Word: mccarran
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...this point, McCarran-Walter is at once good and bad. Previous to the 1952 law, such immigrants had to go across the border and re-enter from Canada, under a procedure known as "pre-examination." Now, such change of status is possible without leaving the country under section 245 of McCarran-Walter...
Thus, the law has been rapped for taking away too much discretion from officials who have personal contact with various cases. But McCarran-Walter has also suffered criticism for leaving too much authority in the hands of underlings. For instance, aides in consulates can turn down all applicants for entry to the U.S., without appeal. Immigration, boards have the same authority, with the difference that once here, as immigrant has limited appeal...
Such lack of review of visa denials has been embarrassing as well as costly to the United States. In his recent book, The Golden Door, a castigation of the McCarran-Walter act, J. Campbell Bruce reviews the story of Michael Polyani, and "eminent British chemist and social philosopher, long recognized as Britain's foremost anti-Communist scholar," Polyani was elected a chair of Social Philosophy at the University of Chicago for the academic year 1951-52. In January of 1951, he applied to the U.S. Consulate in Liverpool for an immigrant visa, and completed forms which included such questions...
Then, in June, 1952, 18 months after application, Polyani was turned down flat, because, the consul said, of "certain political beliefs or activities; and membership in, or affiliation with, certain organizations." And the McCarran-Walter act gave Polyani no right to appeal from this decision...
...Most Reverend Richard J. Cushing, Archibishop of Boston, told a presidential commission studying immigration problems in 1952, that: "The...discrimination and undemocratic features of the McCarran-Walter law, are to my mind a grave potential threat to our domestic development and our international leadership...