Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/376/120
Timestamp: 2015-01-31 06:33:53
Document Index: 296752047

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 212', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 340', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 340', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 340', '§ 241', '§ 340', '§ 241', '§ 340', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241', '§ 241']

Frank COSTELLO, Petitioner, v. IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews Frank COSTELLO, Petitioner, v. IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE.
376 U.S. 120 (84 S.Ct. 580, 11 L.Ed.2d 559)
[HTML] dissent, WHITE, CLARK
[HTML] Edward Bennett Williams, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
Section 241(a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 19 2 provides that 'Any alien in the United States * * * shall, upon the order of the Attorney General, be deported who * * * at any time after entry is convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude * * *.'
In 1961 the Immigration and Naturalization Service commenced proceedings to deport the petitioner under § 241(a)(4), and it is those proceedings which have culminated in the case now before us. The Special Inquiry Officer found the petitioner deportable; the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed; and the Court of Appeals dismissed the petition for review, holding that the petitioner was subject to deportation under § 241(a)(4) even though the two convictions relied upon to support deportation both occurred at a time when he was a naturalized citizen. 311 F.2d 343. We granted certiorari to consider an important question of federal law.
We take a different view. The statute construed in Ei henlaub differs from § 241(a)(4) in several important respects. The law there involved was the Act of May 10, 1920, which provided that 'All aliens who since August 1, 1914, have been or may hereafter be convicted' of violations of the Espionage Act of 1917, as amended, were to be deported, provided the Secretary of Labor after a hearing found them to be undesirable residents of the United States.
The Court read this language as unabiguously authorizing deportation, regardless of the aliens' status at the time they were convicted. It is evident from what was said in the opinion that the Court was aided considerably in its search for the proper construction of the statute by Congress' use of the past tense in the phrase 'have been or may hereafter be,' and the fact that the only limitation which Congress placed upon the time of conviction was that it be 'since August 1, 1914.'
The Court also found specific legislative history to support its conclusion. As the Congressional Committee Reports demonstrated, the 1920 law was a special statute dealing with sabotage and espionage, originally enacted in order to deport 'some or all of about 500 aliens who were then interned as dangerous enemy aliens and who might be found, after hearings, to be undesirable residents, and also to deport some or all of about 150 other aliens who, during World War I, had been convicted of violations of the Espionage Act or other national security measures, and who might be found, after hearings, to be undesirable residents.' 338 U.S., at 532, 70 S.Ct., at 334, 94 L.Ed. 307. The Court therefore concluded that Congress, when it enacted the statute, had expressed a clear intent to group together denaturalized citizens along with aliens who had never acquired citizenship and to deport them for specific crimes involving national security occurring after a specific date at the beginning of World War I.
Neither the language nor the history of § 241(a)(4) lends itself so easily to a similar construction. The subsection employs neither a past tense verb nor a single specific time limitation. The petitioner's constructionthat the language permits deportation only of a person who was an alien at the time of his convictions, and the Court of Appeals' constructionthat the language permits deportation of a person now an alien who at any time after entry has been convicted of two crimes, regardless of his status at the time of the convictionsare both possible readings of the statute, as the respondent has conceded in brief and oral argument.
We agree with the Court of Appeals that the tense of the verb 'be' is not, considered alone, dispositive.
On the other hand, we disagree with that court's reliance on the phrase 'at any time after entry' in § 241(a)(4) to support the conclusion that an alien is deportable for post-entry conduct whether or not he was an alien at the time of conviction. Since § 212(a)(9)
provides for the exclusion of aliens convicted of crimes of moral turpitude, and any excludable alien who nevertheless enters the country is deportable under § 241(a)(1),
it seems just as logical to conclude that the purpose of the phrase 'at any time after entry' in § 241(a)(4) was simply to make clear that § 241(a)(4) authorizes the deportation of aliens who were not originally excludable, but were convicted after entry.
There is nothing in the legislative history of § 241(a)(4) of so specific a nature as to resolve the ambiguity of the statutory language. The general legislative purpose underlying enactment of § 241(a)(4) was to broaden the provisions governing deportation, 'particularly those referring to criminal and subversive aliens.'
