Speech #710220251

American and foreign alike. we are met by the assertion that it is contrary to comity and will result in foreign complications. Nothing Is done. and as a result year after year passes. the evil grows. the violations of law become more flagrant and the disadvantages to the United States becomes more pronounced. yet nothing can be done. because we are impaled upon one of the two horns of this dilemma. Surely this is not to apply to Immigration. The report of the Commissioner of Immigration for 1928 says that 12.357 seamen deserted their vessels in ports of the United States during the fiscal year. During the same fiscal year 17.272 were held on board their vessels. which. if they were bona fide seamen. was contrary to law and the Constitution of the United States (Amendment XIII) . that 3.295 were not on the crew lists (evidently stowaways) and 448 were placed in immigration stations to be placed again on the vessels. also against law. and if they were in fact seamen. they could. If they had any friends. have been released oi habeas corpus. Thus the Innocent are punished in place of the guilty. If this open side door Is permitted to stand open. the number of excluded aliens coming as seamen. when they are in fact immigrants. together with the number of those smuggled In by the vessels coming from foreign ports to ports of the United States. will ultimately grow to be greater than the number that may come legally according to the immigration law of 1924. The annual report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for 1928 contains a warning about the situation into which this country at present is drifting. It reads as follows Seamen : As indicated in the last annual report. the trouble confrontig the service in the control of alien seamen is the most difficult and vexatious with which It has to deal. As the immigration laws have been tightened up from time to time. the problem has been correspondingly accentuated. Particularly is this true since the adoption of the numericallimitation policy. as expressed by the acts of 1921 and 1924. As has been previously pointed out. seamen occupy a privileged position In the scheme of things. commerce must not be unduly hampered. seamen come and go largely at will. and the crux of the problem is to prevent aliens gaining.a foothold in this country in the guise of seamen." trhe report on the King bill " to provide for the deportation of certain alien seamen. and for other purposes." is No. 1037. first session. Seventieth Congress. There was no minority report.