U.S. Blacklist Outlives the Cold War

A legacy of the McCarthy era--a secret government list of 320,000 foreigners barred from this country because of their political beliefs--is making a tenacious fight to survive in the dawning of the New World Order.

Derided by critics as the “Alien Blacklist,” it was created during the feverish anti-communist crusades of the 1950s to identify and exclude foreigners whose beliefs were deemed unacceptable by the government.

In what has been hailed as a significant step toward dismantling this vestige of the McCarthy era, Congress ordered the State Department last month to purge the names of thousands of foreigners from its list, which has been used in the past to bar entry to such notables as Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez and former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

But despite the ensuing flurry of pronouncements hailing the end of the Cold War, the list is far from dead.

Instead of the blacklist being dismantled, critics say, its focus has only been shifted away from the disappearing communist threat to new ideological demons of the modern age.

In one omission, Congress failed to order the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to purge its list of excludable foreigners, which closely resembles the State Department’s list.

Despite the removal of communists, anarchists and others, thousands will remain on the list under new, broadly worded categories for “terrorists” and “foreign policy” risks.

“The horrible answer is that while we are fond of noting the end of the Cold War, it still exists,” said Arthur C. Helton, director of the refugee project for the New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

Defenders of the list say that legislative efforts have modernized the exclusion laws and pared away much of the vague wording that left it open to abuse.

“It’s a better provision that’s more precise and updates our views on new threats, such as how to deal with terrorism,” said David Simcox, director of the conservative, Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.

Simcox added that while he supported restricting ideological grounds for exclusion, every government has a right to set its own standards to bar foreigners.

“There is no implied or stated right for anyone to enter this country,” he said. “Sure, this list has been used for political purposes, and it will continue to be.”

The ideological exclusion is based on the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, which besides banning the entry of criminals, spies, prostitutes, Nazis, polygamists and the insane, codified the exclusion of political undesirables--specifically anarchists and communists.

The act not only barred those based on their actual membership in anarchist or communist organizations, but also those who had shown some connection with the communist cause through their writings, statements or associations--all activities that any citizen could freely participate in because of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Although a product of the McCarthy era, ideological exclusion laws have found their greatest expression in just the past decade.

From less than 800 names recorded in 1952, the list of ideologically excludable foreigners in the State Department’s Automated Visa Lookout System reached 320,000 at one point last year, with more than 70% of the names having been added since 1980, according to a computer Hanalysis by the Lawyers Committee.

According to the Lawyers Committee analysis, the largest group is from China, followed by those from the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Hungary.

The total AVLOS list contains 2.7 million names, including criminals, prostitutes, former Nazis and others. The list is secret--none of the names have ever been officially released.

The vast majority of people are included because of information on their health, criminal background or political affiliations that they themselves supplied to the government when applying for a visa to the United States. Others also have been added by government officials who have knowledge of an individual’s background.

Over the years, the list has been used to bar a variety of ideological “undesirables,” such as actor Yves Montand, former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and even a Canadian trade unionist named James Hunter, who was stopped from entering the country because he had once played baseball in a communist-sponsored youngsters’ league.

Also caught in its web has been a bewildering collection of undistinguished and ordinary people. For instance, the Lawyers Committee found 316 people who were less than a year old when they were deemed ideologically excludable, presumably because of their parents’ activities.

“I would think there are a lot of people who don’t even know that they are listed,” Helton said.

Prompted by the crumbling of communism and increasing publicity over the exclusion of notable visitors, Congress began to dismantle the McCarran-Walter Act in 1987.

After several temporary revisions, Congress made a comprehensive change in 1990, largely eliminating the ban on foreigners for their beliefs, statements or associations.

It also removed Communist Party membership as a ground for denying entry to foreigner visitors, although it retained the restriction for those intending to immigrate to this country.

Last month, Congress ordered the purge from the State Department’s AVLOS system of all foreigners no longer excludable from this country.

“One of the last vestiges of the McCarthy era is truly being swept away,” said Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), who sponsored the House version of the purge bill.

