Today In History, 1952: Congress Bars Gay People From Immigrating

Jim Burroway

June 27th, 2016

Sen. Pat McCarran and Rep. Francis Walker.

Sen. Pat McCarran (D-NV) and Rep. Francis Walter (D-PA)

When Congress passed a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, it did so with an eye toward protecting the country from alleged hordes of communists and fellow travelers invading the country. The McCarran-Walter Act, as it was known, removed the previous quotas which excluded immigrants based on the country of origin, and replaced them with a provision barring those who were deemed unlawful, immoral, diseased, or politically suspect.

The two lawmakers for which the bill was named were well-known anti-Communist crusaders. Rep. Francis E. Walter (D-PA) was a prominent member of the House Un-American-Activities Committee from 1951 until his death in 1963, service as committee chair for the last nine of those years. He was also a director of the Pioneer Fund, a neo-Nazi organization which sought to promote the encouragement of the propagation of those “descend predominately from white persons who settle the original thirteen states.” It promoted eugenics and “scientific” studies purporting to demonstrate that heredity resulted in significant variations of IQ among the races. Sen. Pat McCarran (D-NV) was little better. His xenophobia was legendary, and his open admiration for Spain’s fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco gave rise to his nickname, “the Senator from Madrid.”

With politicians looking for communists and homosexuals under ever bed and in every closet, few Senators and Representatives dared to vote against the bill, despite a promised veto by President Harry Truman. After Congress defied Truman and passed the bill, Truman kept his word and vetoed it on June 26, calling it “un-American” and an “absurdity.” The very next day, the House overrode his veto in a 278 to 113 vote, and the Senate followed suit on June 27 with a 57 to 26 vote. The bill became law that very day.

For the next four decades, the U.S. government used the McCarran-Walter Act to prevent hundreds of people each year from visiting the U.S solely because of their political beliefs and associations. Political beliefs however weren’t the only litmus test the government applied. One provision prohibited entry to “aliens afflicted with psychopathic personality, epilepsy, or a mental defect.” Since the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental defect, the Immigration and Naturalization Service took that to mean that gays and lesbians were to be barred from entry into the United States. Even after the APA removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders 1973 (Dec 15), the INS continued to bar openly gay people from immigrating. As the years wore on, the ban was enforced haphazardly, but gay immigrants remained subject to deportation at the whim of an immigration judge.

That remained the state of affairs until the 1990 Immigration Act finally removed homosexuality as grounds for exclusion (Nov 29). But three years earlier, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) pushed through a provision to an appropriations bill prohibiting anyone with HIV from entering the country. That ban went beyond prohibiting immigration, and included visits by HIV-positive tourists, health care advocates, business people, or anyone else entering the U.S. for so much as a single day. That ban remained in place until 2010.

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