Speech #710175342

Mr. Sillmons further said: It appears that the condition described has not been due to any deliberate failure oni the part of consular officers in Mexico to give full effect to the law. but rather to an entirely different conception of what the law required. This seems to have been brought about by the nature and volume of immigration from that country. The requirements on the Mexican border were apparently relaxed somewhat (luring the war. when labor was badly needed. Without doubt Mexican labor was also needed in the border States in the postwar period. and everything possible appears to have been done to facilitate its entry. Accordingly precedents were established by immigration officers. and later followed by consular officers. in discharging their new responsibilities under the immigration act of 1924. which led to the recent apparent divergence in the stand-