It’s Still a Flimsy Case

The U.S. government has taken yet another step back from the once-confident and aggressive stance that it adopted in trying to deport a group of Los Angeles-area immigrants whom it had linked with radical Palestinian activities.

Government attorneys have announced that when they present their deportation case against seven Jordanians and one Kenyan before an immigration judge this week, charges of subversion against six of the eight immigrants will be dropped. Instead of trying to prove that the six are a danger to the United States, the government will argue that they should be barred from this country because they are members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--a Marxist faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

This is a significant change in posture, because it confirms what many critics of the case have said all along: The government has little or no evidence that the immigrants engaged in any violent or even potentially violent activities. Instead, they stand accused of having violated a very controversial law, the McCarren-Walter Act, which makes it illegal for immigrants to belong to groups that advocate world communism. The act is an unfortunate leftover from the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era.

There is no disputing the fact that the Popular Front is a potentially dangerous group that warrants government surveillance. While quiescent lately, it engaged in terrorist activities in the Middle East in the 1970s. But merely being affiliated with such a group--or sympathizing with its ideas, however radical and distasteful they are--is not in and of itself a crime. It is also no reason to deport someone who is otherwise in the United States legally.

Government attorneys say that they will charge the two remaining defendants in the case with actually participating in PFLP activities. But the one example that they cite is the distributing of Popular Front literature in this country, and someone passing around pamphlets or newspapers is a far cry from someone making bombs in a basement or inciting to riot. Again, if that’s all that the government has to go on, this case is indeed a needless exercise--a travesty based on the overly broad application of a law that should be voted out of the U.S. legal codes.