Speech #740021196

Daniel W. MacCormack. Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization. down at the Department of Labor. about an hour ago. and I said: "Back in 1932 did you or your office officials then know that Bruno Hauptmann was here in the United States? Did your Department of Labor then know he was in this country unlawfully? " He said: "No. never heard of it until he was apprehended for committing murder and various other atrocious crimes." There are thousands of criminal aliens just like Bruno Hauptmann who have come into this country unlawfully and are unchecked and unknown. Commissioner MacCormack told me over the .telephone about an hour ago that there are 16.000.000 aliens now in the United States. and that there are 40.000.000 people in the United States of " alien stock." He stated that we had no registration laws by which we could check the aliens that got into the United States illegally. and that no one had any way of definitely determining the number of aliens here unlawfully. He stated that the last census showed that on April 1. 1930. there were 6.284.613 aliens in the United States. and they were ones who made returns to census enumerators. Of course. all of us know that the aliens who made returns to our enumerators were aliens who got into the United States lawfully. for the ones who smuggled themselves into the United States unlawfully would not have made their identities known to census enumerators. Hence we know that on April 1. 1930. there were 6.284.613 aliens here who were lawfully admitted to the United States. and I have just as much grounds for guessing correctly as my friend from New York as to the number of illegal aliens there were then in the United States. An alien is a foreign subject. An alien is one who owes his allegiance to a foreign country.