Biography
Peggy Wellman was a Detroit activist and the wife of Michigan Smith Act defendant Saul Wellman. Immigration authorities arrested her in November 1952 and held her on $5,000 bail while alleging that her birth during her mother’s brief visit to Canada made her deportable under the McCarran-Walter Act. Federal courts later upheld a deportation order, but the available record does not establish how long she remained in custody after the arrest.
Deportation stay and another hearing reported in 1954
The November 3, 1954 Laisvė, page 1, reports from Detroit that District Judge Freeman blocked an attempt to deport Peggy Wellman to Canada on election day and required that she receive another hearing. The item concerns a deportation stay and hearing rights, not an actual departure from jail. It does not establish her current detention status, when the judge ruled, or an actual discharge day; no custody endpoint is changed.
Laisvė (Liberty), November 3, 1954, page 1. Lithuanian original and complete issue reviewed; no inferred custody endpoints.
