Memorandum, "Supplementary Comments on Budget Bureau Summary of the Major Provisions of the McCarran and Walter Omnibus Immigration and Nationality Bills"
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OCR Page 1 of 12SUPPLEMENTARY COMMENTS ON BUDGET BUHEAU SUMMARY OF THE
MAJOR PROVISIONS OF THE McCARRAN AND WALTER
OMNIBUS IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY BILLS
In commenting on the staff momorandum prepared in the Bureau of
the Budget, the Department of State has endeavored to limit its
observations to those provisions of the McCarran and Walter Bills
which are included in H.R. 5678 as it has emerged from the Conference
Committee of the Congress. The Department believes that its appreisal
and recommendation, to be constructive, should be made from the point
of view of action which the President may take on this bill.
The Bureau of the Budget's analysis concerned mony aspects of the
Bills which are not primarily the responsibility of this Department,
and it has been deened preferable not to express either approval OF
disapproval of most of the provisions which are of marginal interest
from the point of view of foreign relations.
Each of the numbered paragraphs below summarizes a specific point
made or opinions set forth by the Bureau of the Budget, followed by a
paragraph containing the comments of the Department of State, The
comments below follow the order of presentation in the Burcau of the
Budget staff memorandum.
1. The bill would not remove racial discrimi
nation from our immigration laws.
Comment: It should be recognized in the first place that the
removal of all racial discrimination from our naturalization laws
secomplished by the bills, is a very great improvement from the
foreign relations point of view. In the field of immigration, certain
important improvements would be made by the bills; they would eliminate
exclusion of immigrants by reason of Pass; all peoples of Asian origin
would be permitted for the first time to immigrate under the established
quota system. It should be noted that the quota system has always been
applied differently in three major areas; (1) the independent countries
of the Americas are on a nonquota basis, (2) Europe and its colonies
all over the world are subjected to quota limitations; and (3) the
peoples of most of Asia have been excluded under the clause "aliens
ineligible to citizenship in the Immigration Act of 1924, so that
Asian quotas were available only to white persons and negross born in
those countries, with certain executions beginning in 1943 as noted
below. Under the Asia-Pacific triangle provision of the bill,
immigrants of Asian origin would be charged to Asian quotas, to be
sure, but this is not a new principle. It was incorporated in the
Chinese Quota Act of 1943 and again in the India Quota Act of 1946 as
an indispensable
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