that they were good for a term of five years, or such a term of years as would allow deportation.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the passport issued by other countries? Mr. STROTHER. Yes; or that they were renewable for successive periods to that length of time as provided by the immigration law in the time limitation on deportations all American consular officers, if I may respectfully so suggest, could be instructed not to give visas to aliens on the other side whose passports did not so read.

Mr. WILSON of Louisiana. That would be the only way we could regulate it, would it not? We could not direct the people who were making passports on the other side as to what they should put on their passports, but we could say that the visa should not be given unless the passport bore so and so?

Mr. STROTHER. Yes. Of course I know from my experience on Ellis Island that there are a multitude of cases in which it is impossible to deport aliens because we can not get passport documents through consular sources in New York, upon which to deport them.

The CHAIRMAN. Your idea is that we should require a man to come not only with his immigration visa, but with a full complete passport?

Mr. STROTHER. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. With some understanding that if he comes on another country's passport, that must be recognized for his return within a stipulated number of years; is that about the idea?

Mr. STROTHER. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. We are very glad to have the suggestion.

Mr. STROTHER. Thank you, sir.

Mr. STROTHER. If agreeable, Mr. Chairman, I shall add a written statement to supplement what I have said orally. I have not had much time.

The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, you may file such statement to be made part of the record of your testimony.

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF SHELBY F. STROTHER

Mr. STROTHER. Reverting to the abuses I discovered on Ellis Island, the forged American consular visas, the forged seamen's identification cards, the alien resident reservists who were repatriated to this country when they had not gone to their colors abroad from this country, the valid alien passports which bore successive substitutions of photographs of successive bearers of the same passport for the purpose of frequently reusing the valid visa on the passport for entry here, and the valid American visas which were sewed on and glued on to successive and different passports (being detached here by the last alien who had used the visa and mailed to Europe for the next user) in order to reuse continuously the same good visa, I say when we look at these abuses, clever and original as they are, it becomes obvious that they were all of them premeditated and designed to puncture our immigration laws with evasive entries.

Our immigration laws are microscoped by alien individuals and categories for potential loopholes that will effect some abusive entry. If the scheme conceived works and aliens enter by such evasions, it is used. The only method of stopping such abuses is to apprehend

them at it and enforce the laws inexorably by deportations. That will stop it immediately always. My own vigilance at Ellis Island with the methods just described, apprehension and deportation, scotched these abuses and ended them with most surprising celerity. As I have stated, no exceptions were made in these cases. Exceptions to the letter of the laws lead to its weakening. There are many people in this country to-day who are fighting to bring about some excepted entry of aliens abroad contrary to the plain provisions of the law, because they insist that others are succeeding at the same thing. While I was on Ellis Island, some one at Washington admitted a Belgian boy stowaway. He was inadmissible, of course. Not long after I had a rabbi who had come as a stowaway on a Norwegian ship. A lawyer in New York asked me at my desk on Ellis Island what I was going to do with the rabbi. I said I would deport him. The lawyer pointed out to me at once the case of the Belgian boy stowaway who was admitted, insisting that I was not to vary my own practice from that admission. His insistence was in vain. He must have kept a scrapbook of clippings to use them as precedents for evasive and excepted entries. A string of true Polish orphans was admitted by someone at Washington. Thereafter I had strings of Jewish orphans in groups of 30 to 80, availing themselves of the precedent of the first admission of orphans.

ARRIVED WITH FORGED VISAS; ADMITTED THROUGH HABEAS CORPUS WRITS

Speaking of the absence of exceptions as made by me at Ellis Island, I have mentioned already the 10 inadmissible and deportable aliens with forged American visas who came ashore on writs of habeas corpus. The 171 families who were deported for the same offense were less fortunate. Four of these aliens, who had arrived in the steerage, put up retainers to lawyers of $250 each. One Federal judge admitted some of these cases of false visas to bonds and stated that he hoped that the Department of State would do something to ameliorate their misfortunes meanwhile. None of these persons had ever claimed that they had been imposed on. Another Federal judge admitted some of the same cases to bonds, saying from the bench to me that he did so only because the United States attorney had not asked him not to do so.

