High Court to Hear Appeal of Foreign-Speaker Ban

The Supreme Court said today it will decide if the Reagan Administration has wide latitude to bar foreigners from making speeches in the United States if they have Communist or anti-American beliefs.

The justices will hear arguments this term in an appeal by the government of a ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The case arose in 1983 when the State Department denied visas to Nicaraguan Interior Minister Tomas Borge, Italian peace activist Nino Pasti and Cuban women’s studies experts Olga Finlay and Leonor Rodriguez Lezcano.

The four were invited to speak in the United States by a variety of organizations, including peace activists, women’s groups, members of Congress, religious leaders and university professors.

The State Department denied all the visas on grounds that visits from the four could harm U.S. foreign policy.

Suits were filed in federal court alleging that the government violated federal law.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 requires that any alien be kept out of the United States if the attorney general believes he or she “seeks to enter the United States solely . . . to engage in activities which would be prejudicial” to U.S. interests.

The law also allows the exclusion of aliens who are or have been members of the Communist Party.

To prevent abuse of the law, Congress passed an amendment in 1982 that requires the secretary of state to recommend waivers for any alien “who is excludable from the United States by reason of membership in or affiliation with a proscribed organization, but who is otherwise admissible.”

In other action before beginning a four-week recess, the court:

--Agreed to decide if former Wall Street Journal reporter R. Foster Winans violated the Securities Exchange Act by giving stockbrokers advance notice of his articles so they could buy and sell stock.

--Let stand a ruling that a New York company violated federal law when it shipped construction equipment to Iran.

--Found that a portion of the federal election law unconstitutionally infringed upon the free speech rights of a Massachusetts anti-abortion group.