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.
