Speech #800016160

Coolidge gave it his 0. K. That legislation established a principle as to the Immigration Service and the border patrol which has later been accepted in all departments of the Government. I refer to the principle of automatic promotions. By reason of this legislation to which I refer. the Immigration Department was rehabilitated and the border patrol was reestablished and put on a sound basis. Mr. Coolidge recognized the importance of this work and gladly authorized the expenditure of what in those days was a tremendous sum of money. His judgment has been justified in many ways. The Roosevelt administration brought to immigration a different attitude than that which had beeni assumed by any of its predecessors. Roosevelt when he was Governor of New York had steadily refused to cooperate with the immigration authorities and he and Secretary Perkins proceeded on a policy that to my mind has undermined the immigration laws and the administration of immigration laws until today it is almost impossible for any Congressman to find out anything about this governmental activity. Time will not permit me to go into details with reference to these matters but I wish to say that a number of Congressmen have asked me whether there are any authentic figures with reference to how many persons are unlawfully in this country. I have never been able to find any answer for this question. In fact I am of the opinion that it hasbeen the policy of the immigration authorities in the past 15 years to keep the public in the dark as much and as far as possible with reference to immigration matters. There is no question but that there are tens of thousands of persons in" this country today who came here illegally. I have heard from wellversed students of immigration that there are hundreds of thousands of persons in this country who came here illegally. No doubt many of these could easily have been identified by the Government authorities if they had been inclined to do it. I have no doubt but that this situation has at least been passively encouraged by those in authority and by those whose responsibility it was to enforce the law. I have no personal animosity toward any group or any nationality. and while I had the honor of being the author of a number of laws dealing with this great subject I never have been in -tavor of total restriction of immigration from any country from which our immigration has been coming regularly. and I would not today favor total restriction. But the conduct of those who have the responsibility of the immigration laws has been so flagrantly inefficient that a tremendous sentiment has grown up in this country in favor of total restriction. Those responsible for this sentiment have done a great injustice to the intelligent and deserving people of foreign countries who might wish to migrate to the United States. I think that a great mistake was made when the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization was abolished and when immigration was placea in the Department of Justice. Especially was this true when immigration was placed under the control of men who were totally out of sympathy with it *and who were completely in favor of letting down the bars at every opportunity. In this respect I call upon the Attorney General to refrain from the customs and policies of Biddle and his gang. By background and by training the present Attorney General would not naturally proceed in the footsteps of.