ALIENS AND NATIONAL GROUPS HEARINGS BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION Senate. OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY. EIGHTY-FIRST CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON S. 1832 A BILL TO AMEND THE IMMIGRATION ACT OF PART 3 98330 APPENDIXES I TO VIII Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary UNITED STATES WASHINGTON: 1950 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY PAT MCCARRAN, Nevada, Chairman HARLEY M. KILGORE, West Virginia ALEXANDER WILEY, Wisconsin J. G. SOURWINE, Counsel SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION PAT MCCARRAN, Nevada, Chairman JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi WILLIAM LANGER, North Dakota (Senator J. Melville Broughton, of North Carolina, was a member of the Committee on the Judiciary until his death on March 6, 1949; Senator J. Howard McGrath was a member of the Committee on the Judiciary until his resignation from the Senate on August 23, 1949; Senator Bert H. Miller, of Idaho, was a member of the Committee on the Judiciary until his death on October 8, 1949.) II STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PAT MCCARRAN IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 25, 1949, UPON THE INTRODUCTION OF S. 1694.1 Mr. President, during the course of the last year and a half, a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary has been engaged in a comprehensive study of our entire immigration system. One facet of this study is an investigation of the entrance of subversives into this country. There is in the custody of the subcommittee evidence, which establishes beyond a reasonable doubt, that there is extensive subversive activity being carried on in this country under the active direction and leadership of agents of foreign countries. This evidence is extensive, conclusive, and alarming. These agents supply the lifeblood for subversive activity in this country. Although our present immigration laws provide for the exclusion and deportation of certain types of dangerous and subversive aliens, through the years these provisions have been made subject to a number of exceptions and provisos which have opened a backdoor for the admission into the United States of agents of foreign powers who enjoy a practical immunity from our laws. The administration of the legal mandates has frequently been lax and indecisive. By default, additional avenues of entry have been provided for otherwise excludable aliens. This situation has been vastly complicated by the growth of numerous international organizations and commissions with headquarters or offices in this country and the resultant groups of aliens that have been permitted to enter the United States. Our entire immigration system has been weakened to make it often impossible for our country to protect its security in this black era of fifth-column infiltration and cold warfare with the ruthless masters of the Kremlin. We must make adequate provision to protect ourselves. We must bring our immigration system into line with the realities of Communist tactics. The time has long since passed when we can afford to open our borders indiscriminately, to give unstinting hospitality to any person whose purpose, whose ideologic goal, is to overthrow our institutions and replace them with the evil oppression of totalitarianism. We can no longer entertain with lavish hospitality or with amused indifference the sworn enemies of the United States. I have today introduced a bill to revise our immigration laws in such a way as to place in the hands of the Government adequate powers to cope with the fifth-column tactics of international communism. The purpose of this bill is to plug the loopholes of the present law so that any alien-and I emphasize the word "any"-who engages in espionage or other subversive activity must be excluded or deported. Let me emphasize in the beginning that this legislation will not in any way curb the legitimate activities of anyone, whether he be an immigrant, a visitor, a diplomat, or a delegate to an international organization. This bill has only one purpose: To protect the people of the United States from any alien who abuses the traditional American hospitality by working for the overthrow of our Government. And, Mr. President, I mean any alien. My bill is designed to sever the international lifeline which is feeding the Communist conspiracy in this country. There is no obligation upon the United States-or for that matter upon any other nation-to harbor within its borders aliens who are working for its destruction. The duty to protect itself-the obligation to defend itself-against alien subversion is the fundamental responsibility of every government. cannot continue to abdicate this duty. We Mr. President, I want to impress the members of the Senate with the earnestness with which I propose this measure. My proposal is based on a careful considera 1S. 1694 was superseded on May 11, 1949, by Senate bill 1832, introduced by Senator McCarran. Al Partz tion of evidence now in the possession of the subcommittee. We have found glaring loopholes in our immigration system, complicated by the laxness with which the existing exclusion and deportation provisions have been enforced. The cold fact is that agents of international communism move freely across our borders to engage in espionage, sabotage, anti-American propaganda, and subversive activities; to plot with almost complete impunity the destruction of our free institutions. The threat which we must eliminate and I am convinced that this bill will eliminate consists of five distinct problems. 1. The Communist International has in its employ a network of agents whose sole function is to organize and promote Communist activity, sabotage, espionage, propaganda, and terrorism. These agents are sent into the United States and other countries as the policy of the Stalinist high command dictates. Although some of these persons are native-born or have acquired citizenship through naturalization, a substantial number of them are aliens. Under my bill these people would have to be excluded from admission, or deported if found in the United States. 2. Occasionally aliens who come to this country as immigrants do not leave behind them their loyalties to foreign governments and foreign ideologies. Some of them engage in subversive activity, organize or join Communist organizations, or engage in propaganda activities among their neighbors. Under my bill these people would have to be deported. 3. Agents of communism have used the customary courtesy extended by the United States to representatives of foreign governments, including diplomats, consuls, and other representatives, as a screen behind which to engage in espionage and other activities designed to overthrow our Nation by force and violence. Under my bill these people would have to be excluded from admission or deported if found in the United States. 