Speech #820215196

I have tried to recount to you. Mr. President. the most striking among the unjust and arbitrary provisions of the McCarran bill with respect to the law of citizenship. naturalization. and denaturalization. Let me remind you also that in this omnibus bill there are provisions for search and seizure without a warrant and there are provisions creating and defining crimes. All of uswhether citizen or alienwould be subject to these provisions. For instance. section 287 (a) of the McCarran bill. for the first time in the law. would allow any immigration officer to interrogate any person whom he believes to be an alien. as to his right to remain in the United States. ExistIng law and the HumphreyLehman bill limit to aliens this right of interrogation without warrant. Organization after organization protested this provision to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The National Catholic Welfare Conference sAid: This control. carried to excess. might well develop in our alien population a fear somewhat similar to that associated with the surprise visits of agents in totalitarian countries. It is a wellknown fact that local agents of the Immigration Service sometimes become overzealous in carrying out regulations and instructions of their superior officers (hearings. p. 737). The conference recommended that the section be changed so that it would be limited to aliens only and. as to aliens. only to those whom the officer has reason to believe have no right to be in the United States or have violated the immigration laws. The National Catholic Welfare Conference concluded by saying: Certainly no officers should be permitted to enter the abode of an alien without being equipped with a warrant (hearings. p. 737). Another witness. appearing on behalf of 36 Jewish organizations. said as folI lows: Under this law any person suspected of being an alien may be visited at any hour of the day or night for questioning (hearings. p. 581). Citizens have a constitutional right. under the fourth amendment. to be secure in their persons. It does not matter to me or to any other citizen that some immigration officer believes that I am an alien. If I am a citizen. I am entitled under the Constitution not to be interrogated without a warrant. The principle that any person may be interrogated by a Government official at any time and at any place prevails only in police states and in this McCarran bill. The same section. section 287 (a) (3). allows any immigration officer to search any car within a reasonable distance of the Canadian or Mexican borders on the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. There is no requirement of probable cause for the search. This is the existing law. and I believe it to be plainly unconstitutional.