But reference to such a generalized purpose does little to promote resolution of the specific problem before us, of which there was absolutely no mention in the Committee Reports or other legislative materials concerning § 241(a)(4).
Although no legislative history illumines our problem, considerable light is forthcoming from another provision of the statute itself. Section 241(b)(2), made specifically applicable to § 241(a)(4), provides that deportation shall not take place 'if the court sentencing such alien for such crime shall make, at the time of first imposing judgment or passing sentence, or within thirty days thereafter, a recommendation * * * that such alien not be deported.'
As another court has correctly observed. 'It seems plain that the qualifying provisions of subsection (b) are an important part of the legislative scheme expressed in subsection (a)(4). While that section makes a conviction there referred to ground for deportation, it is qual fied in an important manner by the provision of subsection (b)(2) that if the court sentencing the alien makes the recommendation mentioned, then the provisions of subsection (a)(4) do not apply.' Gubbels v. Hoy, 9 Cir., 261 F.2d 952, 954.
Yet if § 241(a)(4) were construed to apply to those convicted when they were naturalized citizens, the protective provisions of § 241(b)(2) would, as to them, become a dead letter. A naturalized citizen would not 'at the time of first imposing judgment or passing sentence,' or presumably 'within thirty days thereafter,' be an 'alien' who could seek to invoke the protections of this section of the law. Until denaturalized, he would still be a citizen for all purposes, and a sentencing court would lack jurisdiction to make the recommendation provided by § 241(b)(2).
We would hesitate long before adopting a construction of § 241(a)(4) which would, with respect to an entire class of aliens, completely nullify a procedure so intrinsic a part of the legislative scheme.
Adoption of the petitioner's construction of § 241(a)(4) does not end our inquiry, however, for the respondent urges affirmance of the finding of deportability on an alternative ground, not reached by the Court to Appeals. The argument is that the petitioner is deportable because § 340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, under which the petitioner's citizenship was canceled, provides that an order of denaturalization 'shall be effective as of the original date' of the naturalization order.
Under this so-called 'relation-back' theory, it is said that cancellation of the petitioner's certificate of naturalization was 'effective' as of 1925, the year of his original naturalization, that he was therefore an alien as a matter of law at the time of his convictions in 1954, and that he is accordingly deportable under § 241(a)(4) even if that provision requires alienage at the time of the convictions.
The Second Circuit was alone among the federal courts in thinking that this nunc pro tunc concept which had been judicially developed in the denaturalization cases could properly be related to the task of construing a deportation statute. United States ex rel. Eichenlaub v. Watkins, 2 Cir., 167 F.2d 659; United States ex rel. Willumeit v. Watkins, 2 Cir., 171 F.2d 773. And when those cases came here, this Court pointedly declined to adopt the Second Circuit's reasoning. United States ex rel. Eichenlaub v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 521, 529530, 70 S.Ct. 329, 333, 94 L.Ed. 307.
Following this Court's decision in Eichenlaub, the Sixth Circuit expressly refused to apply to a general deportation statute the relation-back principle of the denaturalization cases, in determining when there had been an 'entry' for purposes of the predecessor of § 241(a)(4) in the 1917 Act. United States ex rel. Brancato v. Lehmann, 6 Cir., 239 F.2d 663.
In this area of the law, involving as it may the equivalent of banishment or exile, we do well to eschew technicalities and fictions and to deal instead with realities. The reality is that the petitioner's convictions occurred when he was a naturalized citizen, as he had been for almost 30 years.
If Congress had wanted the relation-back doctrine of § 340(a) to apply to the deportation provisions of § 241(a)(4), and thus to render nugatory and meaningless for an entire class of aliens the protections of § 241(b)(2), Congress could easily have said so. But there is no evidence whatever that the question was even considered. If and when Congress gives thought to the matter, it might well draw distinctions based upon the ground for denaturalization, the nature of the criminal convictions, and the time interval between naturalization and conviction, or between conviction and denaturalization.
