Forty-four years ago John Lennon got his Green Card, granting him permanent residency status. The US Court of Appeals overturned previous US government efforts to deport the artist. The court ruled that Lennon’s 1968 arrest for possession of marijuana was “contrary to US ideas of due process and was invalid to banish the former Beatle from America.”
Lennon protested the Vietnam War.
Because of his protests, the FBI and the Immigration & Neutralization Service (INS) had him under constant surveillance since his US arrival in 1971.
The US government used marijuana conviction as a basis for deportation.
In February 1972, Senator Strom Thurmond issued a classified memo that stated termination of Lennon’s visa would be a strategic countermeasure to offset what they believed his threat to the 1972 Republican National Convention.
Lennon fought back against deportation. The case hit Lennon hard. There was tremendous support in the public and artistic community to fight his deportation. In September 1975, INS granted Lennon temporary non-priority deportation status because of Yoko Ono being pregnant.
Joan Baez’s handwritten note informed the INS that “keeping people confined to certain areas of the world” was “one of the reasons we’ve had six thousand years of war instead of six thousand years of peace.”
Occasionally I get into a little spot of trouble, but nothing that’s going to bring the country to pieces. I think there’s certainly room for an odd Lennon, or two, here.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono welcomed their son, Sean, two days after they awarded him his “Green Card” granting him permanent residency status.
It was also Lennon’s 35th birthday. Lennon told reporters at the time that,
“I feel higher than the Empire State building.”
In the court documents, it said that “Lennon’s four-year battle to remain in our country is a testimony to his faith in his American dream.”
He dedicated his comeback album Double Fantasy released as his ‘comeback’ album in 1980 to “people known and unknown who helped us stay in this country.”
He would never set on British soil again came back to haunt fans. There was a planned world tour for the spring of 1981, where he would have returned to his native England.
On December 8th, 1980, a fan fatally shot Lennon outside his New York City home.
He never became a US citizen. He would have been eligible to apply for US citizenship in 1981.
Image Credit – AP
