Reading Eagle (October 1, 1940)
Washington, Oct. 1 (UP) –
The United States has been unable to rid itself of approximately 2,000 aliens whose deportation has been ordered, it was revealed today, because their countries of origin won’t take them back.
Deportations have ceased to virtually all European countries, it was learned. Federal law provides that no alien may be deported unless the country from which he came agrees to his return, and does not permit deportation to an alternate country.
Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, concerned over the problem, has asked Maj. Lemuel H. Schofield, head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, to submit proposals for its solution.
The growing army of “men without a country” was regarded as a handicap to administration efforts to tighten enforcement of immigration and alien-control laws.
One of the penalties for failure to comply with the alien registration law, for instance, is deportation. Jackson has admitted that the government may be forced to confine its punishment to penal sections of the law.
One informed source estimated that approximately 20% of the aliens awaiting deportation are criminals. This group constitutes an especially difficult problem because they cannot be detained more than three months after completing their prison sentences. They must then be either deported or released.