Speaker. this is the first of 40 or 50 similar bills scheduled to come up for consideration today. Practically all of them relate to cases involving fraudulent entry. that is. the aliens came here under forged passports. or something of that sort. In nearly every case the alien has managed to avoid the immigration authorities for 10 or 12 years. has married. and has had children born in America. It is claimed that to deport the alien now would cause a great deal of human suffering and hardship. I have no doubt that is true in a great many instances. In some cases it would be a very cruel and inhuman thing to deport the alien. I do not wish to deport them under such circumstances. but we should not confer the honor of American citizenship upon them. Having this situation in mind. several Members. after consulting with the authorities on immigration. prepared a bill which was passed by this House as an amendment to the Smith bill last summer. The bill sets up a board In the Department of Labor with discretion to suspend or cancel the deportation orders where undue hardship would result. I believe we should withhold action on bills of the kind now under consideration until the Senate has had an opportunity to pass on that bill. There are two or three thousand similar cases pending before the Department of Labor. If we are going to consider them all in the committee and in the House. we will be busy all summer on immigration bills and will not have time to do anything else. No harm will be done by withholding action on these bills today. Most of these cases have been pending from 3 to 6 years. We know the Department of Labor has no intention of deporting the persons involved. If you agree with me. I hope you will delete this first item.
Keywords matched
immigration deporting deportation