The qualification which the Court carves out of § 241(a)(4), requiring that the convictions occur at a time when an alien is not a citizen, is not found in the statute itself and can be achieved only at the expense of the purpose of the statute which is clearly evident from its terms and history and which should control its construction if the Court is not to stray from its judicial function.
In certain respects § 241(a) redefined the criteria for deportability. Under subsection (d), § 241 was to be applied to an alien even though the conduct which placed him within a deportable class took place prior to the enactment of the section and even though that conduct would not have forfeited residential privileges under the previous law. This was the holding of the Court in United States ex rel. Lehmann v. Carson, 353 U.S. 685, 77 S.Ct. 1022, 1 L.Ed.2d 1122, where an alien was held deportable under the 1952 Act for the prior commission of two crimes although under the former law a conditional pardon given for one of them would have saved the alien from deportation. Given Lehmann v. Carson and like cases upholding the power of Congress to legislate in this manner,
His fraud becomes his ready and effective shield, a result which I cannot believe Congress intended to enact into law.
'It is hardly conceivable that, under those circumstances, Congress, without expressly saying so, intended to prevent * * * (the deportation of) alien offenders merely because they had received their respective convictions at times when they held certificates of naturalization, later canceled for fraud. To do so would permit the denaturalized aliens to set up a canceled fraudulent status as a defense, and successfully to claim benefits and advantages under it. Congress, in 1920, evidently wanted to provide a means by which to free the United States of residents who (1) had been or thereafter were convicted of certain offenses against the security of the United States, (2) had been or thereafter were found, after hearing, to be undesirable residents of the United States, and (3) being aliens were subject to deportation. Congress said just that.' Id., 338 U.S., at 532 533, 70 S.Ct. at 334335, 94 L.Ed. 307.
The Eichenlaub case, decided at the time the 1952 Act was under consideration, carried the clear message that the courts would not impute to the legislature an intent to favor twice-convicted aliens whose citizenship has been canceled for fraud over those who never held citizenship status and that Congress must say so if it intended to create a distinction based on citizenship status at the time of conviction for crimes on which deportation proceedings might be based. In the face of this message Congress proceeded to enact § 241(a)(4) declaring that 'Any alien * * * shall * * * be deported * * * who at any time after entry is convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude.'
The petitioner contends that Eichenlaub is distinguishable on the ground that the statute in that case applied to aliens who 'have been or may hereafter be' convicted, whereas § 241(a)(4) refers to any alien who 'is' convicted. His argument is that by use of dual verbs the statute in Eichenlaub explicitly referred to two groups of aliens, those who were and those who were not citizens when convicted. In his view, therefore, the decision in Eichenlaub must have rested upon the 'have been' leg of the statute. But both the majority and the dissent in Eichenlaub recognized that the use of past and present verbs in the 1920 Act was necessary because that Act provided for two definite periods of timebetween August 1, 1914, and May 10, 1920; and after 1920in which the convictions might occur.
Whatever doubt as to congressional intent the majority may have after examining § 241(a) standing alone should be dispelled by § 340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which provides that revocation of a naturalization certificate relates back to, and is deemed 'effective as of the original date of the order and certificate.'
Under this section petitioner was not a citizen in 1954 because he did not become a citizen in 1924. It is therefore useless to talk about whether § 241(a)(4) makes an exception for aliens who were citizens when convicted because § 340 makes clear that in Congress' view they were always aliens. The distinction which the Court reads into § 241 is a distinction which § 340 declares nonexistent.
