71ST CONGRESS ) 2d Session

F

IMMIGRATION FROM COUNTRIES OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

MARCH 13, 1930.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed

Mr. JOHNSON of Washington, from the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, submitted the following

REPORT

To accompany H. R. 10343)

The Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 10343) to provide quota limitations for certain countries of the Western Hemisphere, and for other purposes, having had the same under consideration, reports it back to the House without amendment and recommends that the bill do pass.

The bill extends to the countries of North, Central, and South America the principle of quota restriction which was established by the immigration act of 1924. Different methods for the computation of the quotas are necessary owing to the fact that two of the countries, Canada and Mexico, are contiguous to the United States. In the computing of quotas in this bill Cuba is also treated as contiguous territory.

Before making a detailed statement with regard to the paragraphs of the bill, it will be well to state that the bill, if enacted into law, will be supplemental to the immigration act of 1924 and the other immigration laws, so that in addition to the definite quotas established by this bill for immigrants (designated under the 1924 act as quota immigrants) all the countries of the Western Hemisphere will not be restricted as to nonquota immigrants, except as provided by existing immigration laws.

This is an important consideration for the reason that Central and South American countries, as well as the West Indies, have not to date been emigrant-sending countries. Those who have come to the United States in the years past from these countries have been in nearly all cases persons entitled to classification as nonquota; that is to say, visitors for business or pleasure, students, ministers, teachers, and those entitled to come and go under the provisions of ★3-14-30

the various treaties, and under the provisions of the immigration act of 1924.

Immigration from Mexico has been of a different kind, much of it since 1917 caused by an economic situation. This will be discussed later.

CANADA

The Canadian immigration situation is still different. Immigration from and emigration to Canada has been largely reciprocal, and your committee after careful consideration has decided on a rule for the establishment of quotas that gives a figure which, in connection with the nonquota provisions of the 1924 act, will take care of all contingencies likely to arise in the situation of the movements of the peoples of the United States and its neighbor on the north.

In fact, it is thought that long before Canada will need the annual quotas this bill allots, pressure of population will be pushing the people of the United States into Canada, which country is still an immigrant-receiving country, limiting its immigration, however, to peoples homogeneous to the population of Canada. For quota purposes Canada and Newfoundland are treated as one.

Under State Department regulations Newfoundland will receive quotas from the total in proportion to its demands.

With respect to the neighborly movement of the people of the United States and of the people of Canada back and forth across our northern border, amounting to millions annually, it may be said with assurance that the plan outlined in this bill will cause no more delay, no more inconvenience, no more check than now exists.

Inquiry develops that the principal complaints about crossings at the northern border come from returning citizens of the United States, who seem frequently to fail to realize that they have been in a foreign country, and who protest vigorously at being even momentarily stopped, or at being mildly questioned as to their citizenship. Inasmuch as the present laws require citizens of Canada coming to the United States for permanent residence to be Canadian born, provided with immigration visas, literate, capable of supporting themselves, of good character, free from loathsome and contagious diseases, etc., all immigrants from Canada have to be examined, and this involves an examination of all persons coming over the border. It is remarkable, and a cause of praise, that the United States immigrant inspectors have become so expert that they handle the great movement with practically no inconvenience. If more citizens of the United States would recognize the fact that the border must be protected and the general immigration laws are to be maintained, there would be no friction.

IMMIGRATION FROM CANADA

The Commissioner General of Immigration in his annual report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1929, says:

The total recorded number of aliens of all classes admitted at points along the Canadian land border, including those coming originally for permanent or temporary residence and those returning after an absence of more than six months, was 74,386. Of this number, 48,939, or 65.8 per cent, were natives of nonquota countries, principally Canada; 13,891, or 18.7 per cent, entered as quota immigrants being mainly of European birth; and 9,465, or 12.7 per cent,

as visitors for business or pleasure, transits, and returning residents. The remaining 2,091, or 2.8 per cent, were of miscellaneous classes, embracing 43 Government officials, their families, attendants, servants, and employees; 21 aliens to carry on trade under existing treaties; 882 wives, 331 husbands, and 122 unmarried children of American citizens; 240 wives and 12 unmarried children of natives of nonque a countries; 103 ministers of religious denominations and 28 wives and 23 unmarried children of ministers; 20 professors and 6 wives and 3 unmarried children of professors; 155 students; 85 women who had been American citizens; and 17 Âmerican Indians born in Canada.

