America hasn’t always lived the values celebrated in ‘Bridge of Spies’
Tom Hanks’ latest movie Bridge of Spies is good entertainment. I saw it yesterday. The film also has an interesting immigration angle with the immigration removal process used as a tool in the criminal justice system.
Professor Jeffrey Kahn in the Washington Post explains some lessons from the case of Rudolf Abel.
The movie is based on the sensational arrest of Abel, a KGB colonel and the Soviet Union’s top spy in North America. FBI agents pushed their way into his hotel room in Manhattan on June 21, 1957. Because the FBI wanted Abel to turn double-agent against the Soviet Union, publicity about his capture was not desired. The problem was that a public appearance before a judge is required shortly after any arrest and the courtroom is open to the public. To keep things quiet, the FBI turned to Immigration and Naturalization Service officials to pick up Abel on a pretextual violation while federal agents waited to search his vacated room. Instead of pursuing a deportation hearing, able was taken far away; “There was no public appearance before a magistrate. No charge. No lawyer. In the words of Justice William Brennan, dissenting from the Supreme Court opinion that ultimately resolved the case, `As far as the world knew, he had vanished.’”
After Abel’s capture, he was flown 13 hours and 2,000 miles away to McAllen, Texas. For almost seven weeks, the FBI interrogated Abel and sought to turn Abel or break him. It failed and Abel was charged and Jim Donovan, played by Hanks.
Professor Kahn nicely ties the movie and its plot into the modern “war on terror,” with the attendant pressures to forego the protections of persons accused of being enemies of the United States and the American people.
KJ