The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

TABLE 5: Immigration 1851-1950
Years
(millions)
Numbers
1851-60 2.6
1861-70 2.3
1871-80 2.8
1881-90 5.2
1891-00 3.7
1901-10 8.8
1911-20 5.7
1921-30 4.1
1931-40 0.5
1941-50 1.0
Ibid.
The Department of Labor under Frances Perkins controlled the processes of
immigration and naturalization until 1940. She was the sole member of the Cabinet
calling for a more tolerant immigration policy. Perkins argued that liberalization of the
quota system was “consistent with American traditions and policies to grant free entry to
refugees.” 60
She advocated for a Presidential Executive Order on April 18, 1933 that
would suspend the Likely to become a Public Charge clause of the 1924 Immigration
Act. This Hoover era provision was strictly interpreted and enforced by overseas U.S
Consuls creating an under filling of the annual German and Austrian quotas. 61 Perkin’s
efforts were bolstered by the finding of Circuit Court Judge Julian W. Mack, an
immigration authority and a member of the American Jewish Congress, that Section 21 of
the Immigration Act of 1917 allowed the posting of a financial bond guaranteeing that an
60 Alan M. Kraut, Richard Breitman, and Thomas W. Imhoof, “The State Department, the Labor
Department, and the German Jewish Immigration, 1930-1940,” Journal of American Ethnic History
(Spring 1984): 9. Perkins was the first woman appointed to a Presidential cabinet and was named Secretary
of Labor in 1933.
61 Bat-Ami Zucker, “Frances Perkins and the German-Jewish Refugee, 1933-1940,” American Jewish
History 89, no. 1 (2001): 38.
79