The Home Journal

Opens Gates to 60,000 Aliens

President Eisenhower opened the gates of the U.S. Wednesday for 60,000 'hardship' immigrants, but said he was "disappointed" Congress would not allow more aliens to become citizens.

The chief executive signed with reluctance the "emergency" immigration bill passed in the closing hours of Congress Aug. 30. He coupled the signing with a call for "prompt action early next year on basic revisions early in the immigration law."

He conceded that the measure approved Wednesday made some 'improvements in present practices.'

However, the president added that it was a disappointment in that it fails to deal with many of the serious inequities inherent in the Immigration and Nationality Act."

Eisenhower said it was "particularly regrettable that Congress did not provide American citizenship for 'thousands of brave and worthy Hungarian refugees who have suffered so much at the hands of communism."

He added that it was a "serious omission" that the measure did not spell out "specific policies as to the future methods of admission into the U.S. of refugees and escapees from persecution and oppression."

The measure he signed at his Newport Naval Base Summer White House office was the last of 669 bills he handled during the first session of the 85th Congress. The chief executive signed 657 of these measures into law and vetoed 12.

The immigration measure finally worked out by the House and Senate provides for the admission of minor orphans, tubercular relatives of U.S. citizens, and a group of immigrants who would otherwise be barred because they committed minor crimes behind the Iron Curtain.

The bill also allows the administration to use up several thousand refugee visas that expired unused Dec. 31, and lifts a "mortgage" against future quota admissions from several nations.

The measure fell far short of the president's original request for general revision of the immigration quotas.