Speech #740063750

A host of reasons are assigned why they are not citizens. A great many have been here for 30 or 40 years who have not taken the trouble to become citizens. I have heard witnesses come before our committee and say that they came here when they were of mature age. that the mind had lost its facility to adapt itself to a new kind of language and new customs. they were just a little bit shy and modest about court procedure. and they had a host of reasons as to why they were not naturalized. Be that as it may. I still believe it becomes absolutely necessary to assimilate all those people. to make them citizens. to make them appreciate the responsibilities of citizenship. If necessary. then let us cast aside all of the fees necessary. let us make it just as easy as possible for those who are now here. so that the day will not be far distant when we can say that these 6.000.000 who are now aliens and who are living and doing business and earning a livelihood in our country will subscribe to the same flag and the same Constitution and the same laws and the same doctrines to which you and I. as citizens. subscribe. It seems to me that one of the profitable things that we could do in this country is to designate a naturalization week or a naturalization month. and then have patriotic societies address themselves vigorously and militantly to that problem. instead of just scattering our efforts and constantly talking about it. It requires a program. We have to go out into the highways and byways and find them. we have to attract them into schools of citizenship. and show some spirit of welcome. We have to carefully and gradually pilot them through the Federal courts and make them citizens. and then the second part of our program is solved. the problem of naturalization. Then. there is the third part of this program. and that is the problem of deportation. There are lots of things for which people can be deported. but there are lots of things for which they cannot be deported at the present time under the law as it now exists. This law is so abstruse and confusing that I do not believe half the members of the Immigration Committee understand what it is all about. But this thing we do know. and that is that we are doing a kind of repairing and patchwork business on the laws that have been passed in the last 20 or 25 years dealing with that problem. What we do in the Immigration Committee at the present time is throw back to the mistakes made in the last generation and come up from behind and stick a patch on the statute here and another patch on a statute there in the hope of doing some good. I remember 2 years ago we thought we would develop a comprehensive program along this line. and we were advised by the State and Labor Departments that they were doing that very thing. That is 2 years ago. and. if my memory serves me correctly. we have not gotten a report from the State or the Labor Department yet on that problem. So. this House committee will have to address itself to that matter the best it knows how. but instead of a lot of patchwork it seems to me the whole immigration and naturalization subject should be revamped and codified. so that there is some semblance of pattern to these laws.