ALIENS IN AMERICA

Waikato Times, Volume 130, Issue 21687, 25 March 1942, Page 3

ALIENS IN AMERICA

NATION-WIDE ROUND-UP (United Pre.s Assn.—Elec. Tel. copyrlirnt) WASHINGTON, March 23 The Attorney-General, Mr Francis Biddle, has ordered a nation-wide round-up of 8000 alien seamen who have deserted from ships, thus hampering the shipment of war supplies to the Allies. The round-up, which has long been urged by several of the Allied Governments, has been undertaken because of the serious situation that has arisen in obtaining men needed for crews. A spokesman for the Department of Justice said today that several hundred seamen had been picked up in the last few days in New York. Others were being apprehended in other parts of the country at the rate of from 15 to 20 a day. The seamen must return to their ships or face deportation, although it has not been explained how seamen could be returned to Nazi-occupied Norway or Greece. The whole problem is complicated by the fact that United States and Panama ships pay the highest wages obtainable, thus causing a steady drift of sailors from ships of the United Nations toward unionised jobs in American-controlled vessels. Numbers of sailors thus induced to leave alien ships, plus those who have entered the country without permits and taken jobs in war industries, have created a situation which has now adversely affected the efficiency of the Allied shipping pool. From the total of 8000 sailors illegally in the United States, about 3000 are Norwegians, 3000 Greeks, and the remainder mostly Danes, Swedes, Dutch and British.