The Supreme Court v. My Mother

"My mother, Regina Treitler, had in fact violated the War Brides Act, but she justified her actions as the only way she could reunite her family after the Holocaust. My parents had fled Germany in 1938, right before Kristallnacht. They had saved themselves, but my mother had been tormented by the fact that her two brothers and her sister-in-law had not escape. They were trapped in Europe for the duration of the Holocaust, their fates unknown."

"Immigration quotas the US government set, which at the time affected displaced European Jews, prevented my mother's surviving family from immigrating easily-but the War Brides Act was a loophole: Foreigners who met and married American service members abroad were given swift and seamless entry and citizenship. So all they needed to do was get married. My mother, the savvy and indignant woman that she was, recruited two female veterans-a WAVE (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service)"

In 1952, Regina Treitler, her brother, and her nephew faced the US Supreme Court after convictions for violating the 1945 War Brides Act. The War Brides Act had allowed foreign spouses and children of US service members to immigrate outside quota restrictions; more than 100,000 entered before the act expired in 1948. Regina violated the law to reunite family members displaced by the Holocaust after fleeing Germany in 1938. US immigration quotas blocked surviving relatives, so Regina arranged marriages with American servicewomen and a veteran nephew to bring relatives to the United States. Convictions threatened fines and prison if upheld.

Read at The Nation