American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [151]
After more than two weeks of detention and hearings, a board of special inquiry denied Castro the right to land. It called him an unreliable witness whose refusal to answer questions, along with his manner and demeanor, constituted an admission to the crime of killing Paredes and therefore a crime of moral turpitude.
William Williams, who had spent hours personally interviewing Castro, was uneasy about the decision. To exclude Castro, there would either have to be a conviction for the crime or an admission of the crime, and officials had neither in this case. Another hearing was held, this time in Castro’s room, while he was having breakfast. Castro would have none of it. He threw a fit and locked himself in the bathroom. The board then held its hearing in the adjoining room and again voted to deport Castro.
One month after Castro’s arrival, Commerce and Labor Secretary Charles Nagel upheld the decision to deport Castro. Admitting that it was an unusual and difficult case and that Castro would not have been detained had it not been for the request from the State Department, he nevertheless argued that Castro’s refusal to submit to the hearings on Ellis Island was cause enough for exclusion. Since entry to the country was a privilege, it was incumbent that aliens submit to a hearing.
Meanwhile, New York Democrats took on Castro’s case and provided him with legal help, arguing that the death of Paredes was a political act and therefore did not qualify as grounds for exclusion. With this support, Castro was freed on bail after a month in detention. Two weeks later, a federal judge allowed Castro to remain in the country as long as he wished. The judge ruled that the government needed more proof of his crime than just his lack of cooperation and evasiveness.
In the spring, Castro left for Havana and would later settle on the island of Trinidad, hoping that revolutionaries would prevail against Gomez and return him to power. The revolution never materialized and Castro continued to live in exile.
Castro returned to America in 1916 and the State Department again demanded his exclusion. This time, Byron Uhl noted a different Castro. Unlike the proud and difficult man he had seen three years earlier, Uhl found that Castro’s “spirit seemed broken.” All hope for returning to power had vanished. Castro, traveling with his wife, now only wanted to land in America temporarily while waiting for a boat that would take him to Puerto Rico. He answered the questions of the board of special inquiry and denied that he had anything to do with the killing of Paredes. The board was still not happy with his answers and ordered his exclusion on the grounds of moral turpitude. His wife was excluded on the grounds that she was likely to become a public charge.
This time, however, officials in Washington sustained Castro’s appeal and ordered him released. After spending two days at Ellis Island where they were given a suite of rooms with a private bathroom and complete freedom of access to the entire island, the Castros were released and made their way to Puerto Rico, where the former dictator lived out the rest of his days. He never returned to his native Venezuela and died broke and alone in San Juan from a stomach hemorrhage in 1924. The Times remembered him not too fondly as “one of the most remarkable adventurers who ever strutted on the stage of Latin America.” The term “moral turpitude,” the Times editorialized, “fitted him beyond a doubt, for he had never had any principles.”
THE NUMBER OF MILITARY dictators attempting to enter the United States was fairly small, but immigrants who violated middle-class sexual mores were more abundant. In 1911, Daniel Keefe, commissioner-general of immigration, argued that adultery was a crime of moral turpitude and therefore an excludable offense. “That offenses that are contrary to chastity and decency, or so far contrary to the moral law, as interpreted by the general moral sense of the community,” argued Keefe,