Speech #750245618

In the case of persons of that class she must find that they are of good moral character. In the case of persons of that class they must have been in this country for 10 years. or. if they have been in this country for less than 10 years but more than a year. they must have dependents within the country. I live in a border State and I have never made any particular specialty of immigration work. but. just drifting into the office over a period of 15 years. I have had many cases of persons who came in. who had lived In this country for a long period of time. who came down. say. from Vancouver. and thought they were properly and legally in the country. but after 5 or 10 or 12 years they found that there was some defect in the way they entered. This bill. with the Senate committee amendment. limits the discretion of the Secretary to that class of socalled criminal aliens. The next section of the bill gives to the Secretary of Labor power to designate persons holding supervisory positions in the Immigration Service to Issue warrants for the arrest of aliens. At the present time. if an employee of the Immigration Service believes that a certain alien is subject to deportation. in order to arrest him. he must first telegraph to Washington. D. C.. and get from the Secretary of Labor herself authority for the warrant. The testimony shows that in many hundreds of cases men have been "spotted" who were deportable aliens. criminal aliens. persons who should have been deported. but during the period of time in which that act occurred the fact became known. and by the time the warrant came back from Washington. D. C.. the person had hidden out and the Department has never been able to find him. This is another section of the bill which strengthens the power of the Department of Labor in the enforcement of the immigration law. Section 5 is merely a formal part of the bill. Section 6 repeals the portion of the 1924 act which exempted from its provisions those who came in for farmlabor purposes. At that time the people engaged in agriculture felt that they needed more farm labor. and they had an exemption made from the provisions of the Immigration Act. It has now been thoroughly demonstrated that there is not a need for people to come into the country for farm labor. and this provision repeals that section of the act. It is another provision in which the immigration deportation laws are strengthened. Section 7 is the Senate committee amendment which provides that persons who are in this country and who go abroad to Canada. Mexico. or Cuba solely for business or pleasure. and have not proceeded to any other country. shall not for any cause be excluded from readmission to the United States. and such reentry shall not for immigration purposes be considered an entry under the immigration laws. The purpose of that provision is best illustrated by a case which Acting Commissioner Shaughnessy presented to the committee last year. A certain young lady had been a school teacher for a number of years.