Fraternity-Testvériség, 1957 (35. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1957-05-01 / 5. szám

2

FRATERNITY

EDITORIAL

CLOSED DOOR

The gates of the United States are now virtually locked and barred to refugees. And so far as regular immigration is concerned, the restrictive and racist features of the McCarran-Walter Act remain in full force and effect. Nothing is being done about it on Capitol Hill. Nothing is being done about it by the White House. Although the President sent a special message to Congress on January 31 urging revision of refugee and immigration laws, he has not lifted a finger or uttered a word since that date to promote the changes he recommended. Numerous immigration bills have been referred to the Judiciary Committees —; under the chairmanship of Senator Eastland in the Senate and Representative Walter in the House. They are likely to die of conscious neglect in the absence of presidential leadership.

The President asked Congress to regularize the status of the thousands of Hungarian refugees admitted to this country on parole and to amend the discriminatory, inequitable provisions of the basic immigration law. Action on the refugees is no doubt the most urgent need; now that their screening has been completed, they ought to be given permanent status as immigrants. The Department of Justice has said that no more refugees can be admitted on an emergency parole basis until Congress authorizes such a course; until Congress act, therefore, nothing can be done to grant asylum here to any of the -#0,000 Hungarian refugees still left in Austria and Yugoslavia or the 12,000 Jewish, Italian and Greek expellees from Egypt, homeless, stateless, stripped of their property and deprived of any means of livelihood.

Ever since he took office in 1953, President Eisenhower has said annually that basic American immigration policy is in need of reform. When is the reform to be undertaken? When is the powerful influence of the Presidency to be exerted toward bringing the immigration lares into conformity with American traditions of generosity, racial tolerance and hospitality to those in search of freedom and opportunity? The President will have to work for reform if he wants it to be realized.

T. W. P.