Further sources summing up FDR’s actions during WW2
“While Roosevelt condemned the actions of the Nazis and willingly amended
the rules for foreigners currently in the United States, he did not act to change the
immigration laws and quotas. Even after expressing such disdain at the actions by the
Nazis on Kristallnacht, Roosevelt refused to consider allowing more refugees to enter
the country. When asked about this policy, FDR responded, “That is not in
contemplation; we have the quota system.”110
In terms of relieving the refugee crisis in the most significant manner, it would
seem as if the easiest solution would have been to open up the doors of the United
States. Many diplomats agreed that amending the immigration laws would be the most
108 Statement by the President, November 15, 1938. From the Roosevelt Library. The
FDR Papers, OF3186: Political Refugees, June-December 1938.
109 Press conference, November 18, 1938, Franklin Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs,
Vol. 12, 132-134, qtd. in Breitman et al., Refugees and Rescue, 151.
110 “Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs” ed. Donald B. Schewe, Second
Series, January 1937-August 1939 (New York: Clearwater, 1979), Vol. 12, 83-86.
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beneficial solution to the crisis. Norman Bentwich, a British diplomat, wrote to James
McDonald and expressed his views of the refugee situation. He stated, “the main effort
during the next period should be to increase the possibilities of emigration to the
American continent, and particularly, of course, to the U.S.A., if there is any chance of
getting some relaxation of the quota rules.”111 Increasing the immigration quotas
would have allowed thousands of desperate Jews to exit Germany and Austria for
refuge in the United States.
However, for the reasons of nativism and public opinion against the action,
that did not occur. Roosevelt described to Myron Taylor, “this Government is already
accepting involuntary emigrants to the fullest extend permitted by law. I do not
believe it either desirable or practicable to recommend any change in the quota
provisions of our immigration laws. We are prepared, nevertheless, to make any other
contribution which may be in our power to make.”112 FDR did not even consider
increasing the quotas to be a possible solution to the refugee crisis.”
The above was excepted from a thesis submitted to University of Delaware in 2016.
To sum it up FDR made no effort at all to lift immigration quotas and specifically stated he would not do so.