Migration Activities of the War Relief Services and National Catholic Welfare Conference.

This paper offers a look at the involvement of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (N.C.W.C) in immigration. The Bishops of the U.S. established a Bureau of Immigration in their main N.C.W.C. headquarters in Washington in the early 1920s. Offices were opened both in New York and El Paso, Texas at subsequent dates in order to handle immigrants coming through those ports of entry into the U.S. In 1938 when many Catholics were being persecuted by the Nazis, the Board of Trustees of N.C.W.C. established the Catholic Committee for Refugees, whose principal function was to assist victims of Nazi persecution. In December of 1945 the President of the U.S. issued a directive authorizing the use of normal immigration quotas for refugees of Eastern Europe and refugees who had been persecuted by the Nazis. War Relief Services--N.C.W.C. was called upon to expand its U.S. and European staffs vastly in order to be able to handle the Catholic displaced persons. In order to be eligible for admission to the U.S. under the Displaced Persons Act a refugee was required to have a guarantee of a home and a job. The N.C.W.C. has appropriated 400,000 dollars of its own funds to be used as counterparts for travel loans which are supported by the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration.