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    "localId": "68866136",
    "label": "Statement by President Harry S. Truman, Veto of Bill to Revise the Laws Relating to Immigration, Naturalization, and Nationality",
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    "id": "68866136",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Statement by President Harry S. Truman, Veto of Bill to Revise the Laws Relating to Immigration, Naturalization, and Nationality",
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            "day": 25,
            "logicalDate": "1952-06-25",
            "month": 6,
            "year": 1952
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    "seq": 5,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "5\nconvicted by \"courts\" in communist countries that know no justice.\nUnder this provision, no matter how construed, it would not be possible\nfor us to admit many of the men and women who have stood up against\ntotalitarian repression and have been punished for doing so. I do\nnot approve of substituting totalitarian vengence for democratic justice.\nI will not extend full faith and credit to the judgments of the communist\nsecret police.\nThe realities of a world, only partly free, would again be\nignored in the provision flatly barring entry to those who made mis-\nrepresentations in securing visas. To save their lives and the lives\nof loved ones still imprisoned, refugees from tyranny sometimes mis-\nstate various details of their lives. We do not want to encourage\nfraud. But we must recognize that conditions in some parts of the\nworld drive our friends to desperate steps An exception restricted\nto cases involving misstatement of country of birth is not sufficient.\nAnd to make refugees from oppression forever deportable on such tech-\nnical grounds is shabby treatment indeed.\nSome of the new grounds of deportation which the bill would\nprovide are unnecessarily severe. Defects and mistakes in admission\nwould serve to deport at any time because of the bill's elimination,\nretroactively as well as prospectively, of the present humane provision\nbarring deportations on such grounds five years after entry. Narcotic\ndrug addicts would be deportable at any time, whether or not the ad-\ndiction was culpable, and whether or not cured. The threat of depor-\ntation would drive the addict into hiding beyond the reach of cure,\nand the danger to the country from drug addliction would be increased.\nI am asked to approve the reenactment of highly objectionable\nprovisions now contained in the Internal Security Act of 1950 -- a\nmeasure passed over my veto shortly after the invasion of South Korea.\nSome of these provisions would empower the Attorney General to deport\nany alien who has engaged or has had a purpose to engage in activities\nprejudicial to the public interest\" or \"subversive to the national\nsecurity.' No standards or definitions are provided to guide discretion\nin the exercise of powers so sweeping. To punish undefined \"activities\"\ndeparts from traditional American insistence on established standards\nof guilt. To punish an undefined \"purpose\" is thought control.\nThese provisions are worse than the infamous Alien Act of\n1798, passed in a time of national fear and distrust of foreigners, which\ngave the President power to deport any alien deemed \"dangerous to the\npeace, and safety of the United States. Alien residents were thoroughly\nfrightened and citizens much disturbed by that threat to liberty\nSuch powers are inconsistent with our democratic ideals. Con-\nferring powers like that upon the Attorney General is unfair to him as\nwell as to our alien residents Once fully informed of such vast discre-\ntionary powers vested in the Attorney General, Americans now would and\nshould be just as alarmed as Americans were in 1798 over less drastic\npowers vested in the President.\nHuretofore, for the most part, deportation and exclusion have\nrested upon findings of fact made upon evidence Under this bill, they\nwould rest in many instances upon the \"opinion\" or \"satisfaction\" of\nimmigration or consular employees. The change from objective findings\nto subjective feelings is not compatible with our system of justice.\nThe result would be to restrict or eliminate judicial review of unlaw-\nful administrative action.\nThe bill would sharply restrict the present opportunity of\ncitizens and alien residents to save family members from deportation.\nUnder the procedures of present law, the Attorney General can exercise\nhis discretion to suspend deportation in meritorious cases. In each\nsuch case, at the present time, the exercise of administrative discre-\ntion is subject to the scrutiny and approval of the Congress. Never-\ntheless, the bill would prevent this discretion from being used in many\n(OVER)"
}