Speech #690214536

Mr. Chairman. I have lis-. tened with attention and interest to the remarks just made by the gentleman from Illinois on immigration problems. He is a member of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. of which I have the honor to be chairman. and I know his interest in the deportation bill. reported in his name from our committee and which at this very moment enjoys a peaceful sleep in the Committee on Immigration of another body. My friends. we shall revive that bill in the next Congress. I believe the gentleman from Illinois is right in his belief that a rational form of voluntary alien registration can be effected. Such a form of registration would have been a great help from the coming July 1. 1927. It is necessary as the first step toward giving some recognition of legal domicile to the large number of wellmeaning aliens who are unable to prove legal entry into the United States and who are not subject to deportation because of the time limitations of the law. We could not deport these people if we would. and I have heard of nobody who wants to deport them. but as we deal with those who have entered surreptitiously since the restrictive immigration act of 1924. it will become more necessary to give some form of card to those others in the great alien mass here whom we hope to take into citizenship some day. but vhen we go into that process of giving citizenship to these I think we should extend the time which now exists between the holding of first papers and the right to final citizenship. There has been a great deal of fraud in the issuance of final citizenship papers in the last 15 or 20 yearsreally a very great lot of it. Also. Mr. Chairman. when we go into the matter of reform in the naturalization laws we will do well to take up the entire matter of citizenship. with definitions of same. with laws to provide for the status of those in Porto Rico. the Canal Zone. and elsewhere who live under the flag of the United States. also for the revocation of these fraudulent citizenships. We should provide a method by which naturalized citizens may be deprived of that great gift when the countries from which they came persist in maintaining laws which give dual nationality. They should be deprived of citizenship when. after swearing allegiance to the United States of America. they here proclaim themselves as proItalian. proGerman. or pro anything else. Mr. Chairman. I think it is about time to clear the atmosphere a little in regard to the pressure to break down the immigration law and admit more immigrants. Your committee knows that a concerted movement is at work throughout the United States. more particularly in the large cities. headed by certain churches of various denominations and working through �n organization which professes its interest in the immigrant. to cause Members of Congress to be individually bombarded with requests for relief of relatives. Questionnaires have been sent out with Instructions to get full details as to all distressing cases. al hard cases. all cases of husbands here and wives and children in Europe. These questionnaires. when completed. are to be sent to the different Members from the districts in which aliens are numerous and are to be shot at the members of the House Committee on Immigration with machinegunlike rapidity. Already 600 such cases have been made up In Pittsburgh. Pa.