Hysteria Dies Hard

The House Judiciary Committee recently approved revisions to the odious McCarran-Walter Act that would prevent the government from denying visas to aliens on the basis of their political views. In recent years many respectable foreign citizens have been prevented from coming here simply because the government didn’t want them making speeches critical of U.S. policies.

Unfortunately, the Justice Department refuses to go along with these revisions, and, under threat of a presidential veto, supporters in Congress are now planning to pursue a different strategy. Last year, at the urging of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Congress temporarily suspended the political exclusions while a new law was being worked out. As a result, this year virtually no one has been excluded for his political views.

“Since this Administration won’t cooperate, we’re going to reenact Moynihan’s thing for a couple of years and go back at this political-exclusion business next year,” Frank said Friday by telephone from Washington.

Under the House Judiciary Committee’s measure, an alien could not be barred from this country because he held unpopular or controversial views. He could come here to say anything that is constitutionally protected for U.S. citizens to say. But he could still be denied entry if the secretary of state had reasonable grounds to believe that he was coming here to engage in serious illegal activity--not just spitting on the sidewalk. “If you’re going to come here and do bad things, we’ll keep you out,” Frank said.

This would still give the government a great deal of leeway--probably too much leeway--in excluding people whom it doesn’t like. But the courts would be able to oversee the enforcement of the law and could step in to curb a State Department with ideological motives. The standard for excluding aliens would have to be as high as for obtaining an indictment.

The Judiciary Committee’s bill, as originally proposed by Frank, would have gone a long way toward redressing a law originally enacted at the height of the McCarthy anti-communist hysteria. It had no rational purpose then, and it has no rational purpose now. Only the obstinacy of the Meese Justice Department keeps it alive. In time it will be stricken from the books and remembered only as a footnote to a sad, embarrassing, painful aberration in American history.

Until that time, the temporary Moynihan measure should be extended, and the supporters of a thorough revision of the law should gird their loins and wait for a better day.