Court Opinion

ID: 9419698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:04.798909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:19.996076
License: Public Domain

Mb. Justice Muepht,
concurring.
The record in this case will stand forever as a monument to man’s intolerance of man. Seldom if ever in the history of this nation has there been such a concentrated and relentless crusade to deport an individual because he dared to exercise the freedom that belongs to him as a human being and that is guaranteed to him by the Constitution.
For more than a decade powerful economic and social forces have combined with public and private agencies to seek the deportation of Harry Bridges, who came to this country in 1920 from Australia. Emerging from the Pacific Coast maritime strike of 1934 as a recognized labor leader in that area, Bridges incurred the hatred and hostility of those whose interests coincided directly or indirectly with the “vicious and inhumane practices toward longshoremen,” 144 F. 2d 927, 938, that Bridges was com-batting. His personal viewpoint on certain matters also antagonized many people of more conservative leanings. Agitation for his deportation arose. Industrial and farming organizations, veterans’ groups, city police departments and private undercover agents all joined in an unremitting effort to deport him on the ground that he was connected with organizations dedicated to the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence. Wire-tapping, searches and seizures without warrants and other forms of invasion of the right of privacy have been widely employed in this deportation drive.
*158This opposition to Bridges’ presence in the United States has been as persistent as it has been undaunted by-temporary setbacks to its aims. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, after a thorough investigation of the original charges in 1934 and 1935, was unable to find even a “shred of evidence” warranting his deportation and the matter officially was dropped. But the campaign to banish him continued unabated. Eventually a warrant was issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1938 seeking his deportation. A clean bill of health was given him, however, after a full hearing before a special examiner, Dean Landis of the Harvard Law School. This only led to demands that the deportation laws be changed to make sure that Bridges was exiled. Thereupon a special bill was introduced and actually passed by the House of Representatives directing the Attorney General “notwithstanding any other provisions of law” forthwith to take into1 custody and deport Harry Bridges, “whose presence in this country the Congress deems hurtful.” H. R. 9766, 76th Cong., 3rd Sess. Fortunately this bill died in a Senate committee after the Attorney General denounced it as inconsistent with the American practice and tradition of due process of law. S. Rep. No. 2031, 76th Cong., 3rd Sess., p. 9.
As a substitute for this direct legislative assault upon Bridges, Congress amended the deportation law by enacting § 23 of the Alien Registration Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 673. This amendment set aside this Court’s decision in Kessler v. Strecker, 307 U. S. 22, by making it clear that an alien could be deported if, at the time of entering the United States or at any time thereafter, he was a member of or affiliated with an organization advocating the forceful overthrow of the Government. It thus was no longer necessary that the alien be an affiliate or member at the time of the issuance of the warrant of arrest. In the words of the author of this amendment: “It is my joy to *159announce that this bill will do, in a perfectly legal and constitutional manner, what the bill specifically aimed at the deportation of Harry Bridges seeks to accomplish. This bill changes the law so that the Department of Justice should now have little trouble in deporting Harry Bridges and all others of similar ilk.” 86 Cong. Rec. 9031.
This prophecy was quickly realized, to the satisfaction of the vast interests arrayed against Bridges. A warrant for his arrest and deportation under this new statutory provision was issued in 1941, followed by a hearing before another special examiner, Judge Sears. Evidence was presented by the Government on practically the same matters as in the first proceeding. This time, however, the examiner discovered sufficient grounds for recommending deportation. Although the Board of Immigration Appeals unanimously rejected this recommendation, the Attorney General, without holding a hearing or listening to argument, reversed the Board and ordered the deportation of Bridges.
It is not surprising that the background and intensity of this effort to deport one individual should result in a singular lack of due process of law. Much of the evidence presented by the Government has been described by the Attorney General as “untrustworthy, contradictory, or unreliable.” The remaining Government evidence can scarcely be described in more generous terms. And the Court’s opinion, in which I join, demonstrates that the proceeding had its validity further undermined by a misconception of the statutory term “affiliation” and by the improper use of hearsay statements.
But the Constitution has been more than a silent, anemic witness to this proceeding. It has not stood idly by while one of its subjects is being excommunicated from this nation without the slightest proof that his presence constitutes a clear and present danger to the public welfare. Nor has it remained aloof while this individual is *160being deported, resulting in the loss of all that makes life worth living,” Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U. S. 276, 284, on a finding that, regardless of his personal beliefs, he was a member and an affiliate of an organization advocating the forceful overthrow of the Government. When the immutable freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights have been so openly and concededly ignored, the full wrath of constitutional condemnation descends upon the action taken by the Government. And only by expressing that wrath can we give form and substance to “the great, the indispensable democratic freedoms,” Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 530, to which this nation is dedicated.
