Biography
Frank Borich was a Croatian-born coal miner and Communist labor leader who served as general secretary of the National Miners Union, the militant union that led the 43,000-strong coal strike across Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia in 1931. He immigrated to the United States around 1913 as a teenager. From the early 1930s the federal government repeatedly sought to deport him for his labor activity. On March 31, 1932 immigration officers raided the National Miners Union office in Pittsburgh and held him for deportation to Yugoslavia; he was released on a heavy cash bond. He was detained again in July 1949, held for about a month at Ellis Island in the autumn of 1950, re-arrested soon afterward when the government refused to recognize bail posted through the Civil Rights Congress, and from 1952 into early 1953 confined at Ellis Island for roughly four months while no country would admit him after Yugoslavia declined. He was finally released under indefinite, so-called lifetime supervisory parole that at first required weekly and later monthly reporting to Ellis Island and interfered with his ability to hold steady work. Borich was a named appellant in Nukk, Borich, Siminoff v. Shaughnessy, the Supreme Court challenge to the supervisory-parole provisions of the immigration law. A 1933 profile reported that he had already been arrested more than a score of times for strike and unemployment organizing, including an arrest in Chicago on robbery, weapons and sedition allegations. He was jailed again on October 25, 1933, after a federal appellate court rejected his appeal against deportation. The Pittsburgh International Labor Defense secured a reduction of his bond from $5,000 to $1,000, and he was released late on November 1.
The February 22, 1933 issue reports that the Pittsburgh Civil Liberties Committee, associated with the ACLU, filed a federal-court appeal against the Labor Department’s deportation ruling based on National Miners Union membership. It identifies Allan G. Harper as committee secretary. The report supplies no actual deportation or judicial disposition. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n045-NY-feb-22-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The October 25, 1933 issue reports a Monday October 23 seizure, whereas the November 3 issue says held since Wednesday October 25 and actually freed late Wednesday November 1 on $1,000 bond, reduced from $5,000. The conflicting intake reports prevent an exact complete custody total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n256-oct-25-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The July 20, 1934 Daily Worker’s Washington report recalls that protests had forced the Labor Department to quash a deportation warrant against him. It supplies no exact quashing date, new physical admission or completed departure, and is not treated as a new custody episode. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n173-jul-20-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2 Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n264-nov-03-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The June 16, 1932 Daily Worker names Borich and Kemenovich among labor organizers still threatened with deportation under Secretary of Labor Doak. These named proceedings support the existing immigration-defense record, without establishing a new physical arrest, completed removal or precise custody endpoint. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n143-jun-16-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
In her letter printed May 7, 1934, Edith Berkman cited the Labor Department’s withdrawal of Borich’s deportation warrant as a victory of the defense campaign. This contemporary report places the withdrawal before publication but does not establish an exact decision date or another physical custody episode. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n109-sect-one-may-07-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
Page 1’s Antonoff interview urges protest against Secretary Perkins’s deportation order for Borich, identified as National Miners Union secretary. This is defense activity concerning the existing immigration proceedings, not a completed deportation or a new arrest. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n268-nov-08-1933-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 3 reports the Pittsburgh anti-deportation conference demanding withdrawal of deportation charges against the National Miners Union secretary. This supplies defense context without an actual removal or new arrest. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n189-NY-aug-09-1932-DW-LOC.pdf
Labor Defender, August 1933, PDF page 17: Sender Garlin dates the arrest underlying Borich’s deportation proceeding to March 21, 1932, after the March 17–20 National Miners Union conference in Pittsburgh. He describes four county detectives and three immigration officers taking Borich from a national-board meeting, his transfer to county jail after refusing immigration questioning, rejected property and government-bond offers, and eventual release on $5,000 Liberty-bond bail. The March 21 date conflicts with the March 31 date in the existing record; exact intake remains unresolved rather than silently replacing it. The report also records five immigration hearings aimed at establishing that NMU membership made him deportable. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n08-aug-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=17
Labor Defender, August 1932, printed pages 145 and 149 (PDF pages 6 and 10): Peter Chaunt's Protect the Foreign Born and Robert Dunn's Dies Deportation Drive describe the campaign against labor organizers. Both articles identify him as a mine organizer held or ordered for deportation, without a completed removal or fresh arrest date. Their accounts of the proposed Dies bill and its supporters are contemporary advocacy; proposed legislation and feared foreign penalties are not individual sentences served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n08-aug-1932-LD.pdf
Printed page 168 names this labor leader among those facing deportation in the Doak campaign, alongside Mills and other organizers. It calls the proposed removals impending and urges defense. This corroborates existing immigration proceedings, without asserting actual deportation, a new arrest or a criminal conviction. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n09-sep-1932-LD.pdf
PDF page 4 reports National Miners Union secretary Borich freed from deportation charges after a two-year defense campaign. This is a legal-defense duration, not two uninterrupted years in jail or proof of foreign removal. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n01-jan-1935-orig-LD.pdf
The July 1933 Labor Defender district report individually names Frank Borich among thirteen National Miners Union organizers held for deportation in the Pittsburgh-area campaign. This adds a contemporary detention report in the existing immigration proceedings; it does not establish a new arrest day, executed deportation, physical discharge or completed custody total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n07-jul-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=23
A renewed Chicago arrest after an earlier bail release
A Chicago dispatch dated October 24 in the October 25, 1929 Daily Worker individually names Frank Borich among the organizers rearrested that day. It distinguishes earlier release on $3,000 bonds from the renewed arrest and increased $15,000 bonds. The main list contains eight names, while a neighboring International Labor Defense report describes six rearrested workers held under $90,000 bail. That count variation is preserved; the source is not used to allocate a numerical custody total. This documents a later arrest in the same Chicago prosecution, not uninterrupted imprisonment since an earlier arrest or a physical admission day. The later bail release and final disposition remain unknown. This is separate from the later immigration cases already recorded; his existing biography independently describes an earlier Chicago robbery, weapons and sedition arrest.
Daily Worker, October 25, 1929, original pages 1. Contemporary legal allegations and personal reports remain attributed to the newspaper.
The review reports the bond-release campaign in his Yugoslavia deportation case and says he was completely released in January 1934. This supplies a later disposition beyond the November 1933 bail stage, without establishing a new January physical release or a new detention; no exact date is derived.
Daily Worker, November 8, 1933; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, August 9, 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
His wife Mary, accompanied by their year-old twin daughters, joined the September 7 Washington delegation protesting deportation policy. The family testimony describes threatened separation; it does not report detention of Mary or the children or establish a new individual custody endpoint for Frank.
Labor Defender, August 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Labor Defender, September 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Page 3 announces a Borough Park mass meeting protesting his threatened deportation and a report from the foreign-born defense delegation. This is opposition to immigration proceedings, not proof that removal to Yugoslavia actually occurred.
Labor Defender, January 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