4. Since the establishment of international organizations in this country, Communist agents have used them as a facade behind which to operate and to carry on anti-American activity. The evidence in the files of the subcommittee shows conclusively that many representatives and staff members of international organizations are engaging in subversive activities beyond the scope of their legal duties. Under my bill these people would have to be deported. 5. We have for many years extended the privilege to certain foreign governments to establish in this country missions, such as trading commissions and news agencies. Some of these, too, have been integrated into the international Communist espionage-sabotage-subversion network. They have expended vast sums of money for propaganda and intelligence work and have frequently supported Communist enterprises by direct contributions. Under my bill these people would have to be deported. We are faced by the most tightly organized, the most extensive international conspiracy that this world has ever seen, and may God grant, shall ever see. That the Soviet Union actively engages in preparations for the communization of the United States and the rest of the world is no longer a question of doubt. The articles of the Comintern, the basic creed of the Communist Party, the utterances of Soviet leaders, the activities of the Communist parties everywhere; in fact, the foreign policies of the U. S. S. R. are directed at destruction of the United States as the one powerful barrier to conquest of the great globe itself. The Moscow imperialists have never tried to conceal their hopes for world revolution and world conquest. The very philosophy of Karl Marx speaks of an inevitable destruction of existing states and their replacement by a Communist society. The plan for world revolution has been openly expressed by the leaders of Soviet Russia. The fundamental line of the Soviets was laid down in the clearest terms by Lenin in his declaration: "We are living not merely in a state but in a system of states, and the existence of the Soviet Republics side by side with imperialist states for a long time is unthinkable. One or the other must triumph in the end. And before this end supervenes, a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states will be inevitable." The Communist International has itself made public declaration of the Soviet ambitions to subject the entire world to the Red system of oppression. The Sixth World Congress proclaimed openly that "the ultimate aim of the Communist International is to replace world capitalist economy by a world system of communism." The program adopted by the Sixth Congress of the Communist International in 1928, states clearly the revolutionary objectives of the Soviet Union within the borders of other nations: "The successful struggle of the Communist International for the dictatorship of the proletariat presupposes the existence in every country of a compact Communist Party, hardened in the struggle, disciplined, centralized, and closely linked up with the masses. "The party is the vanguard of the working class and consists of the best, most class-conscious, most active, and most courageous members of that class. It incorporates the whole body of experience of the proletarian struggle. Basing itself upon the revolutionary theory of Marxism and representing the general and lasting interests of the whole of the working class, the party personifies the unity of proletarian principles, of proletarian will and of proletarian revolutionary action. It is a revolutionary organization, bound by iron discipline and strict revolutionary rules of democratic centralism, which can be carried out thanks to the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard, to its loyalty to the revolution, its ability to maintain inseparable ties with the proletarian masses and to its correct political leadership, which is constantly verified by the experiences of the masses themselves." Centralized control from Moscow of the international network of communism requires the establishment of a vast spider web of communication. It is of prime importance that the Kremlin shall be in a position at all times to communicate instructions to its partisans, to call them to task for blunders; to receive in turn intelligence reports, and to provide for the training and entry of agents provocateurs. To this end, the Soviet Union has created an international organization without equal and without rival in history. The falsification of passports and identities, the disguises behind which trained operatives of communism move have been developed to an exacting science which has successfully penetrated the vigilance of all nations of the earth. Nearly every person sent from the Soviet Union or its satellites is or becomes an agent of Soviet espionage and sabotage. He is assigned a task to fulfill and his complete compliance is generally assured by threats against his person and his family and by the ubiquitous terror of the secret police. In testimony before the Un-American Activities Committee, Victor Kravchenko affirmed that— "I must state in general that no person holding an important position in connection with the economic, political, or military organizations and arriving in the United States from the Soviet Union arrives without a special assignment as to the collection of secret information." * Lenin confessed that in its endeavors the Soviet Union would not be governed either by ethics or morality. In the drive to communize the world, he wrote in the Infantile Sickness of Leftism in Communism: "It is necessary to use any ruse, cunning, unlawful method, evasion, concealment of truth." The violations of American integrity, sovereignty, and friendship have increased in vigor and scope. Since the termination of the late war, the temporary wartime mask of Allied friendship has been dropped by the Soviet Government and its efforts to undermine our institutions have become a matter of common knowledge. Soviet agents and contact men have found cover behind every iron-curtain mission, private or public, in the United States. Special representatives of the Kremlin have found the friendly attitude of this country a haven within which they are able to move to their destinations and indulge in their nefarious tasks unhampered. Since the end of the war, the Soviet Union has found a new and infinitely superior channel through which it can introduce its agents into the United States. The constellation of international agencies established in this country provides a means of transit from the Soviet Union and its satellite countries unhampered by the usual, if limited, restrictions placed upon private persons and diplomatic officials. The results of the war have placed the U. S. S. R. in a position to take complete advantage of the facilities afforded by international bodies. The collection of satellite nations behind the iron curtain offer fertile fields for the recruitment of agents and for their importation into the United States. The cold fact is that every person officially assigned to an international organization by any country subject to Communist domination is an agent of international communism. |