APPENDIX

WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION

STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY HON. THOMAS A. JENKINS AND HON. JOHN
¢ BOX. MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, in presenting some of the
reasons why one of these bills, or some measure serving their purpose in a better
way, should be enacted, we shall deal first with immigration from Mexico,
because that presents the most acute phase on the problem of immigration from
the Western Hemisphere. The need for quota provisions applicable to all
Western Hemisphere countries is real and urgent. Moreover, legislation restricting
 immigration from all countries of the Western Hemisphere should be general.
Besides other difficulties, a presentation of the problems created by immigration
from all American countries (even as fully as we are undertaking to treat the
problems of Mexican immigration) would require more time and fill more printed
space than can now be given to it.
The discussion will be grouped around three general questions: (1) What is
the volume, extent, and distribution of this immigration, and what are the
probabilities as to its future movement, if not checked by legislation? (2) What
is the character of the Mexican peon population now migrating to America?
(3) What effects are being produced by it uvon our own industrial, economie,
social, and racial problems?

1. NuMBERS oF MEXIcAN IMMIGRANTS, THEIR DISTRIBUTION AND TENDENCY
To CONTINUE IN INCREASING Or DIMINISHING VOLUME

There are some hundreds of thousands of native-born Mexican people in the
United States. In dealing with the numbers and distribution of Mexican immigrants,
 an effort will be made to confine this discussion to foreign-born Mexicans,
though in discussing the effect of this population upon industrial, economic and
social conditions it is practically impossible to separate the recently arrived
Mexican immigrant from the older element of that population, though unquestionably
 many of the older and better elements are very much superior to the
present incoming type. The latter has created the present problem.
The official reports of immigration from Mexico are very fallible. This is true
to a greater extent of the older records made when the restrictions against that
immigration were fewer and less attention was given to the movement. Even
the later reports are not complete, because many enter illicitly and uncounted,
while no effort is made by our Government tn count all Mexicans returning to
Mexico from the United States.
“The main movement of Mexican immigration started after the enactment of
the first temporary quota law of 1921. The census reports of 1900, 1910, and
1920, are of some value in showing the immigration of Mexican-born Mexicans
to the United States beginning 30 years ago. In 1900, there were 103,393 foreignborn
 Mexicans in the country. The census of 1910 showed that we then had
221,215 of the same people, a net gain of Mexican aliens of 11,782 every year,
even during the decade ending 20 years ago. The census of 1920 showed 486,418
or a net gain of 26,522 Mexican aliens every year of the decade ending 10 years
ago,
As stated, Mexican immigration really started in foree after the 1920 census,
Of manv estimates of the present foreign-born Mexican population of the United
403