The unconstitutionality of the statute in issue and the invalidity of the proceeding brought pursuant thereto are obvious. As construed and applied in this case, the statute calls for the deportation of Harry Bridges after a fair hearing in which “some” evidence is established that he was a member or affiliate of an organization advocating the forceful overthrow of the Government. Such a provision rests its claim to legality upon one basic assumption, an assumption that is obnoxious and intolerable when viewed in light of the supernal heritage and ideals of this nation.
This assumption underlying the statute is that the “plenary” power of Congress to deport resident aliens is unaffected by the guarantee of substantive freedoms contained in the Bill of Rights. In other words, as the Government has urged before us, the deportation power of Congress “is unaffected by considerations which in other contexts might justify the striking down of legislation as an unwarranted abridgment of constitutionally guaranteed rights of free speech and association.” Erom this premise it follows that Congress may constitutionally deport aliens for whatever reasons it may choose, limited only by the due process requirement of a fair hearing. The color of their skin, their racial background or their religious faith may *161conceivably be used as the basis for their banishment. An alien who merely writes or utters a statement critical of the Government, or who subscribes to an unpopular political or social philosophy, or who affiliates with a labor union, or who distributes religious handbills on the street corner, may be subjected to the legislative whim of deportation.
I am unable to believe that the Constitution sanctions that assumption or the consequences that logically and inevitably flow from its application. The power to exclude and deport aliens is one springing out of the inherent sovereignty of the United States. Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U. S. 581. Since an alien obviously brings with him no constitutional rights, Congress may exclude him in the first instance for whatever reason it sees fit. Turner v. Williams, 194 U. S. 279. The Bill of Rights is a futile authority for the alien seeking admission for the first time to these shores. But once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders. Such rights include those protected by the First and the Fifth Amendments and by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. None of these provisions acknowledges any distinction between citizens and resident aliens. They extend their inalienable privileges to all “persons” and guard against any encroachment on those rights by federal or state authority. Indeed, this Court has previously and expressly recognized that Harry Bridges, the alien, possesses the right to free speech and free press and that the Constitution will defend him in the exercise of that right. Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252.
Since resident aliens have constitutional rights, it follows that Congress may not ignore them in the exercise of its “plenary” power of deportation. As this Court said in a previous exclusion case, “But this court has never held, nor *162must we now be understood as holding, that administrative officers, when executing the provisions of a statute involving the liberty of persons, may disregard the fundamental principles that inhere in ‘due process of law’ as understood at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.” Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U. S. 86, 100. No less may a statute on its face disregard the basic freedoms that the Constitution guarantees to resident aliens. The Chief Justice, in his dissenting opinion in Jones v. Opelika, 316 U. S. 684, 609, has stated that “The First Amendment prohibits all laws abridging freedom of press and religion, not merely some laws or all except tax laws.” By the same token, the First Amendment and other portions of the Bill of Rights make no exception in favor of deportation laws or laws enacted pursuant to a “plenary” power of the Government. Hence the very provisions of the Constitution negative the proposition that Congress, in the exercise of a “plenary” power, may override the rights of those who are numbered among the beneficiaries of the Bill of Rights.
Any other conclusion would make our constitutional safeguards transitory and discriminatory in nature. Thus the Government would be precluded from enjoining or imprisoning an alien for exercising his freedom of speech. But the Government at the same time would be free, from a constitutional standpoint, to deport him for exercising that very same freedom. The alien would be fully clothed with his constitutional rights when defending himself in a court of law, but he would be stripped of those rights when deportation officials encircle him. I cannot agree that the framers of the Constitution meant to make such an empty mockery of human freedom.
Since the basic assumption of the statute is false, the Bill of Rights must be brought to bear. And when that is done several constitutional infirmities are apparent in this legislation. See 52 Yale L. J. 108. As shown by the *163record in this case, Harry Bridges has done no more than exercise his personal right to free speech and association. Yet upon proof of that fact, he would be subject to deportation under the statute. The invalidity of legislation of such nature is inescapable.
First. The deportation statute completely ignores the traditional American doctrine requiring personal guilt rather than guilt by association or imputation before a penalty or punishment is inflicted.
