(Sen. Leverett Saltonstall - big believer in immigration - and a Republican, no less)

DOWNLOADS: 837

PLAYS: 86

Embed

In 1953 the big question was to allow 240,000 immigrants, many of whom were from Iron Curtain countries, passage to the U.S. The McCarran Walter Act was already the established law that allowed over 100,000 immigrants to settle in the U.S. The new bill would increase that amount to over 340,000 and the resistance came, from all people Rep. Francis E. Walter, who co-authored the original bill. Walter felt it would open the floodgates for "undesirables and communists" and put a burden on an already overflowing work force.

The American Forum program of July 12, 1953 staged a debate between Rep. Walter and Sen. Leverett Saltonstall.

Sen. Leverett Saltonstall: “If we here in the United States haven’t put into our people who have come over from other countries either in the first generation or the second generation the feeling that we’ve got something here for them in the cause of freedom and in cause of advancement for themselves, then we’ve failed in our effort if we let these people who come in convince them that everything in this country is wrong. If that’s so they wouldn’t want to come in anyway it seems to me.”

Certainly a far cry from the current debate on Immigration, at least there's no Red Scare. But it's interesting to note that the argument over immigration is an old one and will probably continue for generations.

DOWNLOADS: 2252

PLAYS: 468

Embed

("Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your . . . .never mind")

Since debate on the issue of our current Immigration laws should be heating up soon, this may be jumping the gun. But it's never too early to start getting some historic perspective on issues. So this post is about the debate over the McCarran/Walter Immigration Bill of 1952.

The program, American Forum Of The Air, hosted a debate on the bill with Senator Herbert Lehman (D-New York) and Congressman J. Frank Wilson (D-Texas)on May 17, 1953.

Sen. Herbert Lehman: “Aliens already in this country can be apprehended and placed in custody. In some cases they can be deported without even the benefit of a hearing. Mister Blair, the McCarran -Walter Act took over all the worst features of all the immigration laws which have been enacted over the last thirty or forty years. But it added many new provisions that were equally bad and combined the whole structure into a legal code which is anti-humanitarian, anti-foreign and, in the profoundest meaning of the word Un-American. It is a complex law and very difficult to summarize in all of its details. But if we are to keep faith with our American traditions, this law, in my opinion must be completely revised and rewritten.”

Then, as now the subject of our Immigration Laws was the object of much heated debate. In the 1950s, with the Red Scare in full bloom, the fear was mass migration of Communist subversives and assassins - however, then as now there was the racial/ethnic overtone which seems to be really what the debate is always about.

Some of it isn't so subtle.