How John Lennon affects today's immigration fight
WASHINGTON (AP) — Imagine. The argument over President Barack Obama's legal authority to defer deportations begins 42 years ago with a bit of hashish, a dogged lawyer and, yes, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
President Richard Nixon was seeking re-election. "American Pie" was leading the pop charts. And Lennon, convicted in 1968 for possession of "cannabis resin" in London, was in New York facing deportation from a Nixon administration eager to disrupt the famous ex-Beatle's planned concert tour and voter registration drive.
Lennon wanted to delay his removal so Ono could fight for custody of her 9-year-old daughter by a previous husband. Lennon and Ono approached Leon Wildes, a lawyer young enough that he shouldn't have had to ask a colleague, "Tell me, who is John Lennon?" Wildes had grown up in a small town in Pennsylvania coal country, and "I was not into that kind of music," he says.
But he knew his immigration law.
In time, the effort to extend Lennon's stay in the United States would become an integral part of the legal foundation the Obama administration relied on in 2012 to set up a program that has deferred the deportation of more than 580,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.
full: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/immigration-law-has-some-rock-n-roll-roots
FILE - In this April 18, 1972, file photo, John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, leave a U.S. Immigration hearing in New York City. The argument over President Barack Obama’s legal authority to defer deportations begins 42 years ago with a bit of hashish, a dogged lawyer and, yes, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Lennon was facing deportation from a Nixon administration eager to disrupt the ex-Beatle’s planned concert tour and voter registration drive. The case hinged on Lennon’s 1968 conviction for possession of cannabis resin in London. Lennon ultimately succeeded. The case’s legacy is an integral part of the legal foundation Obama relied on in 2012 to set up a program that has deferred the deportation of more than 580,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally as children. (AP Photo)