We earnestly require legislation that will remove the jurisdiction of immigration cases, writs or habeas corpus, inter alia, from the courts. The jurisdiction of all immigration cases should rest with the immigration authorities exclusively.

RECOMMENDS IMMIGRATION COURT OF APPEALS

I believe there should be established an immigration court of judges to hear all cases of appeals, in all immigration cases of exclusion, to the exclusion of other tribunals. Such court might have original and exclusive jurisdiction of writs of habeas corpus cases and the like. In lieu of giving such original jurisdiction in habeas corpus cases to such court, it might be provided that applications for such. writs lay solely with commissioners of immigration at stations, the appeal, if any, going to the court described. Such legislation would

place the administration of all immigration laws where it belongs exclusively. The published reports of the court projected would build up a body of immigration decisions, handed down by jurists charged with the proper administration of such laws. Such printed reports would be the testimony of good faith of such tribunal to the people. I would give to such court appellate jurisdiction in every immigrant appeal from exclusion under the laws, making it exclusive. Reverting to the forged visa cases on Ellis Island, as I have said, such false visas appeared on German, Italian, Greek, Polish, and Rumanian passports. The carriers of such falsely visaed German passports were Germans, of the Italian Italians, of the Greek Greeks. The carriers of the falsely visaed Polish and Rumanian passports were all Russian Hebrews. I am narrating the facts of 10 months unique consular duty on Ellis Island without any color whatever in any ulterior connection.

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I had in my office at Ellis Island a Hebrew family who admitted they had sojourned in Rumania only a month or six weeks in order to obtain Rumanian passports. They spoke Russian. They had 'run" the Soviet border into Rumania. They presented Rumanian passports here for admission. I demanded in Russian their Russian passports. One of the family took them from his pocket and gave them to me. As Russians, at that time, they could have entered here only with great difficulty. As Rumanians there was no real difficulty.

CUMULATIVE ABUSES

The cumulative abuses of these Russian Hebrews were threefold, (1) the passports they bore, Polish and Rumanian, did not describe their true nationality, which was Russian; (2) the American visas on them were forgeries outright; (3) and as such Polish passports read "without return," "good for the trip to go," and "in constant residence," that is in the United States, such passports were not passports at all but deportation. I would say that it was passports of the kind that must account for the marooning of thousands, of these people in Europe, those who insisted upon admission here because they declared they could not get back to that country from which they had set out.

It must be obvious that the immigration quota of any country may be employed to void itself rapidly and finally of any refugee peoples that violate its borders and whom, for reasons of its own, it does not wish to retain. By such means are usable and well-worn - undergrounds to this country established.

VISA ON PASSPORTS RECOMMENDED

Under the existing immigration law, we do not visa the passports of aliens; that is quota immigrants. We visa the application for visa which is made before a consul. Such visaed application, not the passport, is taken up on the alien's arrival and sent to Washington as the record.

In other words, we have departed from the passport requirement for all aliens as under the law of 1921. If aliens of all national and racial categories can be guilty of the passport abuses as just described, it is not to be supposed that abuses are relegated at all by them as

to birth certificates which now determine nationality. I have no faith in such birth certificates in establishment of nationality. Such statement is made out of my consular experiences at Ellis Island.

If we had at this moment cases of deportable aliens, it is obvious that we could not deport them if they were even in possession of passports, if such passports were not of their own countries at law and if such passports were deportation in terms. We should again require passports and proper ones.

A passport is a document of international acceptance. A foreign Government is responsible for its issuance and its terms. No such responsibility attaches to any foreign Government as to birth certificates. A birth certificate is not a document of any international acceptance whatever. It emanates from petty foreign officials or religious leaders, not from any responsible foreign Government.

