Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/214/320/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 03:51:39+00:00

Document:
Money paid to the collector of a port under protest, and on the certainty that, if not paid, clearance to vessels necessarily sailing on definite schedule would be refused, to the great damage of the owner, is paid involuntarily, and can, if unlawfully exacted, be recovered.
Congress has power to deal with the admission of aliens and to confide the enforcement of laws in regard thereto to administrative officers. United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U. S. 253.
of the committee as a guide to its true interpretation in order to dispel ambiguity, if any exists. The Delaware, 161 U. S. 459; Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U. S. 470.
It is within the competency of Congress, when legislating as to matters exclusively within its control, to impose appropriate obligations and sanction their enforcement by reasonable money penalties, giving to executive officers the power to enforce such penalties without the necessity of invoking the judicial power.
The authority, given by Congress in the Alien Immigration Act to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to impose an exaction on a transportation company bringing to the United States an alien immigrant afflicted with a loathsome contagious disease when the medical examination establishes that the disease existed, and could have been detected by medical examination at the time of embarkation, does not purport to define and punish any criminal offense, but merely entails the infliction of a penalty enforceable by civil suit, and it is within the power of Congress to provide for such imposition by an executive officer, and the enforcement is not necessarily governed by the rules controlling the prosecution of criminal offenses. Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 228, distinguished; Hepner v. United States, 213 U. S. 103, followed.
The constitutional right of Congress to enact legislation in regard to a matter wholly within its jurisdiction is the sole measure by which the validity of such legislation is to be determined by the courts, and the courts cannot proceed on the supposition that harm will follow if the legislature be permitted full sway and, in order to correct the legislature, exceed their own authority, and assume that wrong may be done in order to prevent wrong being accomplished. McCray v. United States, 195 U. S. 27.
The imposition of a penalty by an executive officer when authorized by Congress in a matter wholly within its competency, such as alien immigration, is not unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment as taking property without due process of law.
The courts cannot make mere form, and not substance, the test of the constitutional power of Congress to enact a statute in regard to a matter over which Congress has absolute control.
penalties from, the transportation company for violation of the provisions.
The greater includes the less, and where Congress has power to sanction a prohibition by penalties enforceable by executive officers without judicial trial on the ascertainment in a prescribed manner of certain facts, the person upon whom the penalty is imposed is not entitled to any hearing in the sense of raising an issue and tendering evidence as to the facts so ascertained, and is not therefore denied due process because the time which the executive officer allows him after notice of the ascertainment and imposition to produce evidence as to certain facts on which the fine might be remitted is too short.
The facts, which involve the constitutionality of § 9 of the Alien Immigration Act of March 3, 1903, are stated in the opinion.
The steamship company sought the recovery of money paid to the collector of customs of the port of New York which was exacted by that official under an order of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. The findings of the court, the case by stipulation having been tried without a jury, leave no doubt that the money was paid to the collector under protest, and involuntarily. We say this because the findings establish that the company was coerced by the certainty that, if it did not pay, the collector would refuse a clearance to its steamships plying between New York City and foreign ports at periodical and definite sailings, whose failure to depart on time would have caused not only grave public inconvenience from the nonfulfillment of mail contracts, but besides would have entailed upon the company the most serious pecuniary loss consequent on its failure to carry out many other contracts.
to Regulate the Immigration of Aliens into the United States." 32 Stat. c. 1012, p. 1213. Light to guide in an analysis of the contentions concerning the asserted repugnancy of the section to the Constitution will be afforded by giving at once the merest outline of some of the comprehensive provisions of the act of which it forms a part.
inquiry hereinafter provided for, any and all physical and mental defects or diseases observed by said medical officers in any such alien."
United States any alien afflicted with a loathsome or with a dangerous contagious disease; and, if it shall appear to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Treasury [Secretary of Commerce and Labor] that any alien so brought to the United States was afflicted with such a disease at the time of foreign embarkation, and that the existence of such disease might have been detected by means of a competent medical examination at such time, such person or transportation company, or the master, agent, owner, or consignee of any such vessel, shall pay to the collector of customs of the customs district in which the port of arrival is located the sum of one hundred dollars for each and every violation of the provisions of this section, and no vessel shall be granted clearance papers while any such fine imposed upon it remains unpaid, nor shall such fine be remitted."
almost certainly have been-exposed to the disease in the steerage on the way over, may have been affected by it, and landed before it has reached a stage of development sufficiently advanced to be detected by the medical inspector."
