National Affairs: Labor Report

“A thing of shreds and patches” was Secretary of Labor James John Davis’s description of the fabric of the U. S. immigration law. In his annual Department report he recommended that Congress:

1) “Codify and consolidate scattered legislation.”

2) “Provide detention facilities for aliens charged with illegal entry.”

3) “Grant the Secretary of Labor the right to readmit deported aliens.”

4) Maintain an air patrol to frustrate smuggling of immigrants.

Other Davis immigration proposals: preference under the quota to immigrants who could supply U. S. occupational needs: extension of quota restrictions to North, Central, South American countries.

¶Last year 279,678 immigrant and 199,649 nonimmigrant (visiting) aliens were admitted to the U. S. Europe furnished 158,598 permanent immigrants, New World countries 116,177. Asia 3,758. Chief sources were Canada (64,440), Germany (46,751), Mexico (40,154), Great Britain (23,576).

¶Last year 224,728 aliens were naturalized, principally Italians (44,843), Polish (31,801), Russians (18,291), Germans (16,700), Irish (13,162). Secretary Davis regretted that “a considerable part” of them sought and obtained citizenship solely as a means of bringing their wives and children to the U. S. outside the quota.

¶ The Department’s conciliators attended 522 labor disputes, adjusted 385 of them.

¶ The U. S. Employment Service recruited 541,280 seasonal workers—cotton, apple, strawberry pickers, wheat, potato, sugar beet harvesters—also 18,291 general farm workers.