Mr. HUSBAND. I believe the Commissioner General of Immigration has specified 60 as the age limit.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. You also approve the bill to legalize all persons illegally in the United States prior to July 1, 1924?

Mr. HUSBAND. Hardly.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Your recommendation expressly so states in your last annual report.

Mr. HUSBAND. The report of the Secretary of Labor?

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Yes. I mean the Commissioner General of Immigration.

Mr. HUSBAND. Oh, the commissioner general. I am speaking for the Department of Labor rather than the Bureau of Immigration. Mr. Box. I would like to know just what is the position of the department on that question. Get it clear.

Mr. HUSBAND. This is a bill (H. R. 6852) which extends the registration privilege to aliens who entered the United States prior to July 1, 1924, instead of June 3, 1921, as under the present law. From an administrative standpoint, I may say, there are two sides to the question. There are cases in which aliens came to the United States between June 3, 1921, and July 1, 1924, when they supposed they were coming in accordance with law and were entitled to remain. There are others, and a great many others, who came with the deliberate intention of escaping the quota limitations imposed under the act of 1921. We have made an effort, and in some cases have succeeded, in adjusting the status of those who came honestly in the belief that their entry was in accordance with law. It is not always possible, but sometimes such cases can be favorably adjusted. But we have been in rather grave doubt as to the wisdom of extending at this early date complete forgiveness to persons who came to the United States in deliberate violation of the law. It is true that they are not subject to deportation. But they are not eligible to citizenship, if that is a punishment. They are not eligible to receive reentry permits. That is, they may not go abroad and return as lawful resident aliens, and they may not enjoy the priority or preferences granted to aliens lawfully resident in the United States with respect to bringing in relatives.

Mr. Box. Being ineligible to citizenship, and being made so by law, they are not dealing with a new law, are they? Hasn't that been the law all the time?

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes, sir; legal entry must be shown. Unless legal entry can be shown foreign-born residents are deprived of the privilege of acquiring citizenship. I think I am expressing the department's attitude correctly when I say that there is grave doubt as to the wisdom of extending complete forgiveness, especially to those who knowingly violated the law when they came into the country. Mr. DICKSTEIN. Would not that be within the discretion of the department in cases of that character where the entry is willful and malicious to deny the legalization even at the present time, where the present law permits legalization prior to July, 1921?

Mr. HUSBAND. No, sir; Mr. Congressman. The act of March 2, 1929, which makes provision for registration, raises no question as to the manner of entry into the United States provided that entry was before June 3, 1921.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. The fact of the matter is that under the present law and under the resolution just referred to, persons illegally in the United States prior to July first can establish their status. that not so?

Mr. HUSBAND. I beg your pardon.

Is

Mr. DICKSTEIN. I say under the resolution you refer to of March 2, persons illegally in the United States may be legalized and become citizens of the United States?

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes, sir; if they entered prior to June 3, 1921.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. And the extension of this bill would not fix the dead line as of July 1, 1924. It would practically put the ones that came between 1921 and 1924 in the same position as those who came here prior to July 1, 1921? That is your recommendation? The commissioner general recommends that, does he not?

Mr. HUSBAND. I could not say as to that.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. The Secretary of Labor, I understand you to say, qualifies the recommendation?

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes. I have not been able to find that the Secretary of Labor has made any specific recommendation concerning the matter and I am expressing the attitude of the department as I understand it. I may say, Mr. Congressman, that a good many cases arise in the course of a year involving those who entered between June 3, 1921, and July 1, 1924, in which the person concerned has a very distinct equity which we would be glad to recognize if the law permitted.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Is the department prepared to make any recommendations on H. R. 7703, the last bill on the list?

