Sweet Land, Ahoy!

The auxiliary sloop Linda was short and squat and broad of beam, and neither spic nor span as she cut a bow wave through Miami's gilt-edged Biscayne Bay last week. Nonetheless, she was a proud ship. She had borne 18 Estonians, storm-tossed on the dirty seas of Europe's politics, across an equally turbulent ocean to haven in a free land. There was a not-so-proud moment when the Linda ran aground off Quarantine, and hung there high & dry until the tide refloated her. Soon she was tied up in a nest with two sister craft which had ended the same daring voyage within the previous month.

To Captain Walter Rull, 30, and his passengers (twelve men, five women), immigration authorities made the now-standard announcement: since none of the voyagers had an immigration visa, they could not enter the U.S. They were shepherded to a warehouse on Miami's Municipal Pier 2. Cots and food were donated by well-wishers. There the voyagers made themselves at home with the 29 other Estonians and one Finn who had landed from the Inanda and the Brill. For the time being, they seemed patient.

No Beachhead. There was free legal talent to help them, but there was no assurance they would be allowed to settle in the U.S. They were only a handful of the millions of displaced persons in Europe. They were agreed on two basic points: 1) they had lived under both Russian oppression (1940-41) and German (1941-44), saw little difference between them; 2) they wanted to get into the U.S.

But Estonia's annual quota of 116 immigrants was already filled and there was a long waiting list. Captain Rull and his pilgrims must wait in their warehouse while lawyers appealed to Washington on the grounds of "humanity and public opinion." The law was tightly drawn, designed to be narrowly construed. It would be hard to find a loophole.

When Congress reconvened in January it would be asked to liberalize the law, at least to strike out some of the legal quirks and permit the actual entry each year of the 154,000 eligible immigrants. Meanwhile, the Estonians would get to know their warehouse well.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.