U.S. Immigration Policy on Jews in WWII

This paper will discuss the immigration policy of the United States prior to and during the Second World War with regard to Jewish persons living in Europe. The thesis of this paper is that the U.S. government refused to liberalize immigration laws in response to the Nazi policies in Europe because of a combination of traditional anti-semitism, economic fears stemming from the Depression, and government responses to public opinion, both actual and perceived. The first part of the paper will provide a brief background to U.S. immigration policy during the Twentieth Century and show how this policy remained the same throughout the Second World War. The second part of the paper will examine anti-semitism in the U.S. during this period and discuss how it affected immigration policy. The third part of the paper will discuss the economic fears which developed as a result of the Depression and how these fears shaped immigration policy, especially enforcement of the immigration laws by the executive branch. The fourth part of the paper will examine the attitudes of the Roosevelt administration towards Jewish immigration and how these attitudes prevented the administration from effecting any changes in immigration policy.

U.S. immigration policy underwent a substantial change in the late Nineteenth early Twentieth Centuries as native Americans reacted to the flood of southern and eastern European immigrants during this

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o feared that the German government would send spies and saboteurs disguised as Jewish refugees (Peck, 1980, pp. 367-68). The opinion against Jewish immigration was fed by the economic fears of the Depression. During times of economic hardship, most usually believed that immigrants took jobs from established Americans. The Depression had really not ended by the time the United States entered the Second World War and feelings against immigration from any country were running particularly high. In addition, most believed that the end of the war would likely bring a return to hard economic times and the last thing the United States needed was increased immigration. It was this situation which prompted President Hoover to order U.S. consuls to strictly interpret the LPC clause of the immigration law (Kelman, 1990, pp. 316-18; Baumel, 1990, pp. 12-13; Lowenstein, 1986, pp. 2-3). All of these factors influenced Franklin Roosevelt in his failure to push for a change in immigration laws and policy. Roosevelt was a consummate politician who refused to act on a situation unless he was certain of his own political strength. The fact was that Roosevelt never felt strong enough to press for the admittance of Jewish refugees in the Un
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Approximate Word count = 2506
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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