ROSS, CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OPPOSE U. S. JUSTICE DEPT. RULING IMMIGRATION BODY
Ross Civil Liberties Union Oppose U.S. Justice Dept.Ruling Immigration Body Fear VDR Proposal to Bring Police Regime Over Alien Group Also Oppose Registra' lion for Aliens; See Plans Too...
...Ross, were the Rev...
...The proximity of the FBI lends little encouragement to the principle that they should not be treated as a suspect and quasi-criminal element in American life...
...See Plans Too Drastic IN a letter signed by the chairman of its national committee...
...Only a fraction of the deportation ra-es involve criminal nliens...
...to compromise what has been on the whole a record of pretty fair treatment...
...Is ordinarily accomplished without resorting to the courts...
...To throw the whole service into the department of justice is to give to the prosecuting arm of the government functions quite dissociated from it...
...Roosevelt's proposal to transfer the immigration service to the department of justice and to moves to register all aliens in the United States...
...University of Wisconsin emeritus professor of sociology, the American Civil Liberties Union last week declared that a "virtual police regime" may soon be established over our alien population of four million and expressed strong opposition to Pres...
...The bureau of immigration and naturalization is primarily roncuned with civil, not criminal, proceedings...
...People who have come to this country as a land of refuge and opportunity, and who because of stringent provisions for citizenship have not yet become citizens, should not be dealt with unjustly in the spirit of a police regime, the ACLU declared "What we have said of the transfer of the bureau," the letter concluded, "applies with even greater force in the light of the proposal to register all aliens, a measure which, in other countries, has always accompanied a police regime, and which in this country is particularly objectionable because of the difficulty of distinguishing between aliens, naturalized citizens and indeed ritizens generally...
...The control of immigration is shared with the state department...
...The Union held that while under the present administration or the department of justice the foreign-born may be treated with the same consideration they received in the department of labor, "the tendencies in the department of Justice are likely, in the long run...
...Deportation, which is exclusively a function of the bureau, and a civil proceeding...
...No evidence whatever appears to indicate that the proportion of disloyal elements chargeable with activities against the country's interest is higher among the alien population than among citizens...
...John Haynes Holmes, chairman of the ACLU board of directors, and Roger N. Baldwin, ACLU director...
...Signers of the letter, beside Prof...
...We venture to suggest that, the registration of so large a part of our population will inevitably lead to the more general registration of all citizens—a measure which would arouse widespread opposition as wholly unnecessary and out of keeping with American principles of civil liberty...
...the- letter said...
...Aliens hostile to American institutions who engage in any acts of espionage or sabotage can be quite as easily detected and apprehended under the jurisdiction of the department of labor as the department of justice...
...Roosevelt...
...The assumption that the alien population contains elements hostile to American institutions and therefore should be under closer supervision In the present emergency does not justify "so sweeping a measure" as the transfer of an entire service to the prosecuting arm of our government, the CLU letter maintained...
...We are fearful that with the transfer to the department of justice there may be established in time a virtual police regime over our alien population of 4.000.000...
...Preparation for and admission to citizenship constitutes a large part b( its work...
...The Union listed its objections in a letter to Pres...
...Edward A. Ross...
Vol. 10 • June 1940 • No. 23
