President. if we do not limit the application of this particular bill to aliens who commit the offense defined within 5 years after entry. we are making a brandnew departure from our settled law. Ever since 1917. when we first undertook to deal with this type of subject. the law has required that in order to render themselves subject to prosecution under it aliens must commit the particular offense or be guilty of an act involving moral turpitude within 5 years after their admission to this country. If we leave this matter as it is at present. an infant who was brought here when 6. 7. or 8 months of age may commit some offense involving the Narcotics Act at the age of 16 or 17. or in later years. and thereafter be automatically deported under this bill to a country whose language. whose customs. and whose people are completely strange to him. It is a cruel and unusual purported punishment for the particular act as defined. As the bill is drawn. it might even go further with reference to a violation of the narcotics law. if you please. of some Federal or State jurisdiction than it does with reference to acts involving moral turpitude. It goes further. if you like. than crimes of violence. In other words. if an alien today takes a gun and. with violence or threat to the life or limb of some American citizen. undertakes a holdup. unlvss he do it within 5 years after his entry. he is not to be deportable. and yet. under the terms of this bill. we would automatically deport somebody who violates the Narcotics Act. It seems to me that a mere statement of the matter is sufficient to evaluate the injustice and the cruelty and the hardship incident upon the enforcement of the bill as it stands. and enforcement. of course. must automatically follow. Let me further point out. with reference to section 3 of the bill as it now stands. that it provides that any alien who becomes a habitual user of narcotics and is confined in an institution is automatically deportable. regardless of when he came to this country. Mr. President. certainly we cannot mean that. There must be persons in this body who know those who have been victims of cancer. if you choose. or some other terrible disease which has baffled all surgical skill and which has resulted in the increasing use of opiates in an effort to reach the pain. to the point that the person becomes a habitual user of narcotics. and perhaps may be institutionalized. Surely persons within this body know individuals who are in that position. To give this bill its full intendment. once any such person is institutionalized. we are going to make him automatically deportable to a country where he may know nobody. where his illness and his pain can mean nothing. where he has no attention. no relatives. not even command of the language necessary to describe his misfortune. Mr. President.
Keywords matched
deported deportable