Page Fourteen
FEBRUARY, 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
Rigid Immigration Laws in the Making
'T'HERE IS little doubt that before long the present
1 provisions in the federal law pertaining to alien
deportation will be.materially changed. Government
and state officials have found it almost impossible
under the statute of “moral turpitude” to secure con
victions of aliens who are inveterate violators of our
narcotic and prohobition laws, as well as of our laws
against immorality and vice. Their ability to engage
■the best of legal talent, and fight their cases for years
in the courts, render them almost immune against
deportation, except in the most rare cases when they
have plied their trade too much out in the open.
Since this statute was enacted, many years ago,
public conscience has changed mightily in America.
Practices which were at that time commonly unnoticed
have been put under the ban. The licenced houses
of ill fame have passed out as well as their cousins, the
saloons. Moral turpitude has come to have a new
meaning in public opinion, and the old statutes are
getting somewhat obsolete.
The crime of moral turpitude under the old
statute was largely limited to a specific wrong, that
of inducing a chaste woman into a life of shame and
living on the earnings of such women.
Under the old statute, however, it was possible to
deport any alien having been convicted of a crime for
which he had served time in an American prison, pro
vided he had not acquired legal residence, or been in
America over five years. In other words, an alien was
not an alien if he had been in the United States over
five years, even though he had not become naturalized.
Previous to 1917, when the deportation law was
amended, little or no attention was given the commis
sion of crimes by aliens as distinguished from crimes
committed by native or naturalized Americans. Ameri
ca’s crime calendar of the past, if carefully scrutinized,
would reveal some startling figures both in number of
convicted persons and cost of apprehension, conviction
and detention in jails and prisons.
America has too long been a rendezvous for
foreign criminals. We have too long been footing
the bill, looking after this class of immigrants. We
have criminals enough of our own making. Let the
foreign countries take care of their own criminally
minded people.
♦
*
*
The United American will fight for a square deal
for the alien who is asking for only a fair chance, who
is willing to do the right thing, and no one should try
to place him in an awkward position or give him a
wrong steer, but the plotting, scheming, immoral and
licentious alien can expect no quarter from this source.
America will be a better country for the decent alien,
the man who contemplates and diligently tries to be
come a citizen, a better country for him in which to
have his home and to rear his children, when the un
desirable and criminal element from every country
that has been coming through our gates, has been
returned whence they came.
The only regret we have is that Americans, in
high and low places, who are guilty of contributing to
such misconduct on the part of the alien who is willing
to take a chance with the law, are secure in their
birthright against deportation. Inasmuch as the
former had a part in the consummation of the unlawful
act charged against the alien, he stands morally con
victed as an unpardonable accomplice.
These statements are tersely put, but we defy
anyone to challenge them.
A square deal is the right of the alien, under any
and all circumstances, and it is a mighty cheap sport
to try to get “the alien’s goat,” which altogether too
many anti-alien minded officers have been indulging
in. It should be discouraged in the name of a fair,
square and just America.
♦
*
*
During the later years many new vices have been
invented, vices that have taken the places of the house
of ill fame and the saloon. These later vices are as
profitable as those that passed out. The. type of
people that followed the vice traffic in the past are
generally those who engage in and promote the newer
vices. The perfection of a system of trade in these
unlawful practices has opened up channels of huge
profit, and rendered the unscrupulous illicit trade
expert a far greater menace to the public at large,
and particularly to the womanhood of Amterica, than
he ever was in any previous period of time in this fair
land.
Chief among the newer vices, is the traffic in
narcotics, the greatest curse that ever hit America.
The continuous craving for dope, where addiction has
developed, often furnishes these reprehensible and
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