United States Aviation Cadets, Inc.

United States Naval Reserve Officers Association.

Veterans of Foreign Wars of United States, Department of Delaware.

Veterans of Foreign Wars of United States, Morley S. Oates Auxiliary No. 701. Westchester Security League.

Wisconsin Chapter, Daughters of Founders and Patriots.

Woman Patriot Corporation.

Woman's Pioneer Aircraft Association of Chicago, Inc.

Women's National Defense Committee of Philadelphi. a

Women of Army and Navy Legion of Valor, United States of America.

Mr. TREVOR. I would like to read this resolution adopted at our last annual convention in relation to the immigration question:

IMMIGRATION

Be it resolved, That the American Coalition advocates temporary suspension of immigration for 10 years, the reduction of permanent immigration quotas by 90 percent, and the prompt deportation of all foreigners in the United States whose presence is inimical to the public interest; registration of aliens in the United States; deportation of aliens whose presence in the United States constitutes a burden to the American taxpayer; restriction of employment on public projects and public relief to our own citizens; absolute prohibition of the admission of refugees entering the United States in the guise of visitors, and the rigid enforcement of all existing statutes relating to the deportation of illegal entrants; and be it further

Resolved, That the American Coalition commends Senator Robert R. Reynolds, Congressman Joe Starnes, and other members of the Senate and House of Representatives for their efforts to secure the enactment of more effective immigration and deportation laws by the Congress of the United States.

Senator REYNOLDS. Mr. Chairman, may I suggest, with the permission of the committee, that the witness take up in sequence bills 407, 408, 409, 410 and 411, and express himself in regard to each bill before speaking generally.

Mr. TREVOR. May I begin with 407?

Senator REYNOLDS. If you please. Then when the committee reads the transcript of the testimony taken here today, they will have your expression on each paragraph of each bill that we have under consideration before the committee.

Mr. TREVOR. Mr. Chairman, it is the feeling of the society that I represent that bills in substance like these should be adopted at the earliest possible moment. We think it is the fact that in the past 5 or 6 years quota immigration has risen from 8,220 to which it was cut by Mr. Hoover's public charge administrative instruction to over 45,000, indicates a tendency toward a looser interpretation of the quota law. We go so far as to feel that no immigrant should be admitted when from 10 to 13 millions of Americans are out, of work and possibly twenty or more millions are in receipt of direct or indirect relief from the Government.

In regard to these bills, we say, in the first place, that we should suspend all immigration into the United States, as provided in the bill. S. 409 might be combined with the reduction of the quota by the elimination of sections 2 and 3, which are the penalty clauses of 409, and the changing of the words "July 1, 1939," to phraseology something like this: "The date on which temporary suspension shall cease." Even if we only had a 90-percent reduction in immigration quotas into the United States until the Secretary of Labor certifies that unemployment in the United States does not exceed 3,000,000 persons, that would greatly relieve the situation.

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The position our organizations take is in accord with that of practically every other civilized nation in the world. They take care of their own citizens first, which is something we have not done. We should begin thinking in terms of America first.

We hold no brief for any particular phraseology. If the substance of these bills can be incorporated into any statute, we are for it.

Something has been said about the number of aliens going out of the country as the reason for not passing legislation such as this. As a matter of fact, the number going out in the last 4 years amounted to approximately 126,000, and the number of immigrants amounted to 189,000. In other words, we are adding to our population by immigration. We are not decreasing it by emigration now.

Senator REYNOLDS. Just a moment, Mr. Trevor. It is my recollection that this morning the gentleman representing the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization gave the impression that more aliens were going out of the country every year than were coming in. Is that not so?

Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. No; decidedly not; not at all. I said for a few years.

Senator REYNOLDS. I beg your pardon. I had also in mind a recent article in the Washington Star of several days ago by David Lawrence.

Mr. TREVOR. David Lawrence quoted some figures, but he added some years that made the picture today an erroneous one entirely, by including immigration and emigration of years before the previous administration enforced the public-charge provision of the act of 1917. Senator REYNOLDS. I beg your pardon, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. If there are any statements with which I cannot agree, may I ask some questions?

Senator HERRING. Yes.

