The Dempsey bill which would exclude or deport all aliens who believe in, advise or advocate “the making of any changes in the American form of government” was labelled a dictatorial measure which would undermine the Bill of Rights by witnesses appearing before a Senate immigration subcommittee yesterday.
The bill, introduced by Rep. John J. Dempsey of New Mexico, a member of the Dies Committee, was passed by the House without debate or roll call. The American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born charges that it was passed on the false basis that it was non-controversial and holds that it is a disguised attack on the democratic rights of American citizens and organizations.
Presiding at the hearing was Senator Hughes. An interested spectator was Senator Robert Reynolds, of North Carolina, who is not a member of the subcommittee. Appearing to defend his bill was Rep. Dempsey.
The bill “penalized a man’s thoughts and itself would effect a disastrous change in the American form of government,” Reuben Oppenheim, Baltimore attorney representing the American Civil Liberties Union, told the subcommittee. Oppenheim pointed out that the guarantees of the Bill of Rights affect all individuals alike, whether citizens or aliens. He said that the Dempsey bill was so vague that aliens might be deported for beliefs as inoffensive as favoring the Ludlow Amendment to the Constitution, which advocates a change in the form of government by allowing the people to vote on a declaration of war.
Under the stiff cross-examination of Senator Charles 0. Andrews of Florida, Oppenheim pointed out that had the bill been in existence before 1865 an alien could have been deported for favoring in his own mind the abolition of slavery. Oppenheim charged that it would give employes of the Immigration Service “inquisitorial powers’ to determine what was in a man’s mind, and that it would force the Secretary of Labor to ascertain the political convictions of 3,600,000 aliens now in this country.”
At this point, Dempsey stormed that quota regulations were now being disregarded. Aliens, he said, “are coming in by leaps and bounds. The quotas mean nothing.”
The bill was also attacked by Cloyd Lapoete, of the New York Bar Association, who said it was too vague and uncertain in its terms “to avoid oppressing the people it affects.” Deportation, Lapoete said, in these times may mean imprisonment or death abroad and should not be undertaken lightly.
Isadore Hershfield, of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, also spoke against the bill.
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