BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

274 BARBAROUS MEXICO
The scheme to deport political refugees through the
Immigration Department was more successful. The
immigration laws provide that, if it be discovered that
an immigrant is a criminal or an anarchist, or if he has
entered this country in an illegal manner, provided that
such discovery is made within three years of his arrival
here, the immigration officials may deport him. The
question of the "undesirability" of the immigrant is not
a subject for review by the courts, the immigrant may
not appeal, and within two or three restrictions the immigration
agent's word is law. It will be readily seen,
therefore, that if the said official be not an honest man,
if he be willing to accept a bribe or even yield to influence
or blandishments, he may, with impunity, send many
pure and upright men to an untimely death.
And exactly this thing has been done. Antonio I.
Villarreal, secretary of the Liberal Party, was among
those placed in danger of deportation "under the immigration
laws." After various means had been used unsuccessfully
to secure his extradition, he was turned over
to the immigration officials at El Paso and was actually
on his way to the line when he made a break for liberty
and escaped.
Of a large number of Mexican Liberals arrested in
Arizona in the fall of 1906, Lazaro Puente, Abraham
Salcido, Gabriel Rubio, Bruno Trevino, Carlos Humbert,
Leonardo Villarreal and several others were deported in
one party by the immigration officials at Douglas. There
is no legal excuse for deporting an immigrant because he
is a political refugee. On the other hand, according to
"American principles," so-called, he is entitled to especially
solicitous care for this reason. And yet all of these
men were deported because they were political refugees.