LEROY JOHNSON. I think it is constitutional. The author of the pending bill and the chairman of the Committee on Immigration have talked about the Attorney Generals opinion. There is not a single opinion anywhere that I know of in which the Attorney General has said this is not constitutional. There has been some doubt about its retroactivity. but you can go back in civil matters as distinguished from criminal matters. That was decided in 1924 in a case where certain people were convicted in 1918 of violations of the selective service law and other criminal laws. In 1922 they were ordered deported by a warrant of deportation. They tried to get away from that order of deportation by saying that the matter was retroactive. However. Judge Tate swept that view aside and stated that this was a civil matter and a matter which can be based on prior actions or prior conduct.
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deported Immigration deportation