Prior to 1952 Rosenberg v. United States, 60 F.2d 475 (C.A.3d Cir. 1932), and Battaglino v. Marshall, 172 F.2d 979 (C.A.2d Cir. 1949),
held that members of a denaturalized alien's family derived through him no citizenship rights because 'the certificate of naturalization was simply a paper fraud and conferred at the time of its grant no rights whatever * * *.' Rosenberg v. United States, 3 Cir., 60 F.2d, at 476. But the principle stated in those cases was by no means limited to problems of derivative citizenship, as is shown by the Second Circuit's decisions in United States ex rel. Eichenlaub v. Watkins, 167 F.2d 659 (C.A.2d Cir. 1948), aff'd sub nom. United States ex rel. Eichenlaub v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 521, 70 S.Ct. 329, 94 L.Ed. 307; and United States ex rel. Willumeit v. Watkins, 171 F.2d 773 (C.A.2d Cir. 1949), aff'd sub nom. United States ex rel. Eichenlaub v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 521, 70 S.Ct. 329. These two cases, which, as shown earlier, involved the same issue as the instant case, were decided by the Court of Appeals on the theory that 'the decree of denaturalization relates back, at least for this purpose. Cf. Rosenberg v. United States, 3 Cir., 60 F.2d 475.'
'The effect of a decree of denaturalization, as distinguished from expatriation or forfeiture of citizenship, is to declare that the 'naturalized' person never was in fact naturalized, because either by fraud or illegality the statutory prerequisites were not met. The naturalization laws make certain reservations, saving the naturalization of children who derive citizenship from a parent from the alienage which they would otherwise incur because of the fraudulent or illegal naturalization.'
Section 241(a)(4) speaks in general terms and seems to apply to postentry convictions for any two crimes involving moral turpitude. But there are other paragraphs of § 241(a) which specify particular crimes in themselves justifying deportation. Some of these crimes may not involve moral turpitude; others may, and therefore fall within the literal language of § 241(a)(4). A recommendation against deportation of aliens convicted of these latter crimes is nonetheless ineffective, either because subsection (b) explicitly excludes the crime from its coverage, as in the case of narcotics offenses,
or because the offense is separately listed in a subsection other than § 241(a) (4).
Moreover, there are other situations within § 241(a)(4) where § 241(b) procedures are unavailable and deportation nevertheless must follow. Under § 241(a)(4) deportation may be based upon postentry convictions whether occurring in this country or abroad. The requirement of the prior law that postentry crimes be committed in this country was eliminated in the 1952 Act.
It seems obvious that § 241(b) procedures would be unavailable in those cases where the crimes are committed abroad; yet it is difficult to believe that deportation is proscribed in those cases. This was the view of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit under the prior law where the provision for deportation for crimes committed abroad prior to entry
was ostensibly subject to the terms of § 241(b)'s predecessor providing the same broad judicial veto.
I think Costello's is another case in which Congress could not have intended the unavailability of § 241(b) procedures to bar deportation. Under the Court's view no denaturalized alien can be deported for the commission of two or more crimes while a citizen. Congress intended no such result. It intended, as § 241(b) expressly says, to bar deportation only when there was a judicial determination of nondeportability. There is none here. In Costello's case, and those like it, the judge has no opportunity to exercise his power under § 241(b) because the convicted defendant, actually an alien under the law, appears before him with a certificate of citizenship, obtained by his own fraud, and prefers to continue the masquerade and to claim the protections of citizenship. In these circumstances, the lack of judicial consideration of Costello's deportability should not be equated to a judge's determination of nondeportability. This is especially true here since Costello knew of the denaturalization proceedings which had been instituted against him prior to his two convictions for tax fraud.
'(4) is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude committed within five years after entry and either sentenced to confinement or confined therefor in a prison or corrective institution, for a year or more, or who at any time after entry is convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude, not arising out of a single scheme of criminal misconduct, regardless of whether confined therefor and regardless of whether the convictions were in a single trial;' 66 Stat. 204, as amended, 8 U.S.C. 1251(a)(4).
'(a) An Act entitled 'An Act to punish acts of interference with the foreign relations, the neutrality, and the foreign commerce of the United States, to punish espionage, and better to enforce the criminal laws * * *." 41 Stat. 593594. See 8 U.S.C. 157 (1926 ed.)
8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9).
