Letter from Harry S. Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt

NST-43 THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON January 16, 1947 dear MFs. Roosevelt: This is in reply to your letter of January seventh in which you enclosed a letter of appeal sent to you by a group of Jewish stowaways who are now detained on Ellis Island. I have taken this matter up with the Attorney General and he has carefully gone into the problem with the Imigration and Naturalize- tion Service. These boys are a part of a large group of stowaways who arrived in this country during 1946. Under the immigration law, of course, they are required to be returned, at the expense of the stean- ship company, to the ports of their embarkation. The Attorney General advises me that because of the increase in the number of stowaways since the end of the war he initiated a survey to ascertain if there was any basis for relief. I am also advised that a Special Committee of the 79th Congress appointed from the House Com- mittee on Immigration and Naturalization conducted an investigation of this situstion at the Port of New York where the problem is most acute, and thereafter submitted a bill to the Committee for strongthening the existing immigration law pertaining to the exclusion of stommays. In view of this it is the Attorney General's opinion that since lawful immigration is so urgently needed by so many displaced persons, the greatest good for the greatest number can only be accommodated by lend- ing all the facilities of our Government to lawful immigration and following a policy of strict exclusion of the illegal or stownay immi- grents. As you in =y recent message to the Congress I emphasized the duty of the United States to accept its portion of the world's burden as to displaced persons and urged the Congress to consider appro- priate legislation to enable a groater number of displaced persons to lawfully immigrate to the United States. I believe such a measure is of paramount importance and, as =uch as I an sympttetic with the plight of these particular stownways, I .an, nevertheless, of the opinion that their individual cases mist give = to the larger problem of the many thousands of homeless people in Europe who seek to come to the United States as legal immigrants.