The following table shows the tendency toward public education: Volume of inquiries received by the visa office, including letters and telegrams from the public and Members of Congress At the same time repeated difficulties along the same line have shown certain points in which the act might be amended in minor particulars to advantage from an administrative point of view. None of these changes are vital, however, and if it were advisable from a policy standpoint that the law remain as it is for another year or so no undue hardship would result. In the course of the administration of the act certain administrative policies have taken shape and have been worked out with a considerable degree of clearness. These will be discussed separately. PRINCIPLE OF PRIORITY The act left no administrative discretion in the matter of selecting individual immigrants to proceed to the United States under the nonpreference quota provisions. In a situation where the demand exceeds the supply by 8 to 1, as is the case with prospective immigrants from Europe, selection implies the power to pick one applicant in preference to another and issue him his visa at once so he may proceed immediately to the United States. Congress has clearly reserved to itself the right of selection and in section 6 of the act provided that preference in the issue of visas should be given to two classes only-close relatives of American citizens and immigrants skilled in agriculture and that the aggregate number of preference visas issued to these two classes should not exceed 50 per cent of the respective national quotas. It is quite obvious that visas shall be issued to the remaining 50 per cent without preferential treatment and the American understanding of that term is "first come, first served." Therefore, the guiding principle that has been and will be rigidly adhered to in the issue of nonpreference immigration visas is that of priority as determined by the date of filing of applications for visas. The department has been subjected to great pressure to establish additional preferential classes in favor of Czarist Russian refugees, Syrian refugees, temporary visitors who have changed their plans and desire to remain permanently in the United States, actors, artists, singers, lecturers, and professional men, domestic servants, skilled laborers, and technicians desired in American industry, brothers, sisters, and fiances of American citizens, families of resident aliens, and individual cases of aliens în all sorts of distressing circumstances. Believing itself without legal authority to meet these demands for preferential treatment, the department has explained its interpretation of the law in all cases and declined to act without further authority from Congress. PRIORITY FOR PREFERENCE RELATIVES Section 6 (c) of the act provides that the preferences provided in the section shall be given in the calendar month in which the right to preference is established, if the number of immigration visas which may be issued in such month to quota immigrants of such nationality has not already been issued; otherwise in the next calendar month. If the right to preference is established in June, the preference privilege would continue into the next quota year if the total number of visas which may be issued in June are exhausted. It seems clear, therefore, that Congress intended the right to preference once established to be continuing until it became possible, under the various numerical limitations of the act to issue the visa to the person in question. Since there is no way in which the number of petitions filed by American citizens may be limited, it became necessary to devise a system whereby the established rights to preference might be maintained in cases where the numbers of approved petitions exceeded 50 per cent of the national quotas. The extent to which this excess has reached is shown by the following table: It will be seen, therefore, that in the case of the Turkish quota, for example, under which will come most of the parents and older children of citizens of Armenian extraction, a sufficient number of petitions were approved in one fiscal year to fill the permitted 50 per cent of the quota for nine years in the future. It has been necessary as a result to provide administrative machinery to see that these persons are found, wherever they may be living, and granted visas up to the limited number permitted in strict order of priority as governed by the date of filing at the Department of Labor the petition of the American citizen concerned. The definition of the rights of aliens to enter the United States as nonimmigrants under treaties of commerce and navigation has been worked out in the course of the consideration of many individual cases by the solicitor's office. The tendency at first was toward ultraconservatism, for the impression was rather widespread that a strong effort would be made by nationals of treaty countries for erroneous inclusion in the class defined by section 3 (6) of the act. Such, however, was not the case and at the end of the fiscal year only 311 visas had been issued to persons in this category. The policy has now been defined that treaties of commerce and navigation permit nationals of the countries with which we have such treaties to come to the United States, together with their wives and minor children, for the purpose of carrying