Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., announced this week-end that the Department of Justice has adopted a new policy relative to enforcing departure bonds of displaced persons brought to this country in 1947 and 1948 as a means of emptying the DP camps in Europe.
Where Congressional or other action has resulted in making the alien’s status permanent and such status granted retroactive to the time of entry, he said, the Department will not seek to enforce payment of the bond. “On the other hand,” he added, “where the alien’s present lawful status in the United States was not made retroactive to the day of original entry, there has been no Congressional waiver of the breach of the departure bond, and it is in these cases that there will be enforcement of the bonds.”
When aliens come to this country, they are not allowed to enter unless departure bonds are put up for them. Rabbinical organizations and other Jewish religious groups and individuals arrange with surety companies to give the bonds, with the sponsoring organization or individual agreeing to indemnify the company if the bonds were breached. They usually request departure in three months, but some of the aliens, being stateless persons without papers, had no place to go and remained in this country.
The Government on Dec. 30, 1952, filed suit in the U.S. District Court in New York City to collect on a bond in the case of one alien, Abraham Brull. In this test case, Judge Edward Dimock held that where Congress approves the right of the alien to remain here, and specifically makes such right retroactive to the original entry, it has manifested its intention to waive the alien’s violation of the provision of the bond requiring him to depart.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
