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OCR Page 1 of 4May 3, 1952
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
SUBJECT: Immigration Bills
I. The Walter and McCarran Bills.
The McCarran billhis a three hundred page comprehensive
revision of all the Federal laws pertaining to immigration
and naturalization. McCarran has been working on it a long
time and claims that it is the result of intense and serious
study. It was reported out by the Senate Judiciary Committee
on January 29, 1952.
The McCarran bill embodies Senator McCarran's philosophy
of how to treat aliens and naturalized citizens. It tends to
make the granting of visas and the proceedings of immigration
authorities more arbitrary than usual. It widens the scope
of deportation and makes possible to revoke the citizenship
of naturalized Americans in several new ways. It is pre-
judiced against the alien and against the naturalized citizen.
It has two good features. One is simply a correction
of the harah provisions of the McCarran Act which exclude an
alion because of membership in a communist or Fascist organi-
zation, even when he was forced to belong. The other is a
section which admits a small number of immigrants from the
countries of Asia and permits them to become naturalized
citizens.
These two good provisions do not, however, outweigh
the bad that the bill does with respect to our traditional
concepts of human decency and liberty.
The Walter bill is the companion 2177 in the House to
the McCarran bill. It is just about the same except for a few
provisions which are better than the McCarran bill. There
were several attempts to amend it in a more liberal direction
on the Floor of the House, but most of these amendments were
defeated.
Both these bills contain provisions which would tend to
place the Executive agencies concerned with insigration under
closer supervision and control by the Congress.
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