In the Lion's Den

If Congress wanted to construct a sensible, just law out of the jumble of loopholes and restrictions that make up the United States' present immigration policy, it picked the wrong man to do it. Pat McCarran and his staff have labored mightily to produce three hundred and one pages of immigration law, but their magnum opus only worsens the present inequities by codifying them. The Senator from Nevada, the symbol of American immigration policy, is an unfriendly host indeed.

The McCarran Bill, which devotes as much space to deporting immigrants as to admitting them, limits yearly immigration to one-sixth of one percent of the American population. While smaller than many had hoped, this figure is not too unreasonable, for the nation should not admit more people than we can comfortably absorb into out economy. But the McCarran method of immigration is riddled with injustices. Each country's quota of immigrants is based upon the number of American citizens whose families came from that country. By basing this quota on the 1920 census, McCarran discriminates against southern and eastern Europeans, since there were proportionally fewer of them in America in the twenties than now. Negros are not counted in the census at all--probably staunch Constitutionalist McCarran's bow to the three-fifths rule. Moreover, professors and ministers of religion, who could formerly immigrate unrestricted, are now counted and rationed as well.

Provisions like these have led Senators Humphrey and Lehman to propose another bill, as praiseworthy perhaps for its new ideas as for its opposition to the McCarran clauses. For example, it recognizes the fact that separate quotas for each country have resulted in actual immigration of only half the number the overall quota allows. Countries like England have larger quotas than prospective immigrants. The Humphrey-Lehman bill, suggest "pooling" these quotas, so that the slack of countries like England can be taken up by Italy or Greece, where prospective immigrants now peer hopelessly in the windows of the Immigration Service buildings. It also leaves room for citizens of Iron Curtain countries who have been persecuted for non-Communist beliefs, in the belief that those who have suffered for democracy are entitled to its benefits.

The Humphrey-Lehman bill has a formidable hurdle however--the Senate Judiciary Committee, Pat McCarran, chairman. The Committee has already sent the McCarran bill to the Senate with its blessing. Once in this lion's den, the Humphrey-Lehman bill will be roughly treated, if treated at all. Only a real understanding of the benefits of an intelligent immigration policy will save it.