ABSTRACT
The growth in the number of immigrants, however, was accompanied by a gradual increase in the fear among the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant American mainstream of racial and religious minorities— such as "blacks, Orientals, Roman Catholics, as well as Jews". Because of unemployment, however, the liberalisation of immigration would have posed a major political risk. Many government officials worried that if they gave a green light to immigration then unemployment would grow— and so would anti-Semitism. The immigration of the German Jewish refugees was, thus, limited by the State Department's understanding or interpretation of the Public Charge Clause. George S. Messersmith saw the European Jews' immigration to the United States of America as a danger, but this view was informed by open nationalism, not by veiled anti-Semitism. After the Nuremberg laws were introduced in 1935, fascism gained strength in Europe, prompting the State Department to effect changes in policy.
