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EMERGENCY HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

FEBRUARY 25, 1932.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. ALMON, from the Committee on Roads, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 9642]

The Committee on Roads, to which was referred the bill (H. R. 9642) to authorize supplemental appropriations for emergency highway construction, with a view to increasing employment, having had the same under consideration, now reports the bill to the House with the following amendments and recommends that the bill as amended do pass.

Page 2, lines 20 and 21, strike out "(other than the Federal-aid highway system)".

Page 3, line 24, after the word "employment" insert the words "of local labor".

Page 3, after line 25, add the following section:

SEC. 4. The last paragraph of section 6 of the Federal highway act, approved November 9, 1921 (42 Stat. 212; U. S. C., title 23, sec. 6), is hereby amended to read as follows:

"Whenever provision has been made by any State for the completion and maintenance of 90 per centum of its system of primary or interstate and secondary or intercounty highways equal to 7 per centum of the total mileage of such State, as required by this act, said State, through its State highway department, by and with the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture, is hereby authorized to increase the mileage of the primary or interstate and secondary or intercounty systems by additional mileage equal to not more than 1 per centum of said total mileage of such State, and thereafter to make like increases in the mileage of said systems whenever provision has been made for the completion and maintenance of 90 per centum of the mileage of said systems previously authorized in accordance herewith."

This bill, as amended by the Committee on Roads, provides an authorization of a supplemental appropriation for emergency highway construction with a view to increasing employment.

The provisions are similar to those carried in the emergency road legislation of the last Congress.

The authorizations are as follows:

(1) One hundred and twenty million dollars to be advanced to the States to be expended under the provisions of the Federal highway act as to State funds.

These sums so advanced must be expended by June 30, 1933, and shall be reimbursed to the Federal Government over a period of ten years commencing with the fiscal year 1938 (being the time of expiration of reimbursement of advances made by the last Congress.) This reimbursement is obtained by deductions from regular apportionments made from future authorizations.

(2) For national forest highways, $5,000,000.

(3) For roads, trails, bridges, fire lanes, etc., in the national forest, $3,000,000. (4) For roads in national parks and national monuments, $1,500,000.

(5) For roads on Indian reservations, $1,000,000.

(6) For main roads through unappropriated or unreserved public lands, not in forest reservations, $2,000,000.

The bill also provides in section 3 that the Secretary of Agriculture shall make such rules and regulations for carrying out the provisions of this act as will provide the maximum employment of local labor consistent with reasonable economy of construction.

The Federal highway act is amended by section 4 so as to provide that whenever a State has made provision for the completion and maintenance of its 7 per cent system up to 90 per cent of that system, 1 per cent of the total road mileage of such State may be added to that system. It has been demonstrated by much testimony that there are many States which are handicapped at present in extending their 7 per cent system due to roads incompleted where railroad crossing eliminations are contemplated and present financial conditions with the railroads (which are required to pay a part of the cost) are such that this work is held up. There are also other places where it is inexpedient to change the present Federal-aid system.

Testimony was developed before the committee which showed that all State highway departments favor this legislation and are prepared with plans for work so that they can go forward without any loss of time whatsoever. Various other groups support this legislation as the best method to aid employment throughout the country. Definite information is on file to prove that 90 cents of every dollar expended on roads goes to labor.

On the request of Chairman Almon, Mr. Thomas H. MacDonald, Director of Public Roads, Department of Agriculture, appeared before the committee and testified as to the operations under the proposed legislation to afford increased opportunities for employment. His testimony is shown in the printed hearings.

CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW.

In compliance with paragraph 2a of Rule XIII of the rules of the House of Representatives, changes in the last paragraph of section 6 of the Federal highway act made by the bill are shown as follows: Existing law proposed to be omitted is inclosed in black brackets, new matter is printed in italics, existing law in which no change is proposed is shown in roman:

Whenever provision has been made by any State for the completion and maintenance of [a] 90 per centum of its system of primary or interstate and secondary or intercounty highways equal to 7 per centum of the total mileage of such State, as required by this Act, said State, through its State highway department, by and with the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture, is hereby authorized to [add to] increase the mileage of the primary or interstate and secondary or intercounty systems [as funds become available for the construction] by additional mileage equal to not more than 1 per centum of said total mileage of such State, and thereafter to make like increases in the mileage of said systems whenever provision has been made for the completion and maintenance of [such additional] 90 per centum of the mileage of said systems previously authorized in accordance herewith. о

DEPORTATION OF CERTAIN ALIENS

FEBRUARY 25, 1932.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be

printed

Mr. CABLE, from the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 7793]

The Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, to whom was referred H. R. 7793, to amend section 15 of the immigration act of 1924 to secure the departure of certain aliens from the United States, having considered the same, reports such bill to the House favorably without amendment and with a recommendation that the bill do pass.

The purposes of the amendment are (1) to require all aliens who enter the United States under diplomatic courtesy as attendants, servants, and employees of foreign diplomatic officials to depart when their diplomatic employment ceases; and (2) to give the Department of Labor discretion to require of an alien who enters the United States as a student a bond to guarantee his or her departure.

Section 3 of the immigration act of 1924 exempts from the term "immigrant" not only foreign governmental officials and the members of their family, but also "attendants, servants, and employees." Such "attendants, servants, and employees" are now admitted freely, without any real regard to the provisions of our immigration laws, not having to pay any head tax or even comply with the physical, mental, and moral requirements of the immigration law of 1917. The last proviso of section 3 of the immigration act of February 5, 1917, reads as follows:

That nothing in this act shall be construed to apply to accredited officials of foreign governments, nor to their suites, families, or guests.

