Video: 'How John Lennon Changed Immigration Policy | msnbc' (primary archival film used in this video was actually shot Friday, Aug. 30, 1974, not "August 1975" as indicated)
(Tuesday, October 7, 1975) — Former Beatle John Lennon won a major legal victory today when a federal appeals court ruled that a 1968 marijuana conviction in Britain cannot be used to deport him from the United States.
In a 2-1 decision, Chief Judge Irving R. Kaufman of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the conviction was not sufficient grounds to exclude Lennon from the country. Kaufman also warned that the courts “will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds.”
Government documents disclosed during the case showed the Nixon administration initiated deportation proceedings in 1972 amid fears Lennon would mobilize opposition to the president. A confidential 1972 letter from Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., urged then-Attorney General John Mitchell to consider deportation as a “strategy countermeasure” against Lennon’s political influence.
Lennon, who turns 35 in two days, called the ruling “a great birthday gift from America for me, Yoko and the baby.” His wife, Yoko Ono, is expecting their first child next month (Sean Ono Lennon would be born on his father’s 35th birthday on Oct. 9, 1975).
The appeals court majority, joined by Judge Murray I. Gurfein, ruled that Lennon’s conviction under British law did not establish “guilty knowledge” of marijuana possession and therefore did not make him an excludable alien. Judge William H. Mulligan dissented.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service had said last month it was suspending deportation efforts on humanitarian grounds due to Ono’s pregnancy, but the case technically remained open until today’s decision.
In his 24-page opinion, Kaufman acknowledged Lennon’s claim that deportation proceedings were politically motivated. “We do not take his claim lightly,” he wrote, warning against government efforts to silence political opposition.
“Lennon’s four-year battle to remain in our country,” Kaufman said, “is testimony to his faith in this American dream.”
