Educational Media Reviews Online

Voices in Exile illustrates the varying degrees of effort that the Reagan and Bush Administrations went to in order to deport any alien who, in their respective views, posed a threat to national security. The program narrated by Casey Kasem, follows the arrest, internment and legal battles of seven Palestinians and one Kenyan. The program traces events leading to the January 1987 FBI, INS and Los Angeles Police raid, that resulted in the arrest of the "LA Eight." The INS made the arrests under provisions of the 1950 McCarren-Walter Act that prescribed incarceration with the intention of deportation for any alien persons suspected of participating in speech that was critical or threatening to the United States. The specific reason that the INS is cited for the arrest of the LA Eight, was their alleged active participation in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The program describes their ordeal through interviews with the defendants, attorneys and INS officials. The primary defense that the defendants use was the fact that they had the same rights as United States citizens to voice their opinions on issues of a political nature, even if that speech was contradictory to US policy. The program makes reference to an INS internal document called "Alien Terrorists and Undesirables: A Contingency Plan," that the INS allegedly used as a guide to pursue and prosecute "undesirables" from select middle eastern countries. The plan offered the INS strategies, that defense attorneys believed were used to substitute visa violation charges for McCarren-Walter charges that were proving very difficult to prosecute.

While the program is slanted to the benefit of the LA Eight, it does offer valuable insight on how political agendas of the 1980s were exercised with the willing participation of government agencies. It further illustrates that the government focused on selective prosecution of people based on their national origin. An unofficial policy emerged implying that when convenient, legal immigrants may not always have the same constitutional rights as US citizens. This program is recommended for University course work in Immigration and American history.