Yeah, Teribus, I learned that recently, when I set out to re-learn the song as newly relevant in post-Katrinas New Orleans. (I had performed it years ago, but forgotten the complete lyrics over the intervening years.) I read the name of the fellow who put the words to the melody we now know, but can't remember him right now.

"Deportees" is notable not only because Woody wrote it as a poem (or a disembodied lyric), but also because it can be regarded as his final composition. Or, at least, some people contend that it is.

He wrote it in the late '40s, not long after the actual event in Los Gatos Canyon, and perhaps the reason for his never having put it to music is that his neurological condition was already starting to deteriorate. Maybe, maybe not, but sources that I recently read on the Internet (not absolutely trustworthy, of course, I know) contend that he never wrote another such poem or lyric, and certainly no words-and-music song, after "Deportees."