional specialists...
...Half of each country's quota is reserved for immigrants who can prove to the Attorney General that they are "needed urgently in the United States" because of their "high education, technical training, specialized experience or exceptional ability...
...Actually, therefore, it potentially admits 65,000 immigrants each year from Great Britain and 17,000 from Ireland??most of whom never come??but only 308 immigrants annually from our ally Greece, and only 235 refugees from Rumania...
...Indeed, almost a third of the mathematicians were foreign-born...
...A fourth of any quota still unfilled is set aside for brothers, sisters and adult children of American citizens...
...Can the United States afford to let the McCarran Act shut its doors on the brains of the outside world...
...The social worker, lawyer or accountant who cannot prove he is "needed urgently" is thus virtually barred...
...and Wanda Landowska, the harpsichordist, are only a few of the more recent arrivals who could be excluded under the McCarran Act...
...Under the McCarran Act, the immigration quota for any country is roughly one-sixth of 1 per cent of the number of persons of that nationality living in the United States in 1920...
...He asked Congress to enact another law "which will at one and the same time guard our legitimate national interests and be faithful to our basic ideas of freedom and fairness to all...
...Quota legislation passed after World War I did not apply to ministers, professors and scholars...
...It should be noted, too, that the current immigration of highly trained scientists and professionals is restricted to those who are "needed urgently" in the United States...
...immigration quotas have affected scientists, scholars and ministers Two Presidents have expressed their dislike for the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act...
...Jacques Lifshitz, the artist...
...The new listings alone in the wartime edition of American Men of Science contained the names of over 200 immigrants who had fled to this country since the rise of Nazism in Europe...
...Although past legislation has made admission to the United States difficult, foreign college presidents, ministers and other professionals have always been welcomed...
...But the unprecedented immigration restrictions on scholars??historians, physicists, mathematicians??have received relatively little notice...
...Quotas unused in the first 50-per-cent group, plus the remaining quotas, are divided among parents of American citizens and the spouses and children of aliens admitted to this country for permanent residence...
...If present regulations had been in effect during the 1930s, two Nobel Prize-winners in physics without whom America would probably never have gained its current lead in the atomic-bomb race??Albert Einstein, the German, and Enrico Fermi, the Italian??might have been denied entry to the United States...
...All other aliens have to scramble for the few remaining immigration visas...
...In view of these facts, it is logical to ask why the McCarran Act has, for the first time, placed all types of professionals except ministers under quota restrictions...
...As a result of the low birth-rate in the 1930s, a dearth of all types of specialists is forecast for the greater part of the next two decades...
...The Truman and Eisenhower statements received widespread publicity...
...It does, in fact, discriminate...
...What is more, as a result of admissions under the temporary Displaced Persons Act, half of Latvia's quota of 235 immigrants is used up until the year 2274...
...Most other Eastern European peoples are in a similar situation...
...On June 25, 1952, President Truman vetoed the bill because "it discriminates, deliberately and intentionally, against many peoples of the world," but the measure passed over his veto...
...From the beginning of the century to World War II, 16 per cent of the 2,600 persons chosen by the vote of their fellow scientists as having made major contributions to the advancement of science were immigrants...
...In his State of the Union message on February 2, 1953, President Eisenhower told Congress that the McCarran Act "contains injustices...
...Franz Werfel, the writer...
...Intellectuals who came to the United States while these laws were in effect have greatly enriched our civilization...
...This need is judged on the basis of the Department of Labor's List of Critical Occupations, which, unfortunately, only specifies current shortages and does not reflect the country's future requirements...
Vol. 37 • January 1954 • No. 4