Mr. HUSBAND. That is another question which has two distinct sides. There are in the country at the present time a considerable number of persons who have come ostensibly as visitors, but who, immediately after admission, married an American citizen, thereby putting themselves in the nonquota class, and the circumstances in a good many such cases indicate that they came to the United States for that purpose. There are others who came as bona fide visitors, but who might have come permanently as nonquota immigrants had they desired to do so. In such cases we would be glad if there were some authority to make admission permanent without requiring the person concerned to make a journey to some foreign country simply for the purpose of taking advantage of a nonquota status, which he possessed when he entered as a temporary visitor. But in the many cases in which the obvious intent was to violate the law by gaining admission as visitors, the department does not think that it is inhumane or imposing a very considerable hardship to require departure from the country in order to qualify as immigrants in the manner provided by the present law.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. I am only talking about people who qualify in good faith. I have no sympathy with the fellow who comes in a guise that is not right. I am talking about legitimate cases, as where a fellow comes from some foreign country and would be entitled to come in under this quota law. It is not a question of deportation. Do you seek to amend the law to give the Secretary of Labor that right by letting the person stay here instead of enriching the steamship company by a trip abroad and making him come back, provided

he is qualified in all other respects, under the rules of both the State Department and the Labor Department?

Mr. HUSBAND. I think there are a few cases, and I would say that the number is very limited, in which the amendment you propose in this bill would seem just. But in the great majority of cases, in my judgment, the circumstances are such that to give visitors a permanent status would simply amount to putting a premium on successful attempts to get around the law.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. That is just a question of thought, more or less. What I was trying to get at was a very short proposition. Let us suppose, for the purposes of this case, that a minister of the gospel comes to this country as a tutor, and he finds he has a church here in which he could settle and continue in his vocation as a minister of the gospel. Let us assume that he comes under this vocation. He is exempted under section 34 of the act of 1924. He has nothing to do with the quota. It is just a question of policy. Shall we, if he is entitled to exemption, and is otherwise morally and physically fit, compel this man to go back to Egypt and return again, or why could we not exempt him right here in the United States?

Mr. HUSBAND. This bill would accomplish that, but it would also accomplish the same thing in cases that were not so appealing, in my judgment. If it is the purpose of the bill to take care of cases of that sort, I will suggest that it be amended to provide that it shall apply only in the case of those who were of a nonquota class at the time they entered the country.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Absolutely.

Mr. HUSBAND. And that does not mean the visitor who comes in and then gets married to a citizen, thereby putting himself or herself in a non-quota status. It would merely mean that a minister, for instance, who comes for a visit, or a professor who comes temporarily to give a few lectures, and who might have been admitted as a nonquota immigrant, could be given a permanent status if called to a pulpit or a university chair while in this country.

Mr. Box. Suppose we do that, could we safely couple with it a provision for his family to come? Suppose you give that man a nonquota immigrant status and his family comes to join him, could we safely extend that provision to his family who come to join him? Mr. HUSBAND. If we could adjust his status, Judge Box, so that he would be in the United States as a non-quota immigrant, then his wife and children would be able to join him under the same status. The CHAIRMAN. Your idea is, the equities would require that? Mr. HUSBAND. The law would require it.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. We have provided for that.

Mr. HUSBAND. The law already provides that the wife and children of a non-quota immigrant shall also enjoy a like status.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. In every phase of the immigration laws for the last several years there are always cases of people who attempt to do something they should not do. I am not interested in these people. I am willing to put all the safeguards necessary around the law. I am talking about a minister or college professor, or someone, let us say, who came in good faith. He fell in love with an American girl and married her. Under our present immigration law he would have to leave the country. It has been rumored that Canada does not

want these people to come in for the purpose of getting back here again. They claim they get no benefit from that. This man has to go way back and reenter again. He has nothing to do with the quota. He has to spend three or four thousand dollars to make the trip for no purpose whatever but to reenter and the Secretary of State has no power under the present law to visa his passport.

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes; consular officers alone have authority to issue visas. In the case of a minister or a professor under the circumstances I have mentioned, it does seem rather ridiculous to require departure from the country in order to bring about a change of status, but when a man comes temporarily and changes his status from that of a visitor to that of a nonquota immigrant while he is in the country, that is another matter, it seems to me.

The CHAIRMAN. The probability is that that would lead right on to discussion of those who come as artists or musicians under contract, and later find their organization broken up and they are left here. They marry. The next step would be to try and get relief for them.