It is interesting to note the large numbers of aliens admitted as attendants, servants, and employees of foreign government officials. For the seven fiscal years that the present quota law has been in effect, 14,047 aliens have been admitted under this section of the law, and annually during the last five fiscal years there have been admitted

in 1927, 2,454; in 1928, 2,608; in 1929, 2,873; in 1930, 2,671; and in 1931, 1,733.

What becomes of all such aliens no one knows. No check up is kept. Departing aliens are listed only by their occupational status. The immigration laws, and particularly section 15, specifically exempt all such aliens from maintaining a nonimmigrant status, such as is required of (1) an alien visiting the United States temporarily as a tourist, or temporarily for business and pleasure; (2) an alien in continuous transit through the United States; (3) an alien lawfully admitted to the United States, who goes from one part of the United States to another through foreign, contiguous territory; (4) a bona fidė alien seaman entering temporarily in pursuit of his calling; (5) an alien entitled to enter the United States for the purpose of carrying on a trade under an existing treaty of commerce or navigation; and (6) an alien admitted for a period of study. Aliens of these six classes, upon the termination of the privileged status under which they are admitted, are (if they fail to leave the country voluntarily) deportable under sections 19 and 20 of the immigration act of 1917 and sections 14 and 15 of the 1924 act, and the immigration rules of January 1, 1930, for the administration of the immigration acts of 1917 and 1924, whenever their status is terminated or changed.

It is the purpose of H. R. 7793 in amending section 15 to put the alien attendants, servants, and employees of foreign government officials in the same class with the aliens enumerated above, so that such alien attendants, servants, and employees, upon the termination. or change of their privileged nonimmigrant status, will be subject to deportation from the United States, if they fail to depart as they should. It is the opinion of both the Department of State and Department of Labor officials that many of these aliens now remain, compete for positions with Americans and aliens lawfully here, and that some such legislation as this proposed bill should be enacted.

The second amendment that H. R. 7793 proposes to make to section 15 of the 1924 law relates to the status of alien students admitted to the United States for a definite study period. Under paragraph (e) of section 4 of the immigration act of 1924 a student is classified as a nonquota alien, in the following language:

An immigrant who is a bona fide student at least fifteen years of age and who seeks to enter the United States solely for the purpose of study at an accredited school, college, academy, seminary, or university, particularly designated by him and approved by the Secretary of Labor, which shall have agreed to report to the Secretary of Labor the termination of attendance of each immigrant student, and if any such institution of learning fails to make such reports promptly the approval shall be withdrawn;

It appears from the last annual report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1931, that a large number of alien students who are admitted, on the express understanding that they do, but do not, after completing or terminating their educational or study period, depart from the United States, an express condition precedent to their temporary admission. In many instances these aliens either because of failure on the part of the Government to keep tab on them, or as in the case of students coming from Russia, are not deported. The law is mandatory and requires that a bona fide student who can qualify be admitted to the United States.

While it is within the discretion of the Department of Labor to determine whether an alien applicant for admission is a bona fide student, the department once finding that he is, must admit the alien temporarily as a student.

Under the regulations of the Immigration Bureau and Department of Labor, the approved institutions to which these aliens are admitted are required, following the completion of each semester, to advise the bureau of the status of the alien, or to advise the bureau in the event the alien leaves the institution, or transfers to another.

During the seven years since the enactment of the 1924 act, 12,369 aliens have been admitted as students, and only 6,223 have departed, there remaining in the United States 6,146, most of whom are still attending school. However, once a year a general check-up is made of all students with the result that a fairly accurate record shows that 100 students may be regarded as completely lost, that is to say, students who have terminated their connections with institutions of learning and whom the department is utterly unable to locate. Included in the 6,223 alien students who have departed during the past seven fiscal years there have been about 410 warrant cases. In these 410 cases it was necessary to resort to and go to the expense of formal deportation proceedings because these 410 alien students did not voluntarily depart as required upon the termination of their student

status.

During the past seven years there has been and still is a constant stream of these alien student applications for certificates of arrival in order to make a declaration of intention to become citizens of the United States. These applications have averaged two a month during the past four or five years. In any event, where an application is received from such an alien student, the practice is to refuse to issue a certificate of lawful entry for permanent residence. This does not prevent the alien student from exercising the prerogative which any alien has of making the declaration of intention should he insist upon doing so. It is understood some declarations of intention have been made by students, notwithstanding that such declarations lack validity, because there is no way to certify to their permanent admission under the immigration law of 1924.

There is a law providing for the deportation of aliens admitted temporarily as students when their student status ends, but frequently because of some such administrative difficulties as securing a passport, it is impossible to bring about their deportation.

The bond requirement in the proposed bill does not necessarily bar the admission of such alien students, but it undoubtedly will have the effect of better securing their departure in most instances, thus relieving the Immigration Service from the expense and work of effecting their enforced departure. If a good bond is required, undoubtedly such a bond would be a considerable deterrent in preventing the alien from remaining undetected after the termination of his student status.

As indicated above, H. R. 7793 contains legislation recommended and approved by the Departments of State and of Labor. H. R. 7802 introduced by the chairman of the Committee of Immigration and Naturalization, Mr. Dickstein, at the request of the Department of State, would amend the existing law as to alien attendants, servants, and employees of foreign diplomats. The Commissioner General of

HR-72-1-VOL 1-72

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