BIRTH CERTIFICATES MAKE RUSSIAN QUOTA AVAILABLE

The recognition of birth certificates in establishment of nationality for one thing, has made available the Russian quota. As we have now no diplomatic relations with the Soviet Republic, we do not recognize the passports of that power. It is my information that the Russian quota is absorbed entirely by Russian Hebrews, to the exclusion of Russians as such. I was a consul at Archangel. I believe the Russians as such are desirable, sturdy immigrants for us. Paris, London, Constantinople, Riga, and other places in Europe harbor now hundreds of thousands of these Russians as such who are destitute, poor, and worthy. These people can not migrate to the United States. There are no visas left for them.

CERTAIN COUNTRIES FALSIFYING VITAL STATISTICS

If you will inquire at the State and Labor Departments I think you will find that in one or more European countries-particularly one with quite a large quota-a new trick has developed. It is this. Vital statistics are changed, so that a man not born in the country can get a birth certificate showing that he was born there. One of the South American countries is also doing this.

DESIRES FIXED BASIS FOR HEBREW QUOTA

I believe it is proper that we find some fixed basis for a Hebrew quota within the immigration law. There is none. Desirable as these people are as immigrants, their admission to this country should be controlled. As the law stands they come here now under every quota where they happen to domicile. If the fact be that there are foreign countries which do not wish to retain them, it is unfortunate. That some such countries exist is illuminated by the passports borne by these people as I have described them, turning up on Ellis Island. There is every reason why these people should not be permitted to absorb quotas of all countries, in whole or in part.

The quota immigration from such lands should be the nationals as such of them. If we will provide a Hebrew quota, no matter what it may be in total, we will then only safeguard the various

national quotas under the law for the use and consumption of the proper nationals as such of such countries. In addition we will then admit desirable and worthy Hebrew immigration in its own proper proportion.

The absence of a Hebrew quota under the law only leads to the abuse of national quotas as such strictly. Also such absence of a Hebrew quota is discriminatory as against all countries with fixed quotas, those with now diminished quotas and those with no quotas at all.

OBJECTS TO ALIEN CLERKS IN CONSULATES

I have no faith in the use of clerks at consulates who are aliens or Americans one generation or more removed from alien parentage. Some of carriers of forged visas at Ellis Island actually come here on ship under the wing of such a consular clerk. That fact came to light when such clerk came to me on Ellis Island and intervened for the admission of such bearers of false visas. He bore letters of encomium from consular officers at Warsaw and Washington which he showed me in support of his importance. His request for the admission of such law violators was denied, of course. If there existed any con

nection whatever as between consulates abroad and the matter of forged visas it was due doubtless to the activities of such clerks in the nefarious assistance of their own nationals, so to speak, to get in here in evasion of law. I have detected my own local foreign consular clerk at Guadeloupe advising French visa applicants to pursue certain channels that would place them outside of the legal immigration requirements of the law, for example, that they could sloop it to some contiguous British Island where there was no consul and come here without payment of visa fees of $10.

I think the statutes should read that the children born here of all aliens who are here illegally shall not become American citizens.

THIS, OF COURSE, COULD ONLY BE BROUGHT ABOUT BY AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

Aliens who are here in violation of law should have no legal encouragements whatever.

There are some 300 American consulates in the world. I do not see why consulates should not have the assistance of local foreign medical officers in the physical examinations of aliens in the matter of granting visas. Such local officers could be designated by respective Governments to cooperate with our consuls in the matter. Such move would avoid deportations.

RECOMMENDS USE OF SERVICE OF FOREIGN PHYSICIANS

The use of local foreign medical men would permit the taking of all visa applications in dummy form originally. In order to apply for a visa to come to the United States, as matters stand, the alien and family must journey to that American consulate which lies in their consular district. Such regional districts for all consulates are defined under American regulations. The trip of the aliens and family to the consulate is often arduous, expensive, and burdensome.