Some Immigration Methods and Results in Deviates

Although immigration was limited quantitatively in 1929 and the depression has caused a greater proportion of emigration for the nonce, no forward step has been taken towards a better qualitative selection of aliens arriving even today in the United States. This has portentous socio-psychological results. The quota law allows yearly 153,714 immigrants, though but 35,576 entered in 1932, and the number is unlimited from Canada, Mexico, South and Central America. The law, excluding the extreme intellectual deviate, that is the feebleminded, makes no provision against admitting those who, although not actually feebleminded, may be mentally retarded according to prevailing standards of social, vocational and educational adaptability, that is, the less pronounced deviates. Even mentally defective applicants for American visas are often admitted on too elastic a diagnosis. Seemingly generous and broad-minded, this policy in reality frequently defeats the very aim of the law by admitting persons who fulfill the definition of mental deficiency according to the British Royal Commission on Care and Control of the Feebleminded, being incapable "(a) of competing on equal terms with their normal fellows; or (6) of managing themselves and their affairs with ordinary prudence." This likewise may apply to many immigrants of borderline intelligence and even to the very dull normal, when attempting to adjust themselves to the complications of life in the United States. Norms for batteries of psychological tests tapping various abilities, both verbal and non-verbal in character, have been computed on Polish applicants for visas abroad, selected by a clerk because