"Section 10 of the measure under consideration [which, in the final enactment, became § 9 of the law] therefore imposes a penalty of $100, to be imposed by the Secretary of the Treasury (now Secretary of Commerce and Labor) for each case brought to an American port, provided, in his judgment, the disease might have been detected by means of medical examination at the port of embarkation. This sufficiently guards the transportation lines from an unjust and hasty imposition of the penalty, insures a careful observance of the law, and leaves in their own hands the power to escape even a risk of the fine being imposed, since they can refuse to take on board even the most doubtful case until certified by competent medical authority to be entirely cured."
57th Cong., 1st sess., S.Rept. No. 2119, p. viii.; 57th Cong., 2d sess., S.Doc. No. 62.
legislation, exerted a police power over foreign commerce by provisions which, in and of themselves, amounted to the assertion of the right to exclude merchandise at discretion."
"As a result of the complete power of Congress over foreign commerce, it necessarily follows that no individual has a vested right to trade with foreign nations, which is so broad in character as to limit and restrict the power of Congress to determine what articles of merchandise may be imported into this country, and the terms upon which a right to import may be exercised. This being true, it results that a statute which restrains the introduction of particular goods into the United States from considerations of public policy does not violate the due process clause of the Constitution."
"Repeated decisions of this Court have determined that Congress has the power to exclude aliens from the United States; to prescribe the terms and conditions on which they may come in; to establish regulations for sending out of the country such aliens as have entered in violation of law, and to commit the enforcement of such conditions and regulations to executive officers; that the deportation of an alien who is found to be here in violation of law is not a deprivation of liberty without due process of law, and that the provisions of the Constitution securing the right of trial by jury have no application."
The whole subject was again reviewed in United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U. S. 253, where, in upholding the validity of the Chinese Exclusion Act, it was observed that the power of Congress to deal with the admission of aliens and to confide the enforcement of such laws to administrative officers was, in view of the previous cases, no longer open to discussion.
upon to remove the case from the control of these general principles.
"We regard it as settled by our previous decisions that the United States can, as a matter of public policy, by congressional enactment, forbid aliens or classes of aliens from coming within their borders, and expel aliens or classes of aliens from their territory, and can, in order to make effectual such decree of exclusion or expulsion, devolve the power and duty of identifying and arresting the persons included in such decree, and causing their deportation, upon executive or subordinate officials."
"But when Congress sees fit to further promote such a policy by subjecting the persons of such aliens to infamous punishment at hard labor, or by confiscating their property, we think such legislation, to be valid, must provide for a judicial trial to establish the guilt of the accused. No limits can be put by the courts upon the power of Congress to protect, by summary methods, the country from the advent of aliens whose race or habits render them undesirable as citizens, or to expel such if they have already found their way into our land and unlawfully remain therein. But to declare unlawful residence within the country to be an infamous crime, punishable by deprivation of liberty and property, would be to pass out of the sphere of Constitutional legislation unless provision were made that the fact of guilt should first be established by a judicial trial.
It is not consistent with the theory of our government that the legislature should, after having defined an offense as an infamous crime, find the fact of guilt and adjudge the punishment by one of its own agents."
therefore its enforcement is necessarily governed by the rules controlling in the prosecution of criminal offenses, is clearly without merit, and is not open to discussion. Hepner v. United States, 213 U. S. 103.
2. But it is argued that, even though it be conceded that Congress may, in some cases, impose penalties for the violation of a statutory duty, and provide for their enforcement by civil suit instead of by criminal prosecution, as held in Hepner v. United States, nevertheless that doctrine does not warrant the conclusion that a penalty may be authorized, and its collection committed to an administrative officer without the necessity of resorting to the judicial power. In all cases of penalty or punishment, it is contended, enforcement must depend upon the exertion of judicial power, either by civil or criminal process, since the distinction between judicial and administrative functions cannot be preserved consistently with the recognition of an administrative power to enforce a penalty without resort to judicial authority. But the proposition magnifies the judicial to the detriment of all other departments of the government, disregards many previous adjudications of this Court, and ignores practices often manifested and hitherto deemed to be free from any possible constitutional question.
"The interference of the courts with the performance of the ordinary duties of the executive departments of the government would be productive of nothing but mischief, and we are satisfied that such a power was never intended to be given to them. Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Pet. 499."
by the importer, shows that they were exacted as discouragements of fraud, and to prevent efforts by importers to escape the legal rates of duty. In several of the acts this additional duty has been distributed among officers of the customs upon the same conditions as penalties and forfeitures. As between the United States and the importer, . . . it must still be regarded in the light of a penal duty."
