Speech #820209104

He has a wife. children. perhaps even parents in this country. If he writes to the editor of a local newspaper a letter criticizing the mayor or the chief of police. he may get that official or some influential politician aroused against him. The Immigration and Naturalization Service then may be asked to look into the aliens record. It may then be found that 10 or 20 years ago he was convicted of drunken driving or violating OPA regulations or local sanitary ordinances. That manit is hard to believe. but it is a factcould be taken from his family. his home and his friends. and could be deported. on the basis of this longforgotten conviction. So that there can be no misunderstanding. I wish to point out that the authority for such a deportation is found in section 241 (a) (4) of the McCarran bill. Such deportation can be a cruel and unbearable penalty. and under this section of the McCarran bill it could happen in scores and in hundreds. even thousands. of cases. in the discretion of the Attorney General. In the McCarran bill. there are many other grounds for deportation. equally or almost as vague and loose. and subject to abuse. The point I wish to emphasize. Mr. President. is that deportation is a harsh penalty. as harsh as any there can be. Yet. under the McCarran bill. deportation is required not only fOr dope addicts. pimps. prostitutes. hardened criminals. and true subversives. but also for those who have misrepresented a material fact in a visa application or who arrived in this country at a place other than the one duly provided by regulationfor instance. at Charleston. S. C.. instead of at New York. The McCarran bill requires the deportation of an alien who. at any time within 5 years of his entry into this country. enters a hospital because of a mental breakdown. regardless of whether the breakdown resulted from causes connected with his being in the United States. and regardless of whether the alien is able to pay for his own hospitalization. This provision is found in section 241 (a) (3) of the McCarran bill. In such cases it seems to me that deportation would constitute punishment far beyond the metes and bounds of what would be deserved. The classic dictum of "let the punishment fit the crime" would be thrown completely overboard by all these provisions of the McCarran bill. Indeed.