Video: 'John Lennon Interview Immigration and Naturalization Services, New York March 16, 1972 part 2'

(Thursday, March 16, 1972, today’s hearing was scheduled to start at 8:45 a.m. EST) — A deportation hearing for former Beatle John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, was postponed today until Apr. 18, 1972, to give them time to apply for permanent residence.

Officials said Lennon’s 1968 conviction in England of possessing marijuana impeded the extension of their visitors’ visas, which expired Feb. 29, 1972. Lennon’s lawyer said he hoped to have the conviction expunged from the record.

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After appearing at Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) offices at 20 West Broadway, the couple told newsmen they want to stay in the United States because New York is “the center of the earth,” and because they hope to gain custody of her 8-year-old daughter, Kyoko.

Yoko said they obtained temporary custody of the child in Texas, but that her former husband, Anthony Cox, had “run off with her.”

Under the court ruling, the Lennons were required to raise the child in the United States “If we are deported,” she said, “it is synonymous to our losing our child. That is why we are so desperate about it.”

Image: John Lennon in New York (March 16, 1972)