Speech #750060784

While I deprecate the idea of enforced citizenship. however. I think that these aliens who are here enjoying the protection of our Government and the opportunities afforded by residence under our flag ought to be willing to assume the burdens. the obligations. and responsibilities of citizenship. I would like to see written into this bill a provision. with real teeth in it. requiring these aliens. after having been here a reasonable length of time. to take the necessary steps to become American citizens. subject to prompt deportation. To have large groups of people who are not citizens and who manifest no interest or intention of becoming such. and who owe allegiance to some foreign nation. and who at the same time claim and receive the protection of our Government. is manifestly an unwholesome and dangerous situation. There has been a great deal of press propaganda about the socalled hardship cases. I concede that there are many such cases and they appeal very strongly to my sense of sympathy. I think that consideration should be extended to those aliens who have come into the United States in some irregular manner and who have been here 10 years or more. who have married here and who have had children here. and who have walked uprightly during their residence in this country. and. as I interpret this bill. ample provision for such consideration is provided by its terms. The difficulty has been that a great many of us have lost faith in those charged with the administration of our deportation laws. It is the candid belief of some of us that those charged with the administration of these laws are not in genuine sympathy with their execution. and this opinion has its foundation in the fact that some 3.000 deportation cases have been allowed to accumulate. a large majority of which have little or no merit whatever. Of course. some of them are meritorious and have been so recognized and adjudged by the Congress. In making this observation I mean no reflection on the Acting Immigration Commissioner. because I entertain a high personal regard for him and I have absolute confidence in his integrity. I consider Mr. Shaughnessy an honorable and conscientious public official. but. of course. he must undertake in good faith to carry out the policy of his superiors. else he would not remain in the Department for a great length of time.