Speech #710126961

AswELL. the alien will have no end of trouble from the time he first sets foot in the United States. He will have to register every change of address on his part. the birth of every child. if a woman any change of name by marriage. and also any change in his physical appearance. The alien will have to report every time he goes to a hospital. every time he goes into an asylum or perchance to prison. and if he fails to do any of these things he may be fined $100 or imprisoned for 60 days for any such offense. and if he swears falsely in any of these things he may be fined $5.000. imprisoned for two years. and then deported. It is clear that this registration bill is only a guise for more deportation of aliens. which it seems to be the desire of some of the Members of this House. They would go any length to deport an alien from the United States and if to do so it is necessary to pursue the alien by technical violations of this failure to register. then by all means they will do that. The practical effect of this law will be that at any time an immigration inspector would come to the conclusion that any person is an alien and he thinks that he has come to this country irregularly and that he dared not observe to the letter every one of the numerous provisions of the immigration law. he may hail this alien before the local immigration commissioner and start deportation proceedings to remove him from the country. The inspector of Immigration will then become at once a judiciary officer. He is to determine the fate of the man whom he has arrested and brought before himself. He is both prosecutor and judge in the same person and prepares the record himself. After completing his examination. he is then to present the facts to the Secretary of Labor. who undoubtedly will act upon his recommendation and do whatever the Inspector advises him to do. There is no court proceeding of any kind which the alien can invoke in his behalf. He is before the immigration inspector and this officer who combines the functions of a judge. jury. and so forth. can do exactly what he pleases. Let us not fool ourselves or believe for a moment that the immigration inspectors will not go the full length of their authority as conferred upon them by this bill when it becomes a law. There is nothing more exasperating than having mere clerks without any legal training performing the functions of a judge and jury and wantonly and against the better dictates of humanity act to carry out this pernicious class legislation. Some time ago I heard a speaker of note voice his objections to this proposed bill because of its class character and because no American who happens to be abroad would want himself to be subject to obnoxious registration laws. About 25 years ago President Roosevelt stated in one of his messages that not only must we treat all nations fairly but we must treat with justice and good will all immigrants who come here under the law. President Roosevelt stated that it was a mark of low civilization and a low morality to discriminate against or in any way humiliate a stranger who has come to live with us and who is conducting himself properly. How far have we gone since these memorable words have been uttered and how queer it sounds today in the Hall of Congress to show the gentlemen who are sponsoring this legislation how far they have gone from American tradition and how this hurtful legislation is removed from the spirit of our American institutions. I therefore want to express my solemn horror at this new attempt to establish and to erect barriers between our citizens and noncitizen which will endanger the relations with the foreign powers and which will throw our entire alien relationship into the turmoil of indifference and disregard. The attempt to register aliens will eventually result in the registration of our own people. because how is anybody to tell whether or not a given individual is or is not an alien? And if we do that what is to prevent this Government from issuing passports to everybody. making them carry around with them cards with photographs to show that they have the right to live in this country.