LIMITED IMMIGRATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18444, 4 January 1922, Page 6

LIMITED IMMIGRATION

OPERATION OF AMERICAN LAW. The new restrictive immigration law of July 3, which bears most hardly upon South-eastern Europe, is producing some , curious results (says a New York correspondent of the Manchester Guardian). Immigration here is always an extremely live subject, since those wiho want cheap labour and those who don’t care are in conflict. ■Also, there is the continual fear among the ’“real Americans” of being swamped i fcy the; European hordes. To avoid the chance of being detained at Ellis Island, the horrors of which exist chiefly in the imagination, vast numbers of passengers on itheir way to China, Australia, and New Zealand are landing at Quebec and travel-ling-through Canada, instead of passing f through. New York, as they originally in- ' tended.' A number of Greeks and Turks Were held up outside the three-mile, limit «t the end of July, as they had exceeded their quota for that month, and_ hod to he landed in August to comply with the regulations. The Angry South African who i 1 had com© to visit friends here, and was ‘ held up at Ellis Island, is perhaps a unique ©also of a passenger who, rather than appeal to Washington, turned round and went t straight horn© again. Wlhen there are a large number of steerage passengers the whole ■ ship has been held up, and with it first dnd second class passengers, who would ordinarily have been allowed to land. In . this way tiresome delays have occurred, end a good deal of nervousness on the part of intending visitors and immigrants has been occasioned. Ellis Island itself has its work cut out. . It is very much in the public eye, and its. only safety lies in literal adherence to the law ns it is able to interpret it. Dealing with ■3O or 40 nationalists, with almost every: cos© differing a little from ,the last; .involved in a network of not always coherent restrictions; having all the time to make. noW interpretations; it is not «nr--1 prising that delays occur and protestations are many. There is also extreme jealousy among the different nationalities, and the 1 upshot of a dispute often depends upon the ' degree of of the national. It is only necessary to remember the vexatious restrictions of British passport offices, !f - and to magnify the problem many times, ip; . gain some idea of the difficulties which ■' confrontboth the immigrant and 'the v' authorities in this country.