Biography
Bill Heikkila was a Finnish-born radical in San Francisco targeted for deportation during the McCarthy era. His case was among those featured in the National Guardian's 1952 reporting on the drive to deport foreign-born radicals and trade unionists.
William Heikkila was a San Francisco draftsman brought to the United States from Finland as a two-year-old infant, ordered deported under the McCarran-Walter Act over alleged past Communist association and called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956. His case (Heikkila v. Barber) tested the deportation of a lifelong U.S. resident to a country he had never known.