Case ID: f_202/html/0914-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BILLINGS, U. S. Com’r of Immigration, v. HAM.
    (Circuit Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
    February 13, 1913.)
    No. 932.
    Aliens (§ 31)- — Chinese Laborers — Deportation—Immigration Act.
    Chinese laborers are not exempted from the general provisions of Immigration Act Feb. 20, 1907, c. 1134, 34 Stat. 898 (U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1911, p. 499), providing for the deportation of aliens unlawfully entering the United States by the Chinese Exclusion Acts, and hence Chinese laborers unlawfully in the country and held for deportation under warrant issued by tlie department of commerce and labor under the Immigration Act were not entitled to discharge and trial under the Exclusion Acts.
    [Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Aliens, Cent. Dig. § 92; Dec. Dig. § 31.
    
    What Chinese persons are excluded from the United States, see note to Wong You v. United States, 104 C. C. A. 538.]
    Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts; Francis C. 'Lowell, Judge.
    Petition for writ of habeas corpus by Guy A. Ham to obtain the release from custody of certain Chinese aliens named Wah Gan, Moy Dep, Woy Sang, and Chin Quon, held by-George B. Billings, United States Commissioner of Immigration, under a deportation warrant. From a decree granting the writ, the commissioner appeals.
    Reversed, with directions.
    William H. Garland, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Boston, Mass., for appellant.
    Guy A. Ham, of Boston, Mass., pro se.
    Before DODGE, Circuit Judge, and ALDRICH and BROWN, District'Judges.
    
      
      For other cases see same topic & § number in Dec. & Am. Digs. 1907 to date, & Rep’r Indexes
    
   PER CURIAM.

The four alien Chinese, on whose behalf the ap-pellee’s'petition for habeas corpus was brought, were held in custody by the immigration commissioner at Boston. On habeas corpus the Circuit Court discharged them, because the commissioner’s only authority for holding them was a warrant issued by the Department of Commerce and Labor, under Immigration Act Feb. 20, 1907, c. 1134, 34 Stat. 898 (U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1911, p. 499). The court regarded that act inapplicable to their case, and held them entitled to trial under the Chinese Exclusion Acts. Since the commissioner’s appeal now before us was taken, the question involved has been settled in his favor by the Supreme Court. U. S. v. Wong You, 223 U. S. 67, 32 Sup. Ct. 195, 56 L. Ed. 354. The Immigration Act of 1907 is there held applicable to Chinese aliens illegally coming to this country, notwithstanding the special acts relating to the exclusion of Chinese. The discharge was therefore erroneous.

The judgment of the Circuit Court is reversed, and the case remanded to the District Court, with directions to vacate the orders entered October 3, 1910, discharging Wah Gan, Moy Dep, Woy Sang, and Chin Quon, and to remand them to the custody of the commissioner