See also Murray's Lessee et al. v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272.
In Passavant v. United States, 148 U. S. 214, the authority of Congress to delegate to administrative officers final and conclusive authority as to the valuation of imported merchandise, accompanied with the power to impose a penalty for undervaluation, was reiterated, and the doctrine of Bartlett v. Kane was applied. And the same principle was upheld in Origet v. Hedden, 155 U. S. 228.
In accord with this settled judicial construction the legislation of Congress from the beginning, not only as to tariff, but as to internal revenue, taxation, and other subjects, has proceeded on the conception that it was within the competency of Congress, when legislating as to matters exclusively within its control, to impose appropriate obligations, and sanction their enforcement by reasonable money penalties, giving to executive officers the power to enforce such penalties without the necessity of invoking the judicial power.
by the Constitution, but by considering the particular emergency which has caused Congress to exert a specified power, then the proposition is obviously without foundation. This is apparent since the contention then would proceed upon the assumption that it is within the competency of judicial authority to control legislative action as to subjects over which there is complete legislative authority, on the theory that there was no necessity calling for the exertion of legislative power. As the authority of Congress over the right to bring aliens into the United States embraces every conceivable aspect of that subject, it must follow that, if Congress has deemed it necessary to impose particular restrictions on the coming in of aliens, and to sanction such prohibitions by penalties enforceable by administrative authority, it follows that the constitutional right of Congress to enact such legislation is the sole measure by which its validity is to be determined by the courts. The suggestion that, if this view be applied, grave abuses may arise from the mistaken or wrongful exertion by the legislative department of its authority, but intimates that, if the legislative power be permitted its full sway within its constitutional sphere, harm and wrong will follow, and therefore it behooves the judiciary to apply a corrective by exceeding its own authority. But, as pointed out in the passage previously quoted from Bartlett v. Kane, supra, and as often since emphasized by this Court (McCray v. United States, 195 U. S. 27), the proposition but mistakenly assumes that the courts can alone be safely entrusted with power, and that hence it is their duty to unlawfully exercise prerogatives which they have no right to exert, upon the assumption that wrong must be done to prevent wrong being accomplished.
"did not afford the plaintiff a reasonable opportunity to obtain evidence from the port of embarkation and to be heard upon the question whether a fine should be imposed."
which of the findings should, under the circumstances of the case, be treated as dominant. But into that controversy we do not think it necessary to enter, since, as previously pointed out, it is evident that the statute unambiguously excludes the conception that the steamship company was entitled to be heard, in the sense of raising an issue and tendering evidence concerning the condition of the alien immigrant upon arrival at the point of disembarkation, as the plain purpose of the statute was to exclusively commit that subject to the medical officers for which the statute provided. We shall therefore test the soundness of the proposition we are considering upon that assumption.
upon a distinction without a difference. It disregards the purpose which, as we have already pointed out, congress had in view in the enactment of the provision -- that is, the guarding against the danger to arise from the wrongful taking on board of an alien afflicted with a contagious malady, not only to other immigrant passengers, but ultimately, it might be, to the entire people of the United States -- a danger arising from the possible admission of aliens who might contract the contagion during the voyage and yet be entitled to admission because apparently not afflicted with the prohibited disease owing to the fact that the time had not elapsed for the manifestation of its presence. In effect, all the contentions pressed in argument concerning the repugnancy of the statute to the due process clause really disregarded the complete and absolute power of Congress over the subject with which the statute deals. They mistakenly assume that mere form, and not substance, may be made by the courts the conclusive test as to the constitutional power of Congress to enact a statute. These conclusions are apparent, we think, since the plenary power of Congress as to the admission of aliens leaves no room for doubt as to its authority to impose the penalty, and its complete administrative control over the granting or refusal of a clearance also leaves no doubt of the right to endow administrative officers with discretion to refuse to perform the administrative act of granting a clearance, as a means of enforcing the penalty which there was lawful authority to impose.
There are many other propositions urged in argument which we do not deem it necessary to specifically notice, as in effect they are all disposed of by the considerations which we have stated.
We have not considered the questions which would arise for decision if the case presented an attempt to endow administrative officers with the power to enforce a lawful exaction by methods which were not within the competency of administrative duties, because they required the exercise of judicial authority.

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