Refugee Relief Act (1953)

Shift in Immigration Policy

The Refugee Relief Act was a significant step in immigration policy away from the quota-driven policies prescribed by several key acts. Immigration policy had been set by the National Origins Act of 1924, which established quotas for immigration, [Page 1817]favoring northern Europeans and almost entirely excluding Asians. In 1948, President Harry Truman signed the Displaced Persons Act, providing a quota of 202,000 refugees to be admitted to the United States, which increased to 415,744 by 1950. This act favored ethnic Germans, Baltics, and those with an agricultural background; it effectively discriminated against Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. It was set to expire in 1953.

A third controversial immigration policy was the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, which was passed over the veto from Truman. This was considered discriminatory, favoring various racial groups by establishing annual quotas of immigrants, specifically one-sixth of one percent of the 1920 white population (154,657 visas). The majority of quota immigrants came from northern and western Europe.

Humanitarian and Political Goals

The Refugee Relief Act of 1953 set no limit on the number of visas for relatives of refugees. It also provided for the following: Chinese and Arab refugees; those expelled from Germany; Germans and Austrians escaping communists; Italian, Dutch, and Greek refugees and relatives; war orphans; and other Asian refugees. This three-year program admitted almost 190,000 refugees; 30 percent were Italians who had lost their homes in an earthquake, Yugoslavians, and Egyptians.

Public opinion favoring the admission of refugees grew with the increase of the Cold War. In 1953, almost half the Americans polled about refugees favored the admission of 240,000 displaced persons.

The Refugee Relief Act of 1953 thus addressed humanitarian and political goals. A National Security Council memorandum from March 26, 1953, called this act a means “to encourage defection of all Soviet nationals and ‘key’ personnel from the satellite countries” in order to “inflict a psychological blow on Communism” and “material loss to the Soviet Union” by providing a drain of intellectual talent of professionals.

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