on substantial trade and commerce between the United States and that country. Substantial trade has been interpreted to include, besides the importation and exportation of merchandise, the carrying trade, international banking and marine insurance. MIGRATION TO NEAR-BY COUNTRIES Both before and since the passage of the immigration act of 1924 there has been a steady if small stream of European migration, destined eventually to the United States, to Cuba, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and the Argentine. These people, of whom there are upwards of 30,000 in the countries named, have sought to gain an advantage over their fellow countrymen at home in the matter of prior issue of immigration visas. The department has not considered that it was authorized by the act to extend any preferential treatment to such aliens and has scrupulously refrained from doing so. The pressure is very strong for permission to make temporary visits to the United States from these people and from their relatives and friends in this country. Since practically all of them have been trying their utmost for some time to become immigrants, the department does not consider that their simple declaration or that of their friends places them in the class of nonimmigrants and has, therefore, consistently upheld the decision of consular officers to refuse them nonimmigrant visas in the absence of the most conclusive proof to the contrary. 13 As a result of certain Supreme Court decisions in re regards of certain aliens to enter under treaties, Chairman Johnson and Representative Box have prepared amendments to the treaty provision of the immigration act of 1924. These have been ordered to be considered in a separate hearing.-CLERK. LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY OF CONSULAR OFFICERS The department interprets the provisions of section 2 of the immigration act relating to the granting or refusal of visas by consular officers to mean that Congress placed upon these officers who had the applicants and their records before them the responsibility of deciding whether or not a particular alien is admissible to the United States under the immigration laws. The department has, therefore, consistently refrained from initiating action for the visa in individual cases, from transmitting evidence or documents to enable an alien to make a case or from instructing a consul as to the action he shall take. It has limited its action to the promulgation of regulations and general instructions, to educating the consular officers in the practices, principles, and interpretations of the immigration laws as worked out by the Department of Labor, to investigating in the United States such phases of individual cases as were needed by the consuls for a complete understanding thereof, and to calls for the record of refusal in any case where the department had reason to believe an erroneous refusal had occurred. In such a case the consul is given legal or other advice as may enable him, upon a reconsideration of the case, to bring his action into conformity with the law and the regulations. COOPERATION WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR The act of 1924 places immigration to the United States under a dual control, that of the issue of visas by consular officers to aliens believed to be admissible and of actual admission upon arrival only if found by officers of the Department of Labor to be admissible under our laws. It was plain that unless the consuls became quickly expert in the rulings and interpretations of the Department of Labor, many aliens would make the journey to the United States only to find that they were technically inadmissible. It was equally plain that Congress wished to reduce to a minimum the heart-rending situations occasioned by debarments after arrival. Accordingly a copy of the record of the board of special inquiry hearing at Ellis Island on every exclusion case and of the adverse decision of the Secretary of Labor in every appeal case was furnished the department for analysis and transmission to the consul who issued the visa in each case. A rapid and marked improvement in practice on the part of consular officers has followed the inauguration of this system which was started July 1, 1924, and is being currently continued. SMUGGLING AND FORGERY Many schemes for smuggling aliens and falsifying travel documents originate abroad, and consular reports on these subjects promptly furnished to the Department of Labor have frustrated the plans of these operators in several instances. False visa gangs were broken up in Marseilles, Palermo, Naples, and Berlin, and plans for the introduction of aliens from Lithuania via Newfoundland were blocked. EXAMINATION OF PROSPECTIVE IMMIGRANTS ABROAD During the winter of 1924-25 several preliminary conferences were held by officers of the department, the Bureau of Immigration, and the Public Health Service in regard to the possibility of intensifying the examination of aliens at American consulates abroad to a point where their admissibility could be practically determined before they embarked from their home countries. It was felt that the consuls who had to rely upon the medical examinations of local physicians, who were often the personal friends of the applicant, were insufficiently advised along techical lines and that with proper advice visas would