UNCLE SAMS “UNDESIRABLES”

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1935, Page 15 (Supplement)

UNCLE SAMS “UNDESIRABLES”

Aliens Illegally In 2L U.S. Live In Constant Fear Of Deportation

QF the number of aliens residing illegally in the United States there is no accurate estimate. A former commissioner at Ellis Island believed that there were at least 80,000 in the State of New York alone in 1933. In the south-west, near the Mexican border, there are thousands, nearly all Mexicans. Most of thfese aliens entered across the various borders or by deserting ships in some port. There are' many, however, who came in on temporary visitors’ permits; when the time came for them to depart—at the end of six months or a year, or, with extensions, two years—they preferred to remain in the country and risk discovery by the Immigration Service.

In this little group are many Russians who profited by the fact that

before recognition of the Soviet Union there was no place to which they could be deported and now, following recognition, there is no certainty that the Government wishes to deport them. In the group also are motion-picture stars and professional people; refugees from the Hitler regime in Germany; and, as the Immigration Service has learned, an occasional European who came over hunting for a wealthy wife and outstayed his permit. Not all of them can be deported. If the alien arrived in America before 1921, no matter how he came in, he can legalise his status. If he arrived illegally between 1921 and 1924, he cannot become a citizen, but he is exempt from deportation; he lives on as a man without a country. Those who arrived illegally after 1924 can be deported on discovery. Several hundred immigration inspectors are working each day throughout the country ferreting out such aliens. Last year,

pearly 20,000 aliens of all types were deported.

Two other groups of aliens are subject to deportation. The first group are the ‘’removals,” the voluntary deportees. By law, any alien who has been less than three year? in the country and has beep unable to earn a satisfactory living can apply for deportation for himself and his family, if foreign-born, at government expense. The second group of those eligible for deportation are those caught in crime. The law states that an alien of less than five years’ residence who is sentenced to more than a year and a day in a penitentiary (not a prison of lesser rank), or an alien, not matter how long ip this country, who has had two such sentences, is automatically subject to

deportation and will find an immigration inspector waiting for him at the prison gate when his sentence is finished unless he obtains a pardon.

The matter of raids and arrests without warrants in search of suspects was greatly abused, and one group of inspectors, the so-called “Section 24,” set themselves up as petty tyrants, terrorising alien groups and, in some cases, offering immunity for cash only. That “section” and the practice of arresting without warrants were discontinued by the Commissioner of Immigration, Colonel Mac Cormack.

The majority is caught through reports sent to the Immigration Service. Every day anonymous letters reach Ellis Island. One such note said: “There is an alien who ran off with my wife last week. They are living at -. I don’t want my wife back, but the alien is here without any right.”

Letters and information come from unemployed citizens who find that an alien is in a job. One such letter ended: “Thank you for the consideration of righteousness—l need the job.” Letters are sometimes received from abroad. An Italian mother wrote to Ellis Island: “My son is in New York—he sneaked ip. Please send him back because I need him to support me.” Each case is individual. An Arabian stowaway who spoke no English was arrested in Youngstown, Ohio, and ordered to be deported to his home village, as he described it, “eight days’ walk from Aden.” He told the authorities he was eager to leave the United States, but begged to be sent elsewhere than to his village. “In this country I have drunk liquor and eaten pork, and my tribe know it,” he said. “If I am returned, they may slay me or at least slit my lips or cut off my ears.” The authorities learned from the British Consul that there might be some ground for the man’s fear. He was sent merely to Aden. The most complicated cases concern the Chinese. No Chinese may enter the United States permanently unless he be a child or the grandchild of an American-born parent. The Chinese custom of returning home to die results in a steady stream of Chinese, born in China but applying for entrance to America on the ground that they were fathered by an American-born man who had returned from the States. Each month cases are discovered in which an American-born Chinese, living in China, has sold himself as pretended father to a young man and thus enabled the latter to enter illegally.