[Enclosure]
The Second Secretary of the Canadian
Legation (McGreer) to the
American Commissioner General of Immigration (Hull)
[Washington,] June 28,
1932.
Dear Sir: I am directed to bring to
your attention a matter which is giving grave concern to members
of the Canadian Medical Association and to the various medical
colleges of the Dominion. I refer to the difficulties being
encountered by graduates of Canadian universities who, desirous
of continuing their studies in medicine by accepting
post-graduate internships in universities and medical schools of
the United States, are experiencing considerable difficulty in
fulfilling the necessary immigration requirements for admission
to the United States.
I am informed by the Assistant Dean and Secretary of the Faculty
of Medicine of the University of Toronto that in the past it has
been customary for some twenty-five to fifty Toronto graduates
to proceed annually to serve in hospitals in the United States,
but that this year a number of graduates who have been requested
to report for duty on July 1st have been refused admission to
the United States at the border. Many of these graduates have
applied to the United States Consul at Toronto for visas but
without success, the grounds for refusal apparently being that
they were either proceeding to positions which can be filled by
citizens of the United States or that
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they come within the contract labor
provisions of the United States Immigration laws.40
The Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Toronto, Mr.
E. Stanley Ryerson, states that for
several months after Toronto graduates have received hospital
appointments in the United States he continues to receive
further requests for more Canadian graduates, and it would
accordingly appear that the United States medical schools are
apparently not in a position to engage the necessary number of
American graduates to meet the demand for interns.
With regard to the payment of interns a large proportion of whom
serve for nothing else but the experience, it is understood that
the honorarium is most negligible and only in rare instances
attaining a sum as high as $25.00 or $50.00 a month. Under the
circumstances, therefore, it would seem that interns might be
considered to be on the same basis as other Canadian students
proceeding to the United States to perfect themselves in their
particular profession.
It is understood that the question of admitting Canadian
graduates as interns in United States institutions was taken up
recently by the Canadian Medical Association with the United
States Consulate-General at Toronto and it is reported that Mr.
C. P. Fletcher of the Consulate stated
that he would not consider the granting of visas until after the
graduation of the applicants. However, since graduation this
month, it is reported that the applicants are being refused
visas.
Dr. Bert W. Caldwell of Chicago, the
Secretary of the American Hospital Association, has also
interested himself in the case and he was advised by Mr.
A. Dana Hodgdon, Chief of the Visa
Division of Washington, to the following effect:
“Since the records in visa cases are kept at the consular
offices abroad, to which the applications for visas are
made, the Department will be glad, upon being advised of
the names and addresses of any specific medical students
who have been unsuccessful in obtaining visas, to
request the consular officers concerned to advise the
Department fully what the records of their respective
offices indicate in the matter.”
I am enclosing for your information a list41 furnished by the
Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of
Toronto, of Toronto graduates showing the hospitals and
institutions in the United States to which a number of Toronto
graduates have been assigned for duty, and it is understood that
in addition to these there are also others from McGill and
Queen’s and other Canadian universities who are in the same
situation.
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In view of the fact that the majority of these appointments begin
on July 1st I would be most grateful if you would be good enough
to inform this Legation, at your earliest convenience, of the
regulations governing the admission of interns into the United
States and also whether some method might not be arranged by
which the entry of these young men might be facilitated without
interference with the purposes of the immigration regulations of
the United States.
Yours sincerely,