The Classics| Embassy ceremony - First visas to Jamaicans under U.S. Immigration Law change

Published December 2, 1965

THE FIRST five visas to be issued under the amended United States Immigration Law, were presented by the U.S. Ambassador, Mr Wilson TM Beale, at a ceremony in the immigrant' visa section of ' the American Embassy yesterday morning (December 1, 1965).

The recipients were Mrs Dora Blanch Miller of 4 ½ Albert Street, Kingston 16 who will be reunited with her daughter in Brooklyn, New York; Mrs Rebecca. Campbell of 15 Padmore Drive, Kingston 10, who will be reunited with her daughter in Hollis, New York; Lloyd Earl, Winston Anthony and Joy Silvenia Escoffery, who will join their parents New York.

 As he presented the visas, Mr Beale said: "It is with great pleasure that I tell you that we have interviewed you and found you eligible to receive these visas.”

The five Jamaicans then took the oath which was administered Mr Vernon McAninch, chief of the Consular' Service.

Continuing, Mr Beale said: "Today, the new U.S. Immigration Law comes into 'effect." "I am happy to have this, opportunity to present "immigration visas to Mrs Campbell, Mrs Miller, and the Escoffery family.

"This presentation is symbolic of other occasions when qualified persons will receive Immigration visas from Mr McAninch and other consular officers of our Embassy. Of course, we don't expect it to appear in the newspaper or be announced on radio and television every time that happens.

"Our friends are here today because President Johnson fostered, and the Congress of the United States approved many extensive changes in our immigration laws."

The most important change for this country was the elimination of the principle of national origins and therefore the elimination of national quotas.

“Under our new law, the door to the United States is open to “immediate relatives” of citizens or legal residents of the United States. It will now be possible for families to be reunited, whose members have previously been kept apart because of the application of the obsolete principle of national origins. Today we observe the application of a great humanitarian principle, mothers to be reunited with their daughters, and children are to be reunited with their mother and father.