Sir, Step Away from the Maypole

I'm currently working on an appeal for a client who was convicted of illegally reentering the country after having been deported. Since I know nothing about immigration law, I rooted around on Westlaw for some sort of primer on the topic. Luckily I found Immigration Law for Criminal Lawyers: An Overview (16-WTR Crim. Just. 18 (2002)), which did a good job of summing things up in about 11 pages. In the process, I came across this amusing piece of history:

What was the first removal in this country?

Thomas Morton of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, for various infractions including free-living, encouraging conviviality and merriment, writing bawdy verse, ridiculing the Puritans, selling firearms to Indians, and erecting a Maypole. In 1627 the Pilgrims cut down the pole, arrested Morton, and exiled him to the Isle of Shoals. He escaped to England but reentered this country in 1630, only to have his property confiscated and be exiled to England. He reentered again, in 1634, and was imprisoned, fined, and exiled to Maine. (This is not atypical of what one sees today in federal court.)

Imagine the effort that it took to cross the Atlantic twice after being kicked out of Massachusetts in the 1630s. That must have been one hell of a maypole.