practically never be issued to inadmissible persons-an end strongly to be desired for humanitarian reasons. In April, 1925, the Secretary of Labor called a conference in his office of representatives of the three departments concerned which, at his request, was presided over by Assistant Secretary Wilbur J. Carr. This conference discussed at length the feasibility of an examination abroad so intensive as to be final except for an examination by a United States Public Health surgeon and a boarding officer aboad ship in the American port on arrival. It was understood that the plans discussed applied to immigrants only. The conference named a subcommittee to work out details of the plan. The subcommittee reported that the plan was perfectly feasible but that the administrative problems connected with concentrating at a few points for intensive examination 62,000 people who were now under appointment to proceed to 25 points for examination were too complicated to be solved at long range and that they should be worked out on the ground with the ranking consular officers concerned. Accordingly, on May 23, 1925, Assistant Secretary White of the Department of Labor, Asst. Surg. Gen. J. W. Kerr, and Consul du Bois, chief of the visa office, proceeded to England and Ireland to complete the work of organization. The plan, which has since become known as "The British plan," " 14 presents the following essential features: 1. The formal concurrence of the foreign office in all phases of the plan proposed. 2. The assignment, without other official status than that of technical advisers to the consul, of a United States Public Health surgeon, and a United States Bureau of Immigration inspector to a limited number of consulates in the country. 3. The division of the territory into visa districts. At local consulates where no advisers were stationed visa examinations of emmigrants were suspended, but these consulates were made responsible for sending forward to the visa offices at a specified rate per day applicants originating in the territory of their jurisdiction. All preliminary correspondence passed through the hands of the local consuls who, if they were convinced from the record that an applicant was inadmissible to the United States, declined to make an appointment for him at a visa office, thus complying with the request of the British foreign office "that applicants who do not qualify for admission under American laws be informed of the fact as near their homes as possible." 4. The examination of each immigrant applicant (quota and nonquota) by both technical advisers. After the application is typed the prospective immigrant is sent to the surgeon's office, where he is stripped and given the same physical examination as is given at Ellis Island. Women are examined in separate offices with a competent uniformed female nurse present. If O. K., the surgeon initials the application. If not, he issues the same certificates (class A, B, or C) as are issued at Ellis Island. The applicant then goes before the consular officer who is charged with the issue of visas and is cross-questioned to bring out all facts pertinent to his admissibility under our immigration laws by the consular officer with the aid of the immigration officer acting as his technical assistant. If both are satisfied, the immigration officer initials and the consular officer signs, seals, and delivers the visa. 5. The assistance on the part of the United States Public Health Service surgeon in the examination by ships' doctors at the time of embarkation. Sailing days of the large passenger ships are kept clear of appointments at the consulate and the United States Public Health Service surgeon attends and cooperates in the examination of embarking immigrant passengers. 6. The grouping on special manifest sheets of all passengers bearing immigration visas initialed by technical advisers. These manifests are made up during the voyage by the ships' officers, all passengers who have been through the processes described above being manifested separately. 7. The examination upon arrival in an American port by a United States Public Health Service surgeon and an inspector of the Bureau of Immigration of all immigrants on the special manifest aboard ship. Those who pass this examination land from the ship. Those about whose admissibility doubt exists, either on medical or legal grounds, are sent before a board of special inquiry for further examination. This system was inaugurated in Great Britain and Ireland on August 1, 1925, and the results from that date have been highly satisfactory. The system has recently been extended to Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, and it is expected that it will be extended to other countries in the near future. CHANGES IN THE 1924 ACT NOW BEFORE CONGRESS These might be discussed in the light of the administrative experience of a year and a half under the act. It is proposed, among other measures, that fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, and minor unmarried children of resident aliens be given preference within the existing quotas in the issue of immigration visas. It is assumed that the quotas will remain the same and that the present preferences within the quotas (fathers, mothers, children from 18 to 21, and husbands of American citizens and immigrants skilled in agriculture with their wives and dependent