Immigration and The US vs. John Lennon
05/10/2007
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I recently watched the documentary film The US vs. John Lennon. A lot of the film focuses on the famous immigration case in which the Nixon administration tried unsuccessfully to deport Lennon.

Now, the major impulse in that direction came from Strom Thurmond-who had a barely average record in the area of immigration despite hailing from a region with a lot of support for immigration restriction.

Now, I will admit a soft spot for Lennon's music. I own all his and most of Yoko's albums. After his death, I volunteered in the construction of the Peace Museum Yoko supported in Chicago. The bigger issue here is consistency of immigration policy. Selective deportation of political enemies is the type of thing that makes immigration restriction look bad—and frankly, Strom Thurmond did nothing to deserve that kind of favor from those supporting immigration restriction.

If we have a reasonable immigration policy—even one that places a reasonable value on citizenship, we will get immigrants with a range of political ideas. Frankly, I think Thurmond did far more to endanger the US with his support of H-1b expansion than anything Lennon did.

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