Speech #810272780

Speaker. pursuant to permission. I include at this point the following memorandum on H. R. 10 prepared by the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization of the National Lawyers Guild.: Ten years after the Hobbs bill first came up in Congress the present bill. H. R. 10. is before the Judiciary Committee. The present bill makes three proposals which are foreign to our traditions. X Deportable aliens are to he sent not alone to the country of their nativity. citizenship. or residencein certain Instances to the port whence they shipped to the United Statesbut "to any country which will agree to accept such aliens nto its territory." (See. 20 (a). p. 9. P. G. !. 20.) One of the issues raised in the Wickersham Report on The Enforcement of the Deportation Laws by Reuben Oppenheimer was the cruelty involved in sending alien Communists resident in the United States to countries where their lives were endangered even though they might be citizens of such countries (pp. 121123). The report stops to say "the board of review insisted upon making deportation a death sentence." Under H. R. 10 not only can deportation be made a death sentence. but it may result In deportation to a country. the language and customs of which the alien knows nothing. This is in spirit at least "cruel and unusual punishment" In violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As was said by Mr. Justice Murphy In his concurring opinion in the Bridges case (326 U. S. 135. 163164): "It Is no answer that a deportation proceeding Is technically noncriminal in nature and that a deportable alien Is not adjudged guilty of a crime. Those are oversubtle niceties that shed their significance when we are concerned with safeguarding the ideals of the Bill of Rights. The impact of deportation upon the life of an alien is often as great. if not greater. than the imposition of a criminal sentence. A deported alien many lose his family. his friends. and his livelihood forever. Return to his native land may result In poverty. persecution. and even death. There is thus no justifiable reason for discarding the democratic and humane tenets of our. legal system and descending to the practices of despotism in dealing with dep6rtation." The Attorney General is given power of detention over all aliens. Deportable aliens whose deportation cannot be effected within 6 months are. under H. R. 10. subject to the discretion of the Attorney General as to whether they are to be held in custody. paroled under supervision. or released on bond. During the first 6 months it is also put within the Attorney Generals discretion whether they will be held in custody. conditionally paroled. or released on bond. Such provision is in violation of the eighth amendment to the United States Constitution providing against the imposition of "excessive bail." It also flouts the recent decision of the circuit court of appeals of the second circuit. which held that the Attorney General under the present law had in the first instance the right to determine whether to release an alien in deportation proceedings on bond but that his discretion was subject to review so as to establish that he was not abusing it (U. S. ex rel Potast v. District Director (169 F. (2d) 747)). If deportation has not been effected within 6 months "pending eventual deportation" any alien against whom a warrant of deportation has issued shall be subject to supervision under regulations prescribed by the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization. with the approval of the Attorney General. "Such regulations shall require any alien subject to supervision (1) to appear from time to time before an officer of the Immigration and Naturalization Service for Identification. (2) to submit. if necessary. to medical and psychiatric examination at the expense of the United States. (3) to give information under oath as to his circumstances. habits. associations. and activities. and (4) to conform to such reasonable written restrictions on his conduct or activities as are prescribed by the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization in his case." 1See. 20 (b). p. 13: In connection with tLe problem of whether incoming immigrants are persons of psychiatric inferiority. the Immigration and Naturalization Service has given some psychiatric examinations. The unsatisfactory character of these examinations Is set forth in CONGRnSSONAL RPcoan. January 9. 1928 (unbound). pp. 1250 et. seq.. especially the statement of Mr.