Political Deportations

POLITICAL DEPORTATIONS. Since 1903, federal officials have used political deportations to punish individuals, promote ideological purity, and disrupt social protest. Targeting affiliations and behavior legal for citizens, these expulsions fit a framework crafted in 1890s Chinese exclusion cases in which the Supreme Court ruled that because deportation was not “punishment for crime,” deportees had no right to jury trials and no protection against ex post facto laws, unreasonable searches, or double jeopardy.

For a century after the 1798 Alien and Sedition Act expired in 1801, the Unites States had no provisions for deporting radicals. In 1903, after native-born Leon Czołgosz assassinated President McKinley, Congress acted and made immigrants with anarchist beliefs who had lived in the United States fewer than three years liable to deportation. Because of the law’s time limits and narrow focus, only a handful of leftists were deported before World War I. Driven by wartime intolerance and a desire to destroy the Industrial Workers of the World, in 1917 and 1918 Congress removed the time limits and made belief in the violent overthrow of the government, the unlawful destruction of property, or membership in or financial contributions to groups advocating such behavior grounds for deportation.

These changes made deportations a key weapon in the postwar Red Scare. Unable to move effectively against citizens, the Justice Department worked closely with the Labor Department’s Immigration Bureau to target foreign-born radical activists. On November 7, 1919, they launched violent raids against the Union of Russian Workers. Within seven weeks, at least 235 radicals were hustled aboard the SS Buford bound for Europe. In addition to members of the Union of Russian Workers, the deportees included anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.

On January 2, 1920, mass arrests swept up approximately 6,000 people. The prompt release of nearly 2,000 citizens made it clear that deportation was a weapon of convenience against otherwise legal activity. Labor Department officials disrupted this “deportations delirium,” ordering the deportation of Communist Party but not Communist Labor Party members. Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis Post, who reviewed individual cases, insisted that if the standard had been personal beliefs, not party membership, he would have deported only a “canoe load.”

By the mid-1920s, Red Scare cases had worked through the system, resulting in approximately 1,000 political deportations. From 1925 to 1930, only sixteen radicals were expelled explicitly for their politics. The drop-off reflected reduced activism as well as the Soviet Union’s refusal to accept deportees. Still, the late 1920s showed a continuity in deportation policy. The Immigration Bureau rolled back due process reforms implemented after the Palmer Raids. During the 1928 New Bedford textile strike, city officials attempted, but failed, to secure the deportation of Communist activists. Similar requests played a major role in 1930s deportations.

With the onset of the Great Depression, and under President Herbert Hoover’s direction, Secretary of Labor William N. Doak aggressively pursued immigrant noncitizens. Lacking assistance from the Justice Department, the Immigration Bureau relied on local immigration inspectors, who often conducted preliminary interviews without legal representation and directed warrantless searches. Most cases involved individuals or small groups brought to the inspectors’ attention during strikes or protests. Deportees included journalists and unemployed artists. Labor activists, however, were the prime target, especially members of the Communist-led Trade Union Unity League. The Immigration Bureau tried to punish radicals by deporting them to repressive homelands rather than permitting departure to a third country.

Political deportations became less a priority after 1933. The dissolution of the Trade Union Unity League and the ascendancy of the AFL-CIO shielded leftists somewhat. Federal officials canceled a few expulsions, at times to avoid court challenges. But expulsions continued, with most of the decade’s 254 political deportations occurring during 1933–1939. Several noncitizens arrested during the 1934 West Coast longshore strike were deported. German-born leftists continued to face deportation, although by the late 1930s some were allowed to seek refuge in Mexico. By 1938, the government had begun a two-decade campaign against Harry Bridges.

The International Labor Defense aggressively advocated on behalf of deportees, but immigration officials’ broad discretion and the Supreme Court’s reluctance to grant habeas corpus writs in political cases hamstrung efforts to block deportations. The International Labor Defense had more success helping deportees avoid resettlement in places with right-wing regimes.

During the late 1940s, foreign-born radicals became targets of Cold War policies. With the Immigration and Naturalization Service now part of the Justice Department, coordination of policies and their implementation tightened. By the mid-1950s, hundreds were threatened with deportation. Most were longtime residents; some had come to the United States as infants; nearly all had lived in the country more than twenty years. Some were Communist leaders; others had left the Communist Party twenty years earlier. In several cases, immigration officials resurrected deportation warrants canceled in the 1930s. Although the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries refused to accept deportees, natives of these countries spent years battling the US Immigration and Naturalization Service. Immigration officials harassed them by denying bail or imposing onerous bail conditions. Although overruled by judges, these bail policies drained resources and wore down those involved. The government also attacked the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born, the deportees’ leading defender. Although the number of political deportees was much smaller than during the Red Scare, the Cold War offensive imposed more hardships on those threatened with expulsion and intimidated thousands more.

The changing composition of the American Left made these cases the last major deportation drive against radical organizations. Since then, political deportations have had a different emphasis. During the 1980s, the Central American solidarity movement fought the deportation of those fleeing US-backed death-squad regimes, eventually winning temporary refugee status for Salvadorans. The Los Angeles Eight case involving Palestinians that dragged on from 1987 to 2007 highlighted immigration officials’ continued efforts to mute dissent and their long-standing disregard for civil liberties as they policed non-citizens’ beliefs and actions.

Buff, Rachel Ida. Against the Deportation Terror: Organizing for Immigrant Rights in the Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2018.

Ginger, Ann Fagan. Carol Weiss King: Human Rights Lawyer, 1895–1952. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1993.

Ginger, Ann Fagan. “Political Deportations: 1944–1954.” Science and Society 19, no. 2 (1955).

Kraut, Julia Rose: Threat of Dissent: A History of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation in the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020.

Preston, William. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903–1933. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963.