Mr. TREVOR. The only statistics I have to offer here are from the reports the Commissioner has submitted.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. I take no exception to that, provided you do not read anything between the lines.

Mr. TREVOR. I notice, Mr. Chairman, the Commissioner stated that he had no knowledge whatever of the number of illegal entries into the United States. Nobody knows. I will discuss that somewhat later, when I come to the registration bill.

To go on with the first bill, S. 407: Section 2 provides that no immigration visa shall be issued to any married applicant for entry into the United States if he divides his family and separates from it in Europe.

In substance, we believe, section 2 would stop all this hullabaloo that has been going on for 20 years about our laws separating and dividing families. We do not believe any immigrants should be allowed to come into this country unless our American Government officials abroad have satisfied themselves that every member of that family can be admitted.

I have attended these hearings for 20 years, and I have heard this sob stuff from beginning to end. Four out of five of these people who have inheritable defects are permitted to enter will leave behind a child with a physical or mental defect. They will leave that child behind, and then come before a committee of Congress and plead for admission of the other child which was admitted as a student, should

be given special privilege, and allowed to remain in the country permanently. When you do that you are not only adding by immigration to our population and increasing unemployment but you add families who will contribute forever to American institutions for defectives. We can stop a good deal of it with this bill's enactment. Any phraseology you can adopt that will accomplish that purpose is what we want.

Senator HERRING. Do you think there is a great number of those cases?

Mr. TREVOR. There is no question about it. During the past 20 years I have been before these committees when these cases have comé up. There are lots of them that never go before the authorities, due to the fact that we have no registration of aliens. We do not know who is in the country. I think it was testified here today that the Department charged with the duty of enforcing our laws has no check on the aliens unless they come within the scope of the Department's activities, through the fact that they have been arrested or found in some eleemosynary institution. Some aliens have been found in our various institutions. Under the law they should be deported. I do not want to misquote or read anything between the lines.

Senator HERRING. There is no record of such cases for which special bills have been passed?

Mr.HOUGHTELING. I have no recollection of any in the year and a half of my tenure.

Senator HERRING. I was just wondering how serious that might be. Mr. HOUGHTELING. In the last session of Congress, which was, of course, my first session, I do not know of any such cases. I know that we reported on a good many private bills, most of which did not pass. We reported to this committee and to the committee of the House. I do not recall any such cases.

Mr. TREVOR. The Department has stayed the deportations of at least 4,000 such cases which were mandatory deportable under the law.

Senator HOLMAN. Now, you are challenging something. Tell us that again.

Mr. TREVOR. I am saying that during the last 6 years the Department of Labor has been violating the statute by not deporting, as they should, alien criminals in the United States.

Senator HOLMAN. That is why I asked about the functions of the Department.

Mr.HOUGHTELING. May I answer that? He said "alien criminals." Mr. TREVOR. I should like for you to introduce into the record these 4,000 cases.

I should like you

Mr. HOUGHTELING. You said "criminal aliens." to name some alien criminals who were not deported.

Mr. TREVOR. I have nothing with me at this time that I could answer you specifically. Your predecessor asked that a reporter be sent to the Department of Labor to examine cases, but by the time he had covered 1,200, my understanding is that he was directed to stop. But the Hearst papers, nevertheless, published a long list of aliens who were completely within the scope of the statute calling for mandatory deportation but who had actually been released and turned loose in this country.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. Criminals?

Mr. TREVOR. Yes. One of those men was a man who had been involved in a homicide case in Buffalo. I will be glad to supply the committee with clippings showing that record.

As a matter of fact, Senator Reynolds made a personal inspection of the deportation files in the Department and picked out, haphazard, some 50 cases, and he discussed them in the Senate on April 3 and 4, 1936. He can tell you what he found.

Since the Commissioner seemed inclined to take exception to my remarks, those show cases where there were criminals.

Senator REYNOLDS. I think I understand what you are referring to. I have in my desk in the Senate chamber a pamphlet containing the names of about 50 aliens whose cases I examined at the Department. I have just sent over for that information, and I will be glad to bring it to the attention of the committee.

