Jaffe Hits McCarran Act Quotas, Suggests Revised Immigration Law

The McCarran-Walter Immigration Act is a "blind" and "immature" reenactment of an anachronistic 1924 law, Louis L. Jaffe, Byrne Professor of Administrative Law charged last night, speaking before the Harvard-Radcliffe Society for Minority Rights.

Of the many criticisms of the McCarran Act, one of the most important is the fact that this bill "is not really our immigration policy; it just appears to be," Jaffe said. Since 1948, some 600,000 refugees have entered this country, he pointed out. Many of these were in special relief quotas outside the national limits set up by the McCarran Act.

The ultimate purpose of the "invidious" nationality quotas, he declared was to perptuate the Anglo-Saxon, Nordic character of the American population. "If there was justification for this act in the xenophobia of 1924, there is no longer such an excuse," he said.

Once the U.S. decides to set a numerical limit on immigration, the question should not be what groups make up this total, Jaffe said. "Even if the present quota of 150,000 were made up of one or two racial groups, this would be a drop in the bucket for a population of 165,000,000," he stated. Jaffe suggested a new immigration act that has no national quotas, but sets a limit of ten per cent of the total for any one group of immigrants.