Court Opinion

ID: 9452860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:54:45.659834+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:23.627794
License: Public Domain

COFFIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
While conceding that the court’s opinion is both reasonable and supported by authority, I do not think that it is compelled by either the language or the scheme of the statutes. It is, I think, not at all difficult to seize upon a narrower *239meaning of “inspection” without doing violence to either law or policy — in accordance with the rule that deportation statutes should be construed strictly in favor of the alien. Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U.S. 6, 10, 68 S.Ct. 374, 92 L.Ed. 433 (1948). See also Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Errico, 385 U.S. 214, 225, 87 S.Ct. 473, 17 L.Ed.2d 318 (1966).
A legitimate narrower meaning, in my view, is that an alien has been “inspected” when he has presented himself to an inspector at a proper place and time, whether or not meaningful inquiry then ensues. To make oneself available to an inspector for whatever questions he may wish to ask, even if one makes false statements, is to be inspected, just as “[i]f a witness in court makes false statements on cross-examination, and thereby induces cross-examining counsel to forego further questioning, such a witness cannot be said to have testified ‘without cross-examination’.” Ex parte Gouthro, 296 F. 506, 511-512 (E.D.Mich. 1924), aff’d sub nom. United States v. Southro, 8 F.2d 1023 (6th Cir. 1925). Just as false swearing is a separate crime subject to separate sanction, so today — and since 1952 — is false representation in securing entry, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a) (19). While the court reasons that the addition of this ground for deportation makes unnecessary any construction giving significance to the absence of such a ground, I draw the conclusion that one who enters through false representation, being now explicitly de-portable under section 1182(a) (19), need not also be implicitly barred from discretionary adjustment of status under section 1255(a) (by equating false representation of citizenship with lack of inspection) or doubly deportable by broadly defining “inspection” in section 1251 (a) (2).3
A narrower meaning of “inspection” seems consistent with the statutory scheme, both past and present. At the time of Gouthro, the predecessor of section 1251(a) (2) read:
“[A]ny alien who shall have entered the United States by water at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officials, or by land at any place other than one designated as a port of entry for aliens by the Commissioner General of Immigration, or at any time not designated by immigration officials, or who enters without inspection, shall, upon the warrant of the Secretary of Labor, be- taken into custody and deported.” Immigration Act of 1917, § 19, 39 Stat. 889.
This series of thoughts seems to be directed at those who seek to frustrate the immigration laws by surreptitious avoidance of all scutiny. The phrases used contemplate the choice of time and place to avoid all detection, and would encompass the case of one who slips by an inspector unnoticed, e. g., Ex parte Callow, 240 F. 212 (D.Col.1916). This class of proscribed actions is set apart from those which involve the processing of papers. The present section 1251 recognizes the dichotomy by referring in subsection (a) (1) to all aliens excludable by law at the time of entry — which language would cover, among others, any alien who seeks to procure documents by fraud, or misrepresentation or any alien who at entry does not possess the necessary valid documents, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182 (a) (19)-20) — and in subsection (a) (2), to those who have entered without *240inspection. Moreover, section 1251(a) (2), while more truncated than its predecessor, still carries the reference to entry “at any time or place other than as designated * *
I agree with the court that the legislative history evinces no purpose to broaden section 1255(a) to apply to aliens unlawfully in the country. However, when “lawfully” as a modifier of “alien who was * * * admitted to the United States as a bona fide immigrant” was dropped in 1958, Act of August 21, 1958, Pub.L.No. 85-700, 72 Stat. 699; and when, two years later, “bona fide immigrant” disappeared, Act of July 14, 1960, Pub.L.No. 86-648, 74 Stat. 505, it seems to me that Congress did something, whether it intended to or not. Moreover, to invoke statements of legislative intent under these circumstances seems to me to run counter to the mandate to follow the narrowest of possible meanings to favor the alien.
In addition to the above points, I am troubled by the difficulty of knowing where to stop if we go beyond the minimal definition of “inspection” as the submission of oneself to whatever interrogation and detention the inspector sees fit to require. In this case the court limits its holding only to a fraudulent claim of citizenship on the reasoning that such a claim effectively blocks further meaningful inquiry at the time of entry and that records enabling authorities to keep track of the alien are not required. Both reasons might argue for a stronger sanction to be imposed on one who fraudulently claims citizenship than on one whose fraud is directed at a different issue. But in fact Congress has not seen fit to make this distinction.
We are, I think, assuming a great deal to single out one kind of falsehood as vitiating inspection above all other kinds because of our assumption that it lulls inspectors more effectively than other kinds. And to the extent that we rest our conclusion on the frustration caused to the record-keeping procedures required of aliens, we are construing a statute because of the administrative procedures devised to implement that statute. The administrative tail is wagging the statutory dog. Both grounds, it seems to me, create an additional sanction of a kind more appropriately left to the Congress.
I would therefore say that petitioner is not barred from seeking discretionary relief under 8 U.S.C. § 1255.

. Both United States ex rel. Volpe v. Smith, 62 F.2d 808 (7th Cir. 1933), aff’d on other grounds, 289 U.S. 422, 53 S.Ct. 665, 77 L.Ed. 1298 (1933), cited by the court, and Saadi v. Carr, 26 F.2d 458 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 278 U.S. 616, 49 S.Ct. 21, 73 L.Ed. 540 (1928), involved proceedings for deportation before the statute made fraud or false representations specific grounds for deportation. Ben Huie v. INS, 349 F.2d 1014 (9th Cir. 1965) merely declares the law “well settled”, citing Volpe and Saadi. In view of the increased concern manifested by the Supreme Court toward the rights of aliens sought to be deported and the present existence of 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a) (19), I do not find these authorities as compelling as my brothers do.