Speech #720184831

This bureau is not an exception. as the gentleman from New York seems to think. The gentleman from New York called attention to the large number of increases made in the personnel of this service. Take the Immigration Service proper. That has been increased since 1926 by 723. Then the border patrol was established in 1925 with a personnel of 655. and this personnel was increased to 983 by 1932. All of these increases are for the Immigration Service. Now. what of the appropriations for this service? How rapidly that has grown. Going back to 1923 we appropriated for this service $3.960.988. Take the year 1926. the year to which reference has been made. after the organization of a border patrol in 1925. In that year $5.826.857 was appropriated. But what of 1932? The appropriation that year amounted to $10.823.943. Congress approved a substantial cut in the 1933 appropriation under what had been carried for 1932. and there was not a Member of the House who did not boast of the fact that Congress had made large reductions in 1933 under what was carried in 1932. No Member will rise now and say that he declared to his constituency that an injustice had been done the Immigration Service by the cut made in the 1932 appropriation. Candidates for President. for Congress. for the Senate. all were proud to claim credit for the cuts that had been made. and yet the people rightly insisted that further reductions must and should be made. No agency of the Government should be exempt. If you want to deport more with a smaller force than you now have. you can do so by providing additional funds for deportations. Two millions will deport about 20.000 aliens. Provide the funds. and notwithstanding the administrative furloughs now sought to be avoided. you can largely. with the same personnel. increase your deports by the thousands. Eleemosynary institutions are furnishing information as to those unlawfully here. Jails are supplying that information. civic organizations. on whom these aliens are now a charge. are furnishing the information. There is no longer the need for a large personnel to go out and seek in hiding places aliens unlawfully here. What is needed is for the Legislative Committee to favorably act on recommendations repeatedly made by administrative officials to strengthen the hands of the law. Let the Secretary of Labor be clothed with a discretion to delegate to field officers in the Immigration Service the right to issue warrants. and you will save time and subsistence expense incident to deportations. That recommendation has been pending before the Legislative Committee for a long time.