Speech #990171380

Many visitors overcome initial charges that brand them as everything from anarchists and Communists to professional beggars and prostitutes. But the process is a demeaning and embarrassing ritual that suggests we are not as confident. mature. and truly free a nation as we so often assert. Under the sweeping rubric of activities "prejudicial to the public interest" or "subversive to the national security." sections 212(a) 27 and 28 of the Immigration and Nationality Act have been used to bar British actor Charlie Chaplin. Canadian author and naturalist Farley Mowat. and Japanese pacifists. Our bill would stop this. In essence the bill says that activities which would be protected by the first amendment if conducted by American citizens in the United States cannot be the sole basis for an aliens exclusion or deportation. This bill eliminates the exclusions in section 212(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act that are based solely on speech. nonviolent political activity. political beliefs or associations. This bill would also impose analogous restrictions on the broad authority to deport aliens contained In section 241(a) of the act. In addition. the bill permits Americans to go to court If denied the opportunity to communicate with an alien visitor because of speechbased restrictions.