Illegal Alien? The Immigration Case of Mohawk Ironworker Paul K. Diabo

IN MARCH of 1927 Paul K. Diabo, a thirty-six-year-old Mohawk ironworker from Kahnawake (Mohawk Nation Territory), Quebec, appeared before Judge Oliver B. Dickinson in federal court in Philadelphia to contest his deportation to Canada. According to the Department of Immigration, which had arrested him a year earlier, Diabo had violated the Immigration Act of 1924 and should be considered an illegal alien. As a member of the Rotinonhsionni (Iroquois) Confederacy, Diabo contended that he had a right to cross the international border without interference and restriction-a right, he argued, that had been recognized by the Jay Treaty of 1794. Diabo's trial and subsequent appeal by the Immigration Department in 1928 became an important test of Rotinonhsionni sovereignty and treaty rights. As such, it drew the attention and mobilized the support of Rotinonhsionni people in Canada and the United States and contributed in significant ways to political and cultural revitalization within the Confederacy and his home community of Kahnawake.1 Paul Kanento Diabo was born in 1891 in Kahnawake to James Katsitsiio Diabo and Theresa Kwarasenni Montour.2 Kahnawake is located on the St. Lawrence River nine miles (15 km) south of Montreal; in 1890 its population totaled 1,722 (fig. 1). Theresa Montour was James Diabo's second wife, and Paul was the fourth of their five children, who included one sister (Mary) and three brothers (Joseph, Peter, and Michael). Paul also had a half-brother (Dominic) by his father's first marriage.3 In 1912 Paul Diabo married Louise Kawennes Nolan, also of Kahnawake, and in that year they traveled together to the United States, where Diabo worked in the high-steel construction trade. According to legal documents filed in Diabo's later court case, this was his first trip into the United States; however, documents he filed with the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1945 indicate that his first visit to American soil was in the summer of 1902.4 After 1912, Paul, sometimes with his wife, made frequent trips between Kahnawake and the United States, usually without going through the proper immigration procedures. The only official record of his border-crossing activity during this period is in early January of 1919, when he appeared at the Montreal immigration station and was denied entry into the United States.5 He appealed the decision, but his disbarment was upheld. Despite this, Diabo continued his movements back and forth across the border. His final crossing before his arrest was in 1924, with his wife, Louise. In 1926 the two were living in Philadelphia, where Paul worked on the Delaware River (Benjamin Franklin) Bridge, which now connects Philadelphia to Camden, New Jersey.6 The actual date of Paul Diabo's arrest on immigration charges is unclear. According to information that he filed with the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1945, the arrest took place in 1924; however, according to a bill of injunction related to his arrest filed in U.S. District Court in Trenton, New Jersey, in June of 1926, the arrest occurred in March of that year.7 Documents filed by the Immigration Service in its appeal in the Diabo case in 1927 state that the original arrest warrant was issued in late February 1925.8 And Clinton Rickard, in his autobiography, recollected that Diabo's arrest was in 1925, but that court proceedings did not begin until February of 1926.9 What is clear is that court proceedings related to the arrest began in March of 1926. If, indeed, the arrest had taken place in 1925 or 1924, there would have been an unusual and inexplicable delay of one or two years in the court actions related to the arrest. What is also clear, but not noted in any of the published sources that discuss the Diabo case, is that the initial arrest on immigration violations included both Paul and his wife, Louise. Specifically, they were charged with entering the United States without passports, with failing to comply with U. …

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