France. and Belgium depends .largely upon the validity of assurance of safe conduct for those vessels. The President wanted to be sure of safe conduct for the children. There is one point I would like to bring out with regard to refugees in England. You all know when the refugees started to move from one of the different countries to the other they had the opportunity to go into another country. From Poland. from Holland. from Belgium. from Denmark. or any of the countries. they could get out. But you must remember that the refugees who are now in England. who have come there from all of the other countries. if they are forced to flee. have no place to go. Where are they going to go? There is no place for them to go at all. because they are on the island and they are just trapped. They are trapped the same as millions of citizens of France today are trapped on the borderline between the occupied and the unoccupied area. I would like to say as emphatically as I can that this in no way amends or affects the present immigration law. The immigration law is not changed in this bill and it is not affected in any way. As far as refugees from other countries are concerned. consent must be received from all of the belligerent countries named in the Presidents proclamation. whoever they may be or however many there are. All of the consents must be given before any of our ships will be permitted to go over there in ballast to bring those refugee children to this country. That is the only safe way they can be taken out of England. There is no other way that can be devised to take them out.
Keywords matched
immigration refugee refugees