Leon Wildes, Immigration Lawyer Who Defended John Lennon, Dies at 90
Leon Wildes, a New York immigration lawyer who successfully fought the U.S. government’s attempt to deport the Beatle’s John Lennon, who dies at 90 last week.
“For more than three years, from early 1972 to the fall of 1975, Mr. Wildes . . . doggedly battled the targeting by the Nixon administration and immigration officials of Mr. Lennon, the former Beatle, and his wife, Yoko Ono, marshaling a series of legal arguments that exposed both political chicanery and a hidden U.S. immigration policy.
Uncovering secret records through the Freedom of Information Act, he showed that immigration officials, in practice, can exercise wide discretion in whom they choose to deport, a revelation that continues to resonate in immigration law. And he revealed that Mr. Lennon, an antiwar activist and a vocal critic of President Richard M. Nixon, had been singled out by the White House for political reasons.”
KJ