Throw Out the Law

The worst part of the case against the suspected members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is the law under which the government seeks to deport them.

If the government has its way, these people--seven Palestinians and a Kenyan woman--will be thrown out of the United States, but not for any terrorist activity that they did or planned to do. The government wants them deported because they are members of an organization that distributes literature “advocating world communism” --one of the grounds for deportation under the McCarran-Walter Act.

That embarrassingly misguided law was enacted, over President Harry S. Truman’s veto, in 1952 at the height of anti-communist hysteria. Time and again it has been used to exclude people from this country on the most questionable grounds. The law allows the government to deport, or deny entry to, people for their beliefs--which is clearly in conflict with the basic tenets of the American system.

In the past, writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Graham Greene, Iris Murdoch and Alberto Moravia and actors Yves Montand and Simone Signoret have been denied admission to the United States under the McCarran-Walter Act. Now the government wants to deport this group of Arabs for distributing literature. Does anyone really think that this activity is a threat to the country--or even to public health and safety?

Even more troubling is the fact that there are still laws on the books that make this sort of thing a crime--a vestigial remnant of the McCarthy era. This hasn’t been an issue in decades. “Advocating world communism” is a charge left over from the 1950s. It sounds out of place in the 1980s. Surely the nation knows better than that.

Whenever the U.S. government invokes the McCarran-Walter Act it is a reminder that this disgraceful law needs to be repealed. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has submitted a bill that would remove the law’s thought-police aspects. It would then apply solely to actual terrorists, and the government would be allowed to exclude only people who are intent on committing dangerous acts.

The government’s case against the accused Arabs will come up again in April. If there is a case that they are doing something dangerous, the government should make it. Distributing literature is not sufficient reason. If that’s all they did, there is no case.

Frank’s bill should be enacted as soon as possible. The McCarran-Walter Act has already been the law too long.