Speech #750060975

I shall not take the 5 minutes available to me. I just want to say that the gentleman from Connecticut has placed his finger exactly upon the defect in the amendment offered by the gentleman from Alabama . The amendment as drawn says that any alien. any time after he has entered this country. who may first of all have been convicted of a crime for which the imprisonment is a year or more and who may have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. may be deported. That means you can reach back 25 or 30 years and find a man who has purloined a loaf of bread from a grocery store. who has been sentenced for 30 days. and under the provisions of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Alabama deport him from the country. Certainly it is not within the contemplation of any member of the committee that we want to go that far and reach back into the lives of our citizenry for some trifling offense. shall I say. but involving moral turpitude. and send him out of the country. when after that he may have been a splendid citizen and may have achieved a high station and high standing in the community in which he lives.