Critics concede the new law has made great strides toward abandoning the concept of excluding foreigners for their beliefs, and say that far fewer people will find themselves on the list in the future.

But they contend the law also has added new categories that could be used against “undesirables” in much the same way.

“Yes, the Cold War anti-communist era is over, but the war over the perceived external threat is not,” said Jeanne M. Woods, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Helton said an exception in the new law continued to allow the exclusion of foreigners on ideological grounds if their entry would “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”

Helton said the provision is broad enough to allow the exclusion of foreigners including recently deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Chinese pro-democracy leader Chai Ling or African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela.

The 1990 Immigration Act also created a new category of excludable aliens under the heading of “terrorist activities,” which defines a variety of heinous acts including assassination, hostage-taking, hijacking and the use of biological weapons.

It also allows the exclusion of any person who has used “any explosive or firearm . . . with intent to endanger, directly or indirectly, the safety of one or more individuals or to cause substantial damage to property.”

David Cole, staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, said the provision is so broad that it essentially allows the government to exclude any person who had engaged in armed resistance, such as those who fought in Nicaragua, Vietnam, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan or Israel. “It can be applied to virtually every opposition movement in the world,” he said.

The law also allows the exclusion of not just members of “terrorist” groups, but anyone who had contributed to such organizations, through donations, the dissemination of information or other support that citizens would normally be allowed to participate in under the Constitution.

“The broad definition of terrorism today is going to function in much the same way as communism and anarchism did before that,” Cole said. “We’re simply updating the law to a vocabulary that is not patently anachronistic.”

Mitchell C. Tilner, a Los Angeles attorney who has written about the history of ideological exclusion, said efforts to ban foreigners because of their beliefs dates back to the earliest days of the nation’s history.

Catholics were targeted in Colonial times, followed by French revolutionaries, anarchists, communists and now terrorists, he said.

“It’s a thread that has run through all of American history,” Tilner said. “Each era has its own concerns, its own values and its own bogymen.”

Defenders of the exclusion lists say the historical chain of fear over outside ideas has been broken with the new law, which has provided safeguards to ensure that beliefs alone will not bar entry.

INS spokesman Duke Austin said the agency, although not required to purge its list, has begun the task of removing those who are no longer excluded because of changes in the law.

As in the past, those who remain on the lookout lists can petition for waivers, which in the vast majority of cases have been granted.

For the first time, the law also requires the secretary of state to personally report to Congress whenever a visa is denied because of foreign policy considerations.

As a further protection, the law now requires that anyone who is denied a visa on ideological grounds to be told why.

But Cole said the restrictions alone are no guarantee that people’s beliefs will be not used to bar them from this country.

He pointed to the government’s four-year battle to deport Khader Musa Hamide, a Los Angeles airline ticket salesman, and Michel Shehadeh, a Long Beach journalist--both longtime residents of the United States.

Four years ago, Hamide and Shehadeh were arrested by federal agents and ordered deported under the McCarran-Walter Act for allegedly circulating communist materials and participating in a group that advocated the doctrine of “world communism.”

Several months later, the government dropped those allegations and replaced them with new ones--again based on the McCarran-Walter Act--that claimed they had taught or advocated “the unlawful damage, injury, or destruction of property.”

Further allegations were added in 1989 that Hamide and Shehadeh taught or advocated the “duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer . . . of the government of the United States.”

Finally, with the adoption of the new exclusion law in 1990, Hamide and Shehadeh were charged with violating immigration laws by providing “material support” to a terrorist organization.

The charges stem from the government’s claim that Hamide and Shehadeh have distributed pro-Palestinian publications and are members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an organization affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Although Hamide and Shehadeh deny they are members of the PFLP, their attorneys say that even if they were, being a member of a group or distributing magazines is no crime and would be protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution if they were citizens.

Throughout the four years, they have never been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.

“Yes, I support my people, I believe the Israeli occupation should end, I believe the Palestinian people deserve an independent state,” Hamide said. “But we have never engaged in any wrongdoing. Ideas should not scare people.”