Court Opinion

ID: 9446518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:57:15.347485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:41.054529
License: Public Domain

JAMES ALGER FEE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
There is too much ado about this foreigner who deliberately injected himself into this country in conscious violation of our law, married within a month, apparently to fend off deportation, and has maintained himself here in defiance of our government for almost five years.
Admittedly, he has been subject to lawful deportation during all this time, and is now. He has been consistently accorded due process of law. At his deportation hearing, the basis was found unquestioned for immediate action. He was granted suspension for a limited period in order to permit him to depart voluntarily1 and to have pre-examination for readmission.2 He has not departed voluntarily, and the time so limited, with all extensions, expired on July 20, 1953.
The reason Fugiani has not voluntarily departed in order to obtain permanent residence here is that, if he should leave, he could not get back. Pre-examination has not been had because a condition precedent to pre-examination is that he “has received from the consular officer written assurance * * * that a visa will be prompty available.”3 It is perfectly clear that the United States Consul at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, will not now issue such a visa promptly or at all.
The position of Fugiani is that the authorities of this country must accept his story and the decree of an Italian court, which he obtained ex parte, and admit him. But this is only a theory in which there are none of the constitutional points suggested.
The authorities acted strictly according to regulations in re-opening the proceedings to determine the proper exercise of discretionary relief.4
*713It was of no consequence what issues or questions the Special Inquiry Officer considered at the hearing. That official had the responsibility, in deciding whether the privilege of pre-examination would again be granted, to determine whether or not the applicant was of good moral character5 and whether the latter could receive assurance from the consulate in Canada that an immigration visa would issue promptly when the alien presented himself there.6 He determined these questions against Fugiani.
This alien is here in violation of our law. He was accorded the privilege of voluntary departure and pre-examination, which was discretionary. The limitation on this order allowing voluntary departure has long since expired. The officials reopened the hearing and denied further discretionary relief, and ordered him deported in accordance with regulation.
If this was not lawful procedure, an impasse has been created. Fugiani, however undesirable, will be a permanent resident of the United States. This result does not seem possible.
In passing upon the issue of good moral character pursuant to his jurisdiction under the statute and regulation, the Special Hearing Officer had a right to consider the fact that Fugiani had once gone through a form of marriage to get bread and that he failed to reveal that fact to the immigration officers. It was pertinent to consider that Fugiani married in haste while unlawfully in this country. This is a well known device. Both these circumstances could properly have been considered in determining whether to allow the pre-examination on a discretionary basis.
In the event that the Hearing Officer incidentally considered matters which might affect the right of the alien to re-enter, the answer is he necessarily entertained the two vital questions under the statute and regulations.

. 8 C.F.R. § 150.3 (1951 Supp.).

. 8 C.F.R. § 150.3(c) (1951 Supp.).

. 8 C.F.R. § 142.7(a) (1951 Supp.).

. The effective regulations pursuant to which the hearing was reopened were 8 C.F.R. §§ 151.6, 151.7, 151.5(e) (1951 Supp.) and also 8 C.F.R. § 150.3(a) (1951 Supp.).

. 8 C.F.R. § 142.2(b) (1949 ed.).

. 8 C.F.R. § 142.2(d) (1949 ed.).