Evidence that Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and the War Department acted hastily in the arrest of 81 so-called “foreign agents” in the Canal Zone accumulated here today as it was learned that 80 of the 81 were Jewish refugees who had been invited to work on canal defenses by Army authorities.
(Sources in New York expressed the belief that only 28 or 30 of the detained aliens were Jewish refugees.)
After hours of refusing to comment on the arrest of the refugees, who are now held on a prison island near Bilboa, the War Department this afternoon issued the following statement:
“The 81 aliens now awaiting disposition in the Canal immigration station are part of a large number of refugees who entered the Republic of Panama several months ago, where they were permitted by the Panamanian Government to remain temporarily.
“Some were given temporary employment in the Canal Zone. The papers of all refugees so employed have been examined and it has been found that 81 have no legal status whatever. They have been discharged and have since been held in the Canal immigration station awaiting disposition.”
From other sources it was learned that 80 of the 81 held were German-Jewish technicians, including electricians and engineers who had been forced to flee the Nazi terror and held visas allowing them to go to various South American nations. When their ships were passing through the Canal their papers were investigated, and the technicians were asked, by the same Army authorities who now have jailed them, to aid in work on the new Canal defenses. They accepted, instead of going to the South American countries which were their original destinations.
When it was charged in New York newspapers that many aliens were working on Canal defenses, Army authorities in the Canal Zone were prodded into action and arrested the refugees and transported them to the prison island. Their final disposition is uncertain, since their original visas for South American nations have expired.
Asked to comment on the arrests, President Roosevelt said that he knew nothing about the status of the 81 except what he had seen in Stimson’s statement of yesterday.
In distributing its statement on the Panama roundup, the War Department admitted it had referred erroneously to the refugees as “foreign agents.”
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