Over two-thirds of the aliens admitted via the northern land border were born in Canada, 51,571 giving that country as their place of birth; 21,089 were of European birth, principally Great Britain; 647 were born in Newfoundland d 287 in other sections of the Western Hemisphere; 415 gave Asia as their place of birth; while 120 were natives of Africa and 257 of Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands. The bulk of these aliens from Canada came from the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario, 33,084 entering through the Montreal immigration district, 7,944 through the Buffalo district, and 17,657 through the Detroit district. In the western section, 6,653 aliens were admitted at points in the Grand Forks (N. Dak.) district; 2,482 came via the Spokane district; and 6,566 via the Seattle district.

Of the 74,386 aliens coming over the Canadian border during the year, 64,846 were classified as immigrants and 9,540 as nonimmigrants. The vast majority of the former were admitted under the immigration act of 1924 as natives of Canada nonquota, or as quota immigrants, natives of other countries. Of the nonimmigrants, over 91 per cent came in as temporary visitors or as transits. The volume of newcomers or immigrants from Canada last year was not only the smallest since 1922 but it was less than one-third of the number for 1924, the peak year of immigration from that country, when 200,834 immigrants came to the United States over the northern land border.

Canadian immigration in 1928 was 73,154, including of course all classes, as the United States has no quota for Canada. It might be remarked that the large Canadian immigration figures for 1924 quoted above by the Commissioner General occurred during the last year of the temporary quota law of 1921, when aliens other than Canadian-born could come across the border after five years' domicile in Canada.

MEXICO

Emigration from the United States to Mexico has never been large, hence the rule adopted in this bill for the fixing of "Immigrant" quotas for contiguous territories gives Mexico with its larger population a much smaller quota than Canada.

Citizens of the United States do not go to Mexico because the bulk of the population there is of a different type, much of it not homogeneous with the general population of the United States. And it is for this reason primarily, that the United States should restrict heavily the flow of lower classes of the Mexican population into the United States. Caste exists and is recognized in Mexico. It is the peon type that has been sucked into the United States in large numbers since 1917, so that now the number of persons in the United States who were born in Mexico exceeds 1,000,000.

At hearings held during previous Congresses by the House Immigration Committee it was asserted that the most of the Mexicans coming to the United States returned to Mexico after temporary, seasonal employment here. But at our recent hearings this contention was not sustained. It could not be, for it was shown that 51 per cent of the track laborers and relief gangs on railroads running into Chicago were Mexican peons; that Mexican laborers were working in the mills of Indiana and Pennsylvania, and are spreading over

Michigan, Montana, Iowa, and elsewhere far removed from the southern border.

Following the statement of one witness that 30,000 Mexican laborers were needed in his district on the border, the Hull Settlement House of Chicago telegraphed to that district offering to supply from Chicago 500 Mexicans who were out of work in that city.

Unemployment statistics from Pueblo and Sterling, Colo.; Los Angeles and other points in California; Detroit; and various points in Texas, showed large numbers of Mexicans unemployed. Reliable reports showed great drawings on charity by Mexicans in these and other places. Low-wage scales showed in nearly all places. Mexicans were offering their services at 20 cents an hour in border cities and were being employed in preference to American citizens, who were being forced to migrate northward, thus competing with other unemployment.

Evidence showed that where the Mexican competes with the American negro, the latter is invariably the loser.

California's vital statistics for 1929, just released, show that the births of children to Mexicans in California amount to one-sixth of the total, although the number of Mexicans in California is estimated at not to exceed one-twelfth of the total. These children born in California of Mexican parents are, of course, American citizens. The figures show clearly what is meant when the term "differential fecundity" is used.

