National origins provision of immigration law

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1796380105

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-196168

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: National origins provision of immigration law

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: Gov. Pr. Off.

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: III, 171 S

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of John B. Trevor, National Immigration Restriction Conference, New York City

Collection:: Economics Books

NATIONAL ORIGINS PROVISION OF IMMIGRATION LAW 41 hold to no national allegiance, thereby constituting a danger in all organized society; or, they too often come imbued with a determination to perpetuate the ties of racial solidarity and give, at the best, but a divided allegiance to the United States. Evidences of the activity of racial blocs attempting to influence congressional aetion for their special benefit have been brought to the attention of the executive committee. Accordingly, this special meeting of the chamber has been called to lay before the members the following essential features of the situation, and to secure a reaffirmation, in a formal and impres- sive manner, of principles which already have been adopted by this body or which are logically supplemental to its previous action. When the Seventieth Congress assembles it is the expressed intention of some of its Members who represent districts in which alien influence pre- dominates, to secure the repeal of one of the fundamental provisions of the immigration act of 1924. The particular section under attack is the national origins provision. This provides, in substances, that the annual quota of any nationality for each fiscal year shall be a number which bears the same ratio to 150,000 (the total number of aliens to be admitted annually) as the number of inhabitants of that national origin in continental United States in 1920 bears to the total population of continental United States in 1920. The para- graphs of the acts of 1924, which embody this provision and describe the methods by which it is to be put into effect, are subsections (b), (e), (dy, and (e) of section 11, commonly known ag the national origins provision. The wording of this section and the statements of its proponents in 1924, demonstrate beyond peradventure of doubt, that it was the infention of Congress to maintain the racial status quo in the United States as of 1920. However, in order that the essence of the controversy which has arisen over this matter in the past three years may he understood, it is necessary to refer briefly to some of the circumstances which led to the adoption of this method for the apportionment of immigration quotas. Prior to the adoption of the first quota act, it became very evident that a lefinite check by legislation must be put upon immigration into the United States. Without such action, this country was in danger of being submerged oy a kind of immigration of a type essentially different in culture and political experience from the elements which evolve the political institutions under which this country has prospered for 150 years. The discussion at that time centered upon a consideration of the characteristics of what are known as the “old” and “new” streams of immigration. But whatever the relative merits, intellectually or culturally, of these groups may be, the essential fact, apparent to everyone, wag that the old immigration from northwestern Europe was being gradually eliminated. This was because the people originating in that area could not compete with the low scale of living to which the newer immi- grants were accustomed by environment and the standards of their fore- fathers. Experience demonstrated that the first quota system adopted fa led in two respects : First, it proved to be an inadequate check on the influx of 1:eople seeking to land upon our shores’; and, secondly, it failed to divide the immi- gration in accordance with the relative proportion of the two streams of our population as a whole, Both of these condifions led to the adoption of the census of foreign born in 1890 as a rough and ready just division of the quotas between the two great streams of immigration. It was, nevertheless, recognized that within each group this arbitrary: method inevitably resulted in discrimination. For example, there is an obvious inconsistency in a German quota amounting to 51.227 and the assignment of a quota of only 34,007 to Great Britain and North Ireland, when the veriest schoolboy is aware that the contribution of the English, the Welsh, the Scotch, and the S-otch-Irigh constituted the great hulk of the foundation stock of the American people? That is to. say, Germany obtained 81 per cent of the total quotas and 32 per cent of the actual adm’ssions uuder the quota of the last fiscal year, although It is deducible from the calculations of the committee of Government experts ! The quotas aggregated 357,803 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1924, but the total net increase of population through immigration ‘as a result of exemptions was 662,557, or only 672 less than the average net increase of poonlation in the five years preceding the Great War, 2In fact, owing to the necessity of apportioning the quotas among the Secoteh, Welsh, North Irish, and certain dependencies overseas falling within the British quota, the actual number of immigrants admitted from England in the fiscal vear ending June 30, 1926, was only 10,5949, or roughly, one-fifth of the German quota. (Annual report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for 1926. Tuble 2. 1 34)

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