Mr. HUSBAND. I think they would find relief under this bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Then would we not immediately have great pressure on the consuls abroad for more visas ?

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Mr. HUSBAND. I think there is no question but what the proposed amendment would make the United States a more conspicuous Gretna Green" than it is at the present time. Petitions on Form 633 for issuance of nonquota visas to wives or husbands of American citizens would probably diminish and more marriages would occur in this country if it were possible to acquire a nonquota status after entry as a nonimmigrant visitor.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. The only question really that you have is that in some cases they might abuse that law?

Mr. HUSBAND. Well, I think in the majority of cases they do abuse it. I do not care to be narrow about these matters, but when weddings occur within three or four days after a person has come into the United States as a temporary visitor, it is hard to assume that marriage was not the real purpose at the time of entry.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. But nature can't control that so well, can it? Mr. Box. The immigration law can, can it not?

Mr. HUSBAND. Well, yes. At least it could avoid putting a premium on the practice.

Mr. Box. In that same connection, you are familiar with some of the bills pending before this committee authorizing admission of aliens specially skilled in certain lines in connection with the suggestion that was made that if the committee supported such legislation it ought to take care of people temporarily admitted at the present time, under the contract labor law. Can you see any end of that policy of letting these people who come in temporarily remain? Can you see any end to it?

Mr. HUSBAND. I have not been able to see an end.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. But, Mr. Husband, is not that a fact that only deals with persons who, under the law, are exempted? It does not deal with anybody else?

Mr. HUSBAND. No, it deals with a class of people who if they were outside the United States and applied for a permanent visa at an

American consulate, would not be able to get it except under the usual procedure governing quota transactions.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Would they not have to prove to your satisfaction that they came here for legitimate business and the act of marriage or whatever the case may be that would exempt them would have to be in good faith?

Mr. HUSBAND. I believe that the bill if amended as I have suggested, would not be disapproved by the Department of Labor; that is, in the cast of a person coming to the United States as a bona fide visitor who, at the time he applied for a visitor's visa, might have qualified as a nonquota immigrant and entered for permanent residence, it might not be objectionable if he could be given the privilege of permanent residence. But I do not believe it would be wise to extend the same privilege to temporary visitors who became members of a nonquota class while in the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. I think I see it. This bill gives him a right, without amendment. It would amount to the United States going into a sort of matrimonial agency, would it not?

Mr. HUSBAND. I am afraid it would. There are many cases in which women come in as temporary visitors and marry American citizens. If the woman declines to leave the country voluntarily and a warrant of deportation is issued, there is usually a great cry about tearing a mother away from her American citizen husband and American citizen child. All of that difficulty could be overcome by departure to another country and reentry as a nonquota immigrant, and that is the adjustment that is finally made in most cases.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. In other words, Mr. Secretary, you would cure it under the present law as the law stands to-day? You feel if a man comes in here, let us say, on a visit and marries an American girl, if he leaves the country and comes in again, that cures it?

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes, sir. He comes in as a visitor, for instance, which under the act of 1924 is a particularly well-defined status. The second time he enters he comes as an immigrant for permanent residence. That also is a well-defined status.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Isn't it a fact that the man makes this returning trip to get the ocean air, and when he comes back, having made that trip, that cures it?

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes.

STATEMENT OF JOHN F. SIMMONS, CHIEF OF THE VISA OFFICE, STATE DEPARTMENT

Mr. DICKSTEIN. We will ask you, Mr. Simmons, in the first place to give us the number of persons holding visas legally from American consulates prior to July, 1924.

Mr. SIMMONS. I shall be glad to give you the best available estimates. I believe that it is very necessary, in order to have a complete picture of this question raised by H. R. 5645, that we study the extent and nature of the problem.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. You might, if the chairman is agreeable.
The CHAIRMAN. Certainly.

Mr. SIMMONS. As far as we can estimate, there were originally some 15,000 alien holders of valid visas prior to July 1, 1924, which they were unable to use, largely due to quota restrictions. The