It must be clear that the continuation of such a birth rate (or even considerably less) in California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Utah, and Colorado, will in a comparatively short time change the complexion of the population of those States, and bring about a hyphenized, politically unstabilized, Latinized majority throughout the Southwest.

Discussions of all these immigration phases are to be found in the four extended hearings held by the House Committee on Immigration, and published under the following titles: "Labor Problems in Hawaii" (67th Cong., 1st sess.); "Seasonal Agricultural Laborers from Mexico" (69th Cong., 1st sess.); "Immigration from Countries of Western Hemisphere" (70th Cong., 1st sess.); "Immigration from Countries of Western Hemisphere" (71st Cong., 2d sess.).

These hearings cover the racial and economic aspects in great detail, and show conclusively the disastrous effects of the admission of serf, peon, and slave types.

In the various hearings relating to immigration from Mexico, the committee has found that facts presented are somewhat confused owing to the fact that Mexicans are frequently classified with the white race.

The following statement as to admissions to the Santa Barbara General Hospital, Santa Barbara, Calif., is somewhat a typical example:

Admissions to the Santa Barbara General Hospital during the past five years have been classified by the superintendent as follows: American born, 3,184; foreign born, 960; white race, 3,938; red race, 6; yellow race, 81; black race, 119. Mexicans have been classified with the white race and constitute 45 per cent of Americans and other nationalities constituted 55 per cent. (Santa Bar bara Daily News, December 4, 1929.)

same.

Recent hearings showed also various kinds of business to be developing in the Southwest with the aid of the peon type of Mexican labor.

The committee knows that each year that passes without the restriction of this kind of immigration, the task of ultimately effecting restriction becomes more difficult, as agriculture, the railroads, and industry generally become more dependent on and saturated with it. The committee, after most careful consideration and long deliberation, has decided not to disconcert the immediate needs of certain types of industry in the Southwest by abruptly reducing immigration to the minimum provided under the four-for-one rule. Therefore, the bill provides for an extra quota of 8,121 from Mexico for the next fiscal year following the passage of this bill, and 4,061 additional for the second year following. These figures equal one-half and one-quarter of the last recorded figures of immigration from Mexico.

The committee is firmly of the opinion that with this liberal allowance for readjustment purposes, the results will be (1) more permanent employment of those Mexicans now in the country; (2) better housing; (3) less itineracy; (4) fewer movements toward the charity centers; and (5) a discontinuance of the throwing out of balance labor and crop conditions in other parts of the United States. But, more important even than these is the belief that the white population in the great Southwest will not be under the continued. pressure to move farther and farther north into non-Mexicanized

areas.

The committee believes further that this orderly procedure will reduce the tendency to bring in Mexican laborers surreptitiously and in violation of law.

IMMIGRATION IS A DOMESTIC QUESTION

Restriction of immigration is not an issue to be decided by local conditions. It is the problem of the whole United States, and concerns our future most vitally. Immigration is a domestic problem, and must be handled as such. Every decision must be as to what is best for all the people of the United States-what is best for the United States now and hereafter. Postponement for diplomatic or sympathetic reasons is not a solution. To say that the restriction is not needed at this moment is not an answer. Had previous Congresses given heed to such suggestions, it is doubtful if we would have in our statutes to-day a single piece of exclusion or restriction legislation. It will not do to hold back or delay on account of trade, commercial, or friendly relations.

No one of the republics to the south of the United States can feel the slightest resentment, for each one of these countries is an immigrant-receiving country, as was the United States until the passage of the 1924 act. All of the countries to the south are facing the immigration problems which have faced the United States. They desire immigration and are opposed to emigration. They wish and ask their immigration to be of a homogeneous type. They are enacting stringent laws for the control of immigration. Mexico has stringent regulations limiting the number of aliens who may be employed in any particular industry. Other countries limit immigration as far as possible to the Spanish-speaking type.