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2 Restriction of Immigration 1 (1924)

handle is hein.immigration/wrhs0002 and id is 1 raw text is: 


68TH CONGRESS,    H OUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.          REPT. 176,
  1st Session.                                          Part 2.




              RESTRICTION OF IMMIGI ATION


FEBRUARY 15, 1924.-Committed to the Committee of th, Whole House on the
              state of the Union and ordered to be printed.


Mr. SABATH, from the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization,
                     submitted the following

                   MINORITY REPORT.
                     [To accompany H. R. 6540.]

  The undersigned members of the Committee on Immigration and
Naturalization of the House of Representatives are unable to concur
in the report and recommendations submitted by the majority of
the committee with respect to H. R. 6540, entitled A bill to limit
the immigration of aliens into the United States, and for other
purposes.'  The bill so reported is avowedly intended to restrict
immigration, and is confessedly discriminatory in its operation. The
majority declares that it is not the purpose of well-meaning citizens
to speak of any foreign peoples as undesirable, and correctly add
that the undesirable are the criminal, the insane, the pauper, and
the other classes excluded by section 3 of the act of 1917.
  That act of February 5, 1917, which is known as the basic immi-
gration law, is in its essential nature a selective immigration law. It
eliminates those who are mentally, morally, and physically unfit,
those who are likely to become a public charge anarchists, and others
opposed to organized government and who hoid doctrines subversive
to law and good order. The classes which come within these cate-
gories are numerous and are carefully defined in the act. A proper
administration and enforcement of that statute would admit such
immigrants only as are desirable according to the accurate meaning
of that word and in the sense in which the term is used in the majority
report. It is important to emphasize this fact because of the general
prevalence of the idea that immigration should be selective.
  Since, therefore, under the act of 1917 the immigration law is
distinctly selective and admits only such immigrants as meet the
strict and intelligent tests of that legislation, any measure which
imposes either arbitrary or adventitious tests destroys the underlying
spirit of our national policy and is contrary to those theories the
observance of which has hitherto contributed to the growth, devel-
opment, and wealth of the Republic.

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