Mr. TREVOR. Mr. Chairman, Senator Reynolds has a record of cases of aliens who were in this country, who were criminals, and who have been permitted to leave the country so that they could return at once. They had been in the country more than 7 years, and they were, therefore, not deportable under the existing statutes, which should be amended. Those were criminals. The Senator has that list, and I wish that it might be put in the record in order that you may see the cases of aliens who were permitted to go out of the country and reenter, though they were unfit to be in the country in the first place, and, in my opinion, should have been deported.

Senator HERRING. I think we should have that record. While I was Governor of my State I had a survey made of the penitentiary to find the number of alien criminals. I released them, and they were sent out of the country. I had no difficulty in getting them deported. Senator REYNOLDS. I wish we had more governors like the State of Iowa had at that time.

Mr. TREVOR. We know of a case where the Spanish counsul general secured the release of a criminal in order that he might go abroad and enlist in the Loyalist forces in Spain. It is our opinion that that was pretty close to a violation of neutrality by somebody.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. Did the Immigration Service have anything to do with that?

Mr. TREVOR. They permitted them to go out.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. Which I conceive to accomplish our duty in such cases. Deporting means sending them out. If they go out of their own accord and at their own expense, it seems to me the fact that they go out accomplishes the purpose.

Mr. TREVOR. Not necessarily. I want to say a word on that point. An alien who may be thoroughly undesirable and deportable under the law is frequently allowed to depart voluntarily, so that he can come right back as soon as he can get an immigration visa.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. Is he admitted?

Mr. TREVOR. He can be. Mr. Commissioner, do you remember the testimony you gave before the Appropriations Committee of the House in regard to those cases that were readmitted?

Mr. HOUGHTELING. When?

Mr. TREVOR. Last year. If not, I think that testimony should be incorporated in the hearings, in order that you may see exactly the situation to which I refer. It is all set out in the record, and Senator Reynolds is perfectly familiar with it.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. But you were talking about criminals.

Mr. TREVOR. I am talking about criminals of all kinds. Of course, it is my contention that a man who commits forgery or perjury to enter the United States is a criminal.

Mr. HOUGHTLING. You refer to deportable cases.

Mr. TREVOR. Yes.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. That is what you mean?

Mr. TREVOR. Yes; cases that are mandatorily deportable under the law. A good deal has been said about these cases of aliens who were guilty of very technical violations of the law. As a matter of fact, Senator, if you will look at that list of aliens Senator Reynolds had, you can form your own conclusions as to whether they are criminals or not. It is a most shocking list.

I will say this, Mr. Chairman-this has nothing to do with the present Commissioner, for I think the Commissioner tried to improve the situation over what it was when MacCormack was in charge-I endeavored to ascertain the number of alien criminals in jails that were deportable, but I could not get any response from the Department of Labor at that time. I had an investigation made of inhabitants of asylums, jails, and other institutions, and I will be most happy to put a copy of that before you. At the present moment I am employing a very distinguished scientist, who rendered great service to the House Immigration Committee in the investigation of 1921, to make a new survey, and we hope to publish it within the next few weeks, showing the situation that exists today.

Senator HOLMAN. Showing the eleemosynary and public institutions? Mr. TREVOR. Yes.

Senator HOLMAN. We know the cost of maintaining public institutions is great and growing.

Mr. TREVOR. We hope to have factual data. Senator HOLMAN. State by State? Mr. TREVOR. The whole Nation. I have written the various consuls in New York City from foreign nations for a statement regarding their regulations and laws, concerning the entry of persons who are professional people, skilled laborers, and common laborers. We expect to publish those, in order that we may see what foreign nations are doing to protect their citizens and subjects from just the sort of thing we feel Americans should be protected from.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. May I say a word here to the Senator from Oregon?

Senator HERRING. Yes.

Mr. HOUGHTELING. The Dies bill, which passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 176 to 33, and failed because it did not come up in the Senate last year, provided for the relief of a certain number of specific cases of aliens closely related to American citizens or who had been in the country for over 10 years. These were substantial people, of good moral character, criminals and other undesirable were specifically excepted. But an amendment was introduced in the House of Representatives providing that any alien who had procured entry illegally by affidavit, or had procured entry papers by fraud, should be included among the hardship cases, provided he or she was a relative, either husband, wife, or child of an American citizen; but that no violator of the criminal clause of the 1917 act or any narcotic act or of the 1918 subversive elements act, should be