Mr. President. in undertaking to provide for the refugees driven from the Island of Cuba by cruelties which we all recognize. and which the Presidents message fully states and portrays. I confined myself to their case because I did not know how to formulate a general rule for the admission of refugees from Armenia or from any other country where persecutions may prevail. It has been the theory of our Government in regard to immigration. as I understand it. that we open the doors of hospitality to all the citizens of the nations of the earth where they feel that they are oppressed in their own country. This is a welcome home to the oppressed. as I understand. and perhaps that feature of the bill may be in conflict with those provisions. I have no desire at this time to make a criticism of that sort. But the demand. on the ground of humanity. is so obvious in respect of Cuba at this moment of time that we can not pass the pending bill as it is without doing violence to those instincts which cause us to welcome to our shores the refugees from the most tyrannical of all oppressors. for the safety of their lives as well as for other reasons. This bill turns an immigrant back at the seaboard and requires him to be able to read the Constitution of the United States from selected slips. Of course he has to be familiar with the whole instrument in order to read it. He must read it in some language. either his own or some other.
Keywords matched
immigration immigrant refugees