8 U.S.C. 1251(a)(1).
See H.R.Rep.No.1365, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 60 (1952); S.Rep. No. 1515, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 390392 (1950); S.Rep. No. 1137, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 21 (1952); H.R.Rep. No. 2096 (Conference Report), 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 127 (1952). See also Immigration and Naturalization Service, Analysis of S. 3455, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. (1950), Vol. 5, pp. 2413 through 2416; and Analysis of S. 716, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), Vol. 4, pp. 2412 through 2414. See generally, Besterman, note 8, supra, pp. 191.
'The provisions of subsection (a)(4) of this section respecting the deportation of an alien convicted of a crime or crimes shall not apply * * * (2) if the court sentencing such alien for such crime shall make, at the time of first imposing judgment or passing sentence, or within thirty days thereafter, a recommendation to the Attorney General that such alien not be deported, due notice having been given prior to making such recommendation to representatives of the interested State, the Service, and prosecution authorities, who shall be granted an opportunity to make representations in the matter.' 8 U.S.C. 1251(b).
The Eichenlaub statute carried with it no such qualifying provision, which reinforces the conclusion that the decision in Eichenlaub is of no basic relevance to the issue here. See note 3, supra. Section 19 of the Immigration Act of 1917, 39 Stat. 874, the predecessor of § 241(a)(4), on the other hand, did contain a relief provision similar to § 241(b)(2). See 39 Stat. 889890.
'It shall be the duty of the United States district attorneys for the respective districts * * * to institute proceedings * * * for the purpose of revoking and setting aside the order admitting such person to citizenship and canceling the certificate of naturalization * * *, and such revocation and setting aside of the order admitting such person to citizenship and such canceling of certificate of naturalization shall be effective as of the original date of the order and certificate, respectively * * *.' 66 Stat. 260, 8 U.S.C. 1451(a).
See Mr. Justice Frankfurter's dissenting opinion in United States ex rel. Eichenlaub v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S., at 533, 536537, 70 S.Ct., at 335, 336337, 94 L.Ed. 307.
This Court has repeatedly stressed the principle that in construing statutes 'the general purpose is a more important aid to the meaning than any rule which grammar or formal logic may lay down.' United States v. Whitridge, 197 U.S. 135, 143, 25 S.Ct. 406, 408, 49 L.Ed. 696. See United States v. Shirey, 359 U.S. 255, 260261, 79 S.Ct. 746, 749, 3 L.Ed.2d 789; United States v. CIO, 335 U.S. 106, 112, 68 S.Ct. 1349, 92 L.Ed. 1849; United States v. American Trucking Assns., 310 U.S. 534, 543, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 1063, 84 L.Ed. 1345; Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178, 194, 43 S.Ct. 65, 67, 67 L.Ed. 199.
Revocation of fraudulently obtained naturalization certificates was authorized by statute in 1906; however, not until the 1952 Act was there an express statutory provision that revocations were to have retroactive effect. The judicial doctrine of relation-back developed in the interim. Although Rosenberg was the first case to apply the doctrine, dictum in this Court's decisions as early as 1912 implied its existence. In Johannessen v. United States, 225 U.S. 227, 240241, 32 S.Ct. 613, 616, 56 L.Ed. 1066; this Court cited with approval the following language from a lower court opinion: 'It is (the applicant's) province, and he is bound, to see that the jurisdictional facts upon which the grant is predicated actually exist, and if they do not he takes nothing by his paper grant.' Cf. Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9, 24, 34 S.Ct. 10, 13, 58 L.Ed. 101.
'The provisions of subsection (a)(4) of this section respecting the deportation of an alien convicted of a crime or crimes shall not apply * * * if the court sentencing such alien for such crime shall make, at the time of first imposing judgment or passing sentence, or within thirty days thereafter, a recommendation to the Attorney General that such alien not be deported, due notice having been given prior to making such recommendation to representatives of the interested State, the Service, and prosecution authorities, who shall be granted an opportunity to make representations in the matter. The provisions of this subsection shall not apply in the case of any alien who is charged with being deportable from the United States under subsection (a)(11) of this section.' 8 U.S.C. 1251(b).
'Any alien in the United States * * * shall * * * be deported who