Speech #760217574

I am certainly in sympathy with the thought and idea that aliens. as well as citizens and everyone else. should be treated humanely. I have been Impressed. in the brief experience I have had in connection with the studies pertaining to aliens. with the apparently meager amount of information the Government has with respect to the number of foreigners. or aliens. in the country. As a member of the Committee on Immigration It has come more directly to my attention than it might otherwise. that a great many private bills are introduced for the relief of this. that. or the other alien. seeking permission to become. naturalized in this country. and oftentimes it has happened that the alien came into this country illegally. I was shocked to find that to be the case on a number of occasions. Some of them had been here so many years that they had become well established in business. oftentimes. and had acquired considerable property. and. of course. in most cases. families. as well. They had been here all this time. and their whereabouts apparently were not known to the Department of Labor or to the Commissioner of Immigration. and it impressed me that they were here unlawfully. and that was not even known to the Immigration Commissioner. In the hearings we held last year on a group of bills which had for their purposes the restriction of naturalization. deportation. and so forth. it was shown in evidence of some character before the committeeI do not recall just now whether it was by actual word of mouth from witnesses. or whether it was furnished to us in some other formthat it was known that there were some 3.800.000 aliens in this country at that time. The whereabouts of many of them are not carefully checked and were not known as well as they should have been. I thought. Out of that 3.800.000. 800.000 were in process of naturalization. that is. had taken out their first papers. The other 3.000.000 were just herethat is all. Speaking of deportation. it would seem that perhaps we might have some difficulty in deporting many of those aliens now because many of them are in this country from Czechoslovakia. from Poland. and from many of the other countries which are not now on the map. I merely wanted to call that to the attention of the Senator and to make a further observation. These times are. of course. somewhat unusual. and I think call for the attention of an agency able to make such investigations as will shed sufficient light on this question as to give the American people intelligent information as to the actual number of aliens in this countryinformation concerning their activitiesbe-. cause it was shown at the hearings that across the borders and from ships which came here from foreign countries. information was constantly being furnished of aliens slipping through and losing themselves among the 130.000.000 people there are in the United States. Of course. the immigration department had no information concerning the whereabouts of any of those men at all. I desire to make an additional observation. if the Senator will permit. and with all due deference to his statement. with which I have tremendous sympathy. I feel that since the times are somewhat unusual. and since things have happened which have perhaps opened our eyes. or had a tendency to make us think a little more seriously than we hitherto have been thinking. it is important that there should be some agency able to ascertain all this information and give it to the American people. and I do not know of any agency more capable of doing it than the F.