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degrees — bachelors of law — 
in 1920 and began practicing 
law together, specializing more 
and more in immigration. The 
JD (juris doctor) degree was 
neither required nor widely in 
use in 1924, and Ted was just 
finishing his master of laws 
(LL.M) degree that spring.
Though he hadn’t been 
practicing long, Ted Levin had 
already won the friendship 
and mentoring of legal giants, 
including Fred Butzel and 
Charles Simons, who became 
Detroit’s first Jewish federal 
judge when he was named to 
the U.S. District Court for the 
Eastern District of Michigan 
in 1923.
His expertise on immi-
gration matters was already 
being talked about, and so it 
was young Levin who wrote 
a resolution that was placed 
before Detroit’s City Council 
that April:
“Be it Resolved, That the 
Common Council of the City of 
Detroit do(es) record its protest 
against the Johnson Bill and by 
this resolution does request that 
no bill be passed which in effect 
casts a slur upon the patriotism 
and economic and cultural 
desirability of the peoples of 
Eastern and Southern Europe, 
and that such legislation as is 
passed make it easier instead of 
harder for aliens in this coun-
try to have near relatives join 
them in this country for the 
purpose of making a perma-
nent home here.
” 
The council adopted that 
resolution — unanimously. 
But it had little effect. 
The Immigration Act of 
1924 sailed through both 
houses of Congress and 
was signed into law in May. 
Theodore Levin predicted 
the law would be drastically 
modified at the next session of 

Congress. Unfortunately, this 
time he was wrong.
The act was not substan-
tially changed until 1952 or 
repealed entirely until 1965, 
and historians agree it made 
it much harder or impossi-
ble for those threatened by 
the Holocaust to find shelter 
in America, including the 
doomed passengers on the St. 
Louis and a Dutch business-
man named Otto, whose fam-
ily included his little daughter, 
Anne Frank.

IMPORTANT CASES
Meanwhile, Theodore Levin 
and his brother continued to 
build what became the note-
worthy law firm Levin, Levin, 
Garvett and Dill, and to do 
whatever he could for immi-
grants, many of whom he 
helped beat a system stacked 
against them. 
A typical case was Henry 
Gottlieb, who had gone to 
law school in Michigan, but 
couldn’t be admitted to the 
bar unless he was a citizen. 
He applied for citizenship and 
met all the requirements, but 
in what was likely a case of 
antisemitism, the authorities 

agreed his petition was inval-
id because he had filed it on 
Election Day.
Theodore Levin took 
the case to federal court in 
1925 and won. Not only was 
Gottlieb able to become a citi-
zen, that ruling also set a prec-
edent that applied to several 
hundred cases waiting similar 
action. It was clear that the 
young attorney was becoming 
a star.
But his biggest case lay 
ahead. By 1931, the country 
was firmly in the grip of the 
Great Depression, and immi-
grants were even less wel-
come than before, since there 
weren’t even enough jobs for 
native-born Americans. The 
state legislature that spring 
passed a hugely restrictive 
law called the Michigan Alien 
Registration Act.
That act required “all per-
sons of foreign birth” to reg-
ister with the state within 60 
days, even, apparently, 
naturalized citizens.
If they didn’t, they would be 
classified as undesirable aliens 
and might be deported. There 
was clearly only one attorney 
to take on this enormously 

troubling bill: Theodore Levin.
By this time, he was in 
his mid-30s. He’d married a 
woman he met in Chicago, 
Rhoda Katzin, and already 
was father to three of his four 
children, including 5-year-old 
Charles, a future distinguished 
Michigan Supreme Court 
Justice.
But he hadn’t lost his zeal 
for the cause. Levin wrote a 
titanic, 106-page-brief eviscer-
ating the law, which was also 
known as the Cheeney Act. 
What’s even more impressive 
is that on July 1, 1931, he then 
delivered a long oral argument 
in a stuffy courthouse without 
air conditioning on a day so 
hot that factories closed and 
19 people in Detroit died of 
complications from the heat.
Levin began by calling the 
Alien Registration Act “one of 
the most badly drafted pieces 
of legislation I have ever seen,” 
 
adding that “I do not believe 
a single section of it is consti-
tutional.”
The state of Michigan, led 
by then-Attorney General Paul 
Voorheis, fought to defend the 
law, but they totally failed. On 
Dec. 9, 1931, a panel of three 

CREDIT: WIKIPEDIA

The Courthouse that 
bears his name: The 
Theodore Levin U.S. 
Courthouse in Detroit

Legal Guide

continued from page 40

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