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Timestamp: 2019-09-15 10:37:05
Document Index: 462206894

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 19', '§ 19', '§ 19', '§ 151', '§ 19', '§ 1', '§ 19', '§ 22']

KIMM V. ROSENBERG, 363 U. S. 405 (1960) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
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Petitioner applied for suspension of an order directing his deportation to Korea or permitting his voluntary departure. He does not question the validity of the deportation order, but contends that he is within the eligible statutory class whose deportation may be suspended at the discretion of the Attorney General. § 19(c) of the Immigration Act of 1917, as amended. Relief on this score was denied on the basis that the Attorney General has no power to exercise his discretion in chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Petitioner contends that he presented "clear affirmative evidence" as to eligibility which stands uncontradicted, and that the burden was on the Government to show his affiliations, if any, with the Party. He contends that the disqualifying factor of Communist Party membership is an exception to § 19(c) which the Government must prove. We think not. Rather than a proviso, it is an absolute disqualification, since that class of aliens is carved out of the section at its very beginning by the words "other than one to whom subsection (d) of this section is applicable." [Footnote 1] Subsection (d)2 referred to aliens chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
deportable under the Act of October 16, 1918. Section 2 [Footnote 2] of the Internal Security Act of 1950 amended the 1918 Act to include Communists, [Footnote 3] and thus terminated the discretionary authority under § 19(c) as to any alien who was deportable because of membership in the Communist Party. Petitioner offered no evidence on this point, although the regulations place on him the burden of proof as to "the statutory requirements precedent to the exercise of discretionary relief." 8 CFR, 1949 ed., § 151.3(e), as amended, 15 Fed.Reg. 7638. This regulation is completely chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It has become much the fashion to impute wrongdoing to or do impose punishment on a person for invoking his constitutional rights. [Footnote 2/1] Lloyd Barenblatt has served a jail sentence for invoking his First Amendment rights. See Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U. S. 109. As this is written, Dr. Willard Uphaus, as a consequence of our chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The import of what we do is underlined by the fact that there is not a shred of evidence of bad character in the record against this alien. The alien has fully satisfied the requirements of § 19(c), as shown by the record. He entered as a student in 1928, and pursued his studies until 1938. He planned to return to Korea, but the outbreak of hostilities between China and Japan in 1937 changed his mind. Since 1938, he has been continuously employed in gainful occupations. That is the sole basis of his deportability. [Footnote 2/2] The record shows no criminal convictions, nothing that could bring stigma to the man. His employment since 1938 has been as manager of a produce company, as chemist, as foundry worker, and as a member of O.S.S. during the latter part of World War II. He also was self-employed in the printing business, publishing a paper "Korean Independence." No one came forward to testify that he was a Communist. There is not a word of evidence that he had been a member of the Communist Party at any time. The only thing that stands in his way of being eligible for suspension of deportation chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Imputation of guilt for invoking the protection of the Fifth Amendment carries us back some centuries to the hated oath ex officio used both by the Star Chamber and the High Commission. Refusal to answer was contempt. [Footnote 2/3] Thus was started in the English-speaking world the great rebellion against oaths that either violated the conscience of the witness or were used to obtain evidence against chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Suspension of deportation may be "a matter of discretion and of administrative grace," United States ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U. S. 72, 353 U. S. 77, but eligibility chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It has not been, and scarcely could be, controverted that the Government must, in general, bear the burden of demonstrating, in administrative proceedings, the deportability of an alien; whatever the exceptions to this rule may be, [Footnote 3/2] it was established by the time relevant here that, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
where post-entry misconduct is charged as the basis for deportability, the burden is the Government's. Hughes v. Tropello, 296 F.3d 6, 309; Werrmann v. Perkins, 79 F.2d 467, 469. Here, the Government never bore any burden of showing that petitioner was deportable as having been, since his entry, a Communist. The determination of his deportability was made on entirely different grounds; that (as was conceded) he had failed to maintain the student status on the basis of which he had been admitted to the United States. At the hearing on suspension of deportation, the Government introduced literally no evidence even remotely suggesting that petitioner had ever been a Communist, and much evidence as to petitioner's good character was introduced. But, apparently at random, and out of the blue, petitioner was asked about membership in the Communist Party, and he declined to answer, citing his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. On this basis, the administrative officials found that he was ineligible for suspension of deportation.
If the basis on which it was sought to deport petitioner in the first place was that he was deportable as a Communist or ex-Communist under §§ 1 and 4 of the 1918 Act, as amended, it could hardly be contended that this would be evidence, let alone sufficient evidence, that he was or had been a Communist, on which to base a finding of deportability. Cf. Slochower v. Board of Higher Education, 350 U. S. 551. The provision in § 19 of the 1917 Immigration Act, as amended, which is relied on disqualifies from suspension an alien who is "deportable" under the other Act, and one would think the burden of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
I would think it perfectly plain that such a regulation as applied in this case would be contrary to the statutory scheme, properly and responsibly construed. [Footnote 3/3] In the first place, as I have noted, it turns around the ordinary rules as to the burden of proof as to which party shall show "deportability." It requires the alien to prove a negative -- that he never was a Communist since he entered the country -- when no one has said or intimated that he was. Such proof would necessarily lead to petitioner's bearing the laboring oar in showing that all his political or economic expressions in this country were independent of any covert connection with the Communist Party. The effect of imposing such a burden of exculpation on the exercise, for example, of non-Communist political action on behalf of causes which Communists might also happen to favor chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We are, apart from construction of the Constitution, responsible for the proper construction of Acts of Congress, and for determining the validity of challenged administrative regulations and procedures under them. Here we are called upon only to put a rational construction upon a federal statute, and the allocation of the burden of proof under it, that will promote the statute's internal consistency and minimize its frictions with the First Amendment. One of the relevant enactments, § 22 of the 1950 Internal Security Act, is a harsh one whose constitutionality was upheld here only on historical grounds. See Galvan v. Press, 347 U. S. 522, 347 U. S. 530-532. By subscribing to the anomalous allocation of the burden of proof here, we increase the statute's harshness, promote the procedural chanroblesvirtualawlibrary