children under 16) will continue to be accorded. In which case a further extension of the preference classes would be of no effect for many years to come in the following countries because preference status has already been approved for a number of alien relative citizens sufficient to exhaust the entire preference half of the quotas for 14 In Great Britain and Ireland the consular offices at London, Liverpool, Southampton, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, and Cobh were selected. from 1 to 13 years in the future: Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Syria, Turkey. These are the countries from which the demand would come because experience has shown that most of the demand for relative preferences under the present act covers aliens from southern and eastern Europe and the Near East. The total demand that would be brought forth by such a provision is estimated to be not less than 600,000. The preference provisions in the present act have not succeeded in uniting the families of American citizens. To really unite them, their relatives must be given nonquota status. It would mean the immediate immigration of about 14,000 persons and perhaps 15,000 to 20,900 a year thereafter. The criticism of the present relative preference provisions of the act of 1924 that is often made to administrative officers and which is most difficult to meet is that their operation results in unequal treatment of American citizens depending on their countries of origin. A naturalized American of Greek origin who applies to-day for preferential treatment for his mother in Greece may not have her come forward for four years; an American citizen of Italian origin must wait two years for his 19-year old daughter, whereas a naturalized citizen of English, German, Scandinavian, Swiss, or French origin may have his parents or other preference relatives join him at once. If such humanitarian measures for American citizens as Congress is disposed to adopt are extended through the nonquota provisions of the act, then the quota of 164,667 is left free for applying, by means of preference in the issue of visas, any system of selection Congress may see fit to inaugurate. RELATIVES OF RESIDENT ALIENS While it may seem a contradiction in terms, it is a fact that the relatives of aliens will fare better under the nonpreference quota provisions than they would if granted preference under the provisions of sections 6 and 9 of the act. Take the case of Poland, for example, where we know there are in Poland 33,000 close relatives of aliens resident in the United States. The priority waiting lists of the consul general in Warsaw under the nonpreference half of the quota which total 75,000, are made up to a great extent (over 80 per cent) of close relatives of aliens. This we know to be so because these lists have been preserved from the applications filed since several years ago, many of them under the provisions of the act of May 19, 1921. This act, it will be remembered, carried a provision that "in the administration of this act preference shall be given, so far as possible to" certain relatives of American citizens, of declarants and of veterans. As the applications were filed, they were classified in accordance with this provision and by priority within the classes. Almost every prospective immigrant in Poland knows where he stands at present and, generally speaking, is resigned to his position. To reclassify all of these people by the date of filing of a petition by an alien relative resident in the United States would disorganize the whole system of waiting lists and result in the wife and children of a certain resident alien being put back several years because he did not file ahead of other resident aliens. In Italy, through the operation of the policy of the Italian Government in issuing passports to emigrants, only wives and children of Italian aliens resident four years or more in the United States are coming forward in the nonpreference half of the quota. The secretary of the Italian Embassy informs this office that there are 25,000 in this class alone in Italy and, under the present 50 per cent preference limitations, they can now come forward only at the rate of 1,922 persons a year. This In England and Germany the consuls' nonpreference waiting lists are quickly and materially affected by changes in the local industrial situation. The reopening of one factory, coal mine, or steel plant will often result in the withdrawal of 500 or more names of workers. The wives and children of aliens resident in the United States do not withdraw but are pushed slowly upward on the waiting list by the withdrawal of men going into local industry. process, which is now going on at an accelerated rate on account of the improvement in the economic situation in Europe, has resulted in the concentration near the top of the waiting lists of a number of countries in northern Europe of large numbers of close relatives of resident aliens. To change suddenly the entire system of selection and make the order of the coming forward of these relatives depend upon the order in which their relatives in America filed petitions with the Department of Labor would result in an endless number of complaints and much bitterness. It would result too in raising false hopes in the minds of resident aliens whose relatives were born in Syria, Turkey, Greece, |