Labor Department opens first deportation hearing against Harry Bridges

The U.S. Labor Department initiated deportation proceedings against Harry Bridges, the Australian-born president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, on July 12, 1938, alleging Communist Party affiliation. Dean James Landis of Harvard Law School presided over the hearing and ultimately found insufficient evidence, but Congress passed the Bridges Deportation Bill in 1940 to target him by name before FDR vetoed it. The Justice Department inherited the case after immigration enforcement was transferred from Labor in 1940, escalating a political persecution that would last nearly two decades. Bridges became a landmark test of whether the executive branch could use immigration law to silence prominent labor organizers.