Silly Barriers at the Border

The anti-communist hysteria that swept this country in the 1950s has long since abated, but a vestigial remnant still exists in the immigration laws. Persons who are believed to be communists or anarchists or subversives, or who associate with communists, anarchists or subversives, can be barred from entering the country, even for a brief visit.

The latest victim of this foolishness in the law is Farley Mowat, the Canadian author and environmentalist who wrote the best-seller “Never Cry Wolf.” He was on his way to Los Angeles last week to begin a promotion tour for his new book, “Sea of Slaughter,” when U.S. immigration officials stopped him at the Toronto airport and told him that he could not enter the United States. The officials refused to tell him the specific reasons for their decision or to detail the contents of his dossier.

But an unidentified source close to the Immigration and Naturalization Service has reportedly said that Mowat was barred in part because of a newspaper article that he wrote in 1968 in which he threatened to fire a .22-caliber rifle at airplanes of the U.S. Strategic Air Command flying over Canada. Mowat said it was meant as a joke.

When the Canadian government protested, the immigration service decided that appearances on talk shows would probably not result in incitement to insurrection or civil disorder. Mowat was told he could come, under conditions similar to those imposed on parolees. Mowat said no thank you.

None of this was the fault of immigration officials. They were simply enforcing the McCarran Act of 1952. But the flexibility they finally showed makes it pretty clear that the law can be bent to mean whatever a particular Administration wants it to mean. Nobody needs a law like that and Congress should remedy that immediately, using a bill introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that would repeal the parts of the act that bar visitors solely because of their political beliefs.

In the meantime, Mowat should be allowed into the country, no strings attached.