Speech #670209729

Chairman. I desire to say a word in opposition to the motion of the gentleman from Virginia. Several gentlemen are urging haste with respect to more restrictive immigration legislation. A great many people seem to think that you can take a pair of scissors and a paste pot and write an immigration act overnighta strong. workable act. And yet when one comes on this floor with a deportation bill of this kind. designed to put some teeth into the immigration act. you find the very gentlemen who want more restrictive legislation are afraid of the teeth. Do you know what we are doing with our present deportation provisions? Deportation is a severe act. the last step. and one of the very hardest steps to accomplish. You do not pick a man up and send him out of the country just with a kick. It is a long process. as a rule. If the alien to be deported has been here some years the expense of sending him overseas is borne by the Government. and he is sent to his own country only with the consent of that country. That country usually consents because it wants to send other immigrants here. Let me refer you to these figures in respect to deportation for the last eight months period. and we have had more deportations in the past year than for some time. For insanity. epilepsy. mental defective. and so forth. we deported 330. Those are the people that are found usually in insane asylums. The State asylums report to the Immigration Service and ask our Federal authorities to send them out of the country. Those deported because they were physically defective were 47 in eight months. because of loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases. 55. because they were likely to become. or had become. public charges. 1.190. Those are the poor broken wretches who failed in lifes battle after coming here from some other country. They have collapsed and they are in the poorhouses. and we grab them up and shove them out. They have violated no law. they have simply broken down in the fight for existence. Who would leave the alien narcotic law violators in while he sends out the pauper? Of criminals we have deported 270 in eight months. and that number is above the average. As I said in the beginning. at any time the _ecretary of Labor or any of his agents takes a man who is convicted under a State law and deports him as an undesirable citizen because he has violated a State law in regard to liquor or drugs. you may rest assured he is an undesirable alien. not fit to stay in the United States. and properly one to be deported.