Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/269/304.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 19:14:37+00:00

Document:
U. S. v. NEW YORK & CUBA MAIL S. S. CO.
The Attorney General and Mr. Assistant Attorney General Letts, for the United States. [269 U.S. 304, 305] Messrs. Mark W. Maclay, and John Tilney Carpenter, both of New York City, for respondent.
[269 U.S. 304, 310] This decision is in conflict with the earlier decisions in Franco v. Shipping Corporation (D. C.) 272 F. 542, and Castner v. Hamilton (D. C.) 275 F. 203, in which the Act was applied to aliens brought in as seamen on American vessels.
The question of construction presented is whether the term 'alien seamen,' as used in the Act, means seamen who are aliens, as the Government contends, or seamen on foreign vessels, as the Steamship Company contends: that is, whether in applying the Act the test is the citizenship of the seaman or the nationality of the vessel.
We think the term 'alien seamen' is not to be construed as meaning seamen on foreign vessels. The general principle that an alien while a seaman on an American vessel is regarded as being an American seaman in such sense that he is under the protection and subject to the laws of the United States, In re Ross, 140 U.S. 453, 479 , 11 S. Ct. 897, has no application to the question whether aliens employed on American vessels are included within the terms of a special statute dealing solely and specifically with 'alien seamen,' as such. And if the rule attributing to a seaman the nationality of the vessel should be applied to this Act so as to give to the term 'alien seamen' the meaning of 'seamen on foreign vessels,' it would result, under the terms of its last clause, that an American seaman employed on a foreign vessel who was afflicted with an incurable disease, on being brought into an American port could not be admitted into the United States, but would have to be returned; an anomalous result which, obviously, Congress did not intend.
It is clear that the term 'alien seamen' as used in the Act means 'seamen who are aliens.' It describes, aptly and exactly, seamen of alien nationality, dealing with them, as individuals, with reference to their personal citizenship; and it has no other significance either in common usage or in law. The Act does not qualify this term by [269 U.S. 304, 311] any reference to the nationality of the vessels. Nor does it use the words 'seamen on foreign vessels' or any equivalent phrase which would have been appropriate had it been intended to describe the seamen on such vessels.
This conclusion is emphasized when the Act is considered in the light of the Alien Immigration Act of 1917, and the legislative history showing the condition it was evidently the intention to correct. United States v. Morrow, 266 U.S. 531, 535 , 45 S. Ct. 173. The Act of 1917, inter alia, dealt specifically with 'alien seamen,' using that term, as shown by its general definitions and various provisions, as meaning 'aliens employed on any vessel arriving in the United States from a foreign port.' It provided that, if not within any of the classes excluded by reason of disease or otherwise, they might be admitted into the United States as other aliens, but, if not so admitted, prohibited them from landing, except for certain temporary purposes, under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Labor; and it required the owner or master of 'any vessel' coming from a foreign port to furnish a list of all its alien seamen and not to pay off or discharge them unless duly admitted or permitted to land. (Sections 1, 2, 32-34, 36.) And by section 35-which was specifically referred to in the Act of 1920-it was provided that if 'any vessel' carrying passengers, on arrival from a foreign port, had on board employed thereon, any alien afflicted with any enumerated disability or disease which had existed when he shipped on the vessel and might then have been detected by competent medical examination, the owner or master of the vessel should pay a fine, and, pending its departure, the alien should be treated in hospital at the expense of the vessel.
In the light of this history, as well as from the face of the Act itself, it is clear that the words 'alien seamen' were used in the same sense as in the Act of 1917, with [269 U.S. 304, 313] which it is in pari materia, that is, as meaning aliens employed as seamen on any vessel arriving in the United States; and that it was intended to extend the provisions of section 35 of that Act by providing that the hospital expenses incurred in treating and such diseased alien should be borne in all cases by the vessel bringing him in, whether carrying passengers or freight, and without reference to the time when the disease might have been detected. And it has been so construed and applied by the Department of Labor.
The Steamship Company, while conceding that the Act as thus construed is constitutional as applied to foreign vessels, contends that as applied to American vessels it is repugnant to the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment in that 'it imposes liability without causation or causal connection.' This contention is without merit. The power of Congress to forbid aliens and classes of aliens from coming within the borders of the United States is unquestionable. The Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U.S. 581, 606 , 9 S. Ct. 623; Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228, 237 , 16 S. Ct. 977; Turner v. Williams, 194 U.S. 279, 289 , 24 S. Ct. 719; Oceanic Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U.S. 320, 336 , 29 S. Ct. 671. Congress may exercise this power by legislation aimed at the vessels bringing in excluded aliens, as by penalizing a vessel bringing in alien immigrants afflicted with diseases which might have been detected at the time of foreign embarkation, Oceanic Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, supra, 332 (29 S. Ct. 671) or by requiring a vessel bringing in aliens found to be within an excluded class, to bear the expense of maintaining them while on land and of returning them, United States v. Nord Deutscher Lioyd, 223 U.S. 512, 517 , 32 S. Ct. 244. There is no suggestion in any of these cases that this power is limited to foreign vessels. It may be exercised in reference to alien seamen as well as other aliens. And if they are found to be diseased when brought into an American port, the vessel, whether American or for- [269 U.S. 304, 314] eign, may lawfully be required to bear the expenses of their medical treatment.
[ Footnote 1 ] Act Feb. 5, 1917, c. 29, 39 Stat. 874 (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, 959, 960, 4289 1/4 a-4289 1/4 u).
[ Footnote 2 ] Ho. Rep. No. 173, 66th Cong., 1st Sess.
[ Footnote 3 ] 60 Cong. Rec., 66th Cong., 3d Sess., pt. 1, pp. 600, 601.

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