The statute does not require that an alien, to be deport-able, must personally advocate or believe in the forceful overthrow of the Government. It is enough if he is a member or an affiliate of an organization which advocates such a doctrine. And in this case the Government admits that it has neither claimed nor attempted to prove that Harry Bridges personally advocated or believed in the proscribed doctrine. There is no evidence, moreover, that he understood the Communist Party to advocate violent revolution or that he ever committed or tried to commit an overt act directed to the realization of such an aim.
The doctrine of personal guilt is one of the most fundamental principles of our jurisprudence. It partakes of the very essence of the concept of freedom and due process of law. Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, 154. It prevents the persecution of the innocent for the beliefs and actions of others. See Chafee, Free Speech in the United States (1941), pp. 472-475.
Yet the deportation statute on its face and in its present application flatly disregards this rule. It condemns an alien to exile for beliefs and teachings to which he may not personally subscribe and of which he may not even be aware. This fact alone is enough to invalidate the legislation. Cf. DeJonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353; Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242; Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357.
It is no answer that a deportation proceeding is technically non-criminal in nature and that a deportable alien is *164not adjudged guilty of a “crime.” Those are over-subtle niceties that shed their significance when we are concerned with safeguarding the ideals of the Bill of Rights. The impact of deportation upon the life of an alien is often as great if not greater than the imposition of a criminal sentence. A deported alien may lose his family, his friends and his livelihood forever. Return to his native land may result in poverty, persecution and even death. There is thus no justifiable reason for discarding the democratic and humane tenets of our legal system and descending to the practices of despotism in dealing with deportation.
Second. The deportation statute is further invalid under the “clear and present danger” test enunciated in Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47.
It is clear that if an organization advocated and was capable of causing immediate and serious violence in order to overthrow the Government and if an alien member or affiliate personally joined in such advocacy a clear and present danger to the public welfare would be demonstrated and the Government would then have the power to deport or otherwise punish the alien. But the statute in issue makes no attempt to require such proof. It is apparently satisfied if an organization at any time since the alien became a member or affiliate advocated as a theoretical doctrine the use of force under hypothetical conditions at some indefinite future time. It is immaterial whether the organization presently advocates such an abstract doctrine or whether the alien is presently a member or an affiliate or whether he presently adheres to the organization’s views. It matters not that an alien member never knew or understood the organization’s illegal aim or that he may have resigned in protest upon learning of it. It appears to be enough that the organization at one time advocated the unlawful doctrine and that the alien was a member or affiliate at some time in the past, even if for no longer than one minute. 86 Cong. Rec. 9032. It is not *165even clear that the organization’s advocacy of violent revolution and an alien’s membership or affiliation must coincide in point of time. Such a statute fails to satisfy any rational or realistic test. It certainly does not pretend to require proof of a clear and present danger so as properly to negative the presumption that individual rights are supreme under the Constitution. It therefore founders in constitutional waters.
The Government frankly concedes that this case was not tried or decided below on the theory that the “clear and present danger” test had any application. Proof of Bridges’ membership and affiliation with the Communist Party was shown by some of the most tenuous and unreliable evidence ever to be introduced in an administrative or legal proceeding. Proof that the Communist Party advocates the theoretical or ultimate overthrow of the Government by force was demonstrated by resort to some rather ancient party documents, certain other general Communist literature and oral corroborating testimony of Government witnesses. Not the slightest evidence was introduced to show that either Bridges or the Communist Party seriously and imminently threatens to uproot the Government by force or violence.
Deportation, with all its grave consequences, should not be sanctioned on such weak and unconvincing proof of a real and imminent threat to our national security. Congress has ample power to protect the United States from internal revolution and anarchy without abandoning the ideals of freedom and tolerance. We as a nation lose part of our greatness whenever we deport or punish those who merely exercise their freedoms in an unpopular though innocuous manner. The strength of this nation is weakened more by those who suppress the freedom of others than by those who are allowed freely to think and act as their consciences dictate.
Our concern in this case does not halt with the fate of Harry Bridges, an alien whose constitutional rights-have *166been grossly violated. The significance of this case is far-reaching. The liberties of the 3,500,000 other aliens in this nation are also at stake. Many of these aliens, like many of our forebears, were driven from their original homelands by bigoted authorities who denied the existence of freedom and tolerance. It would be a dismal prospect for them to discover that their freedom in the United States is dependent upon their conformity to the popular notions of the moment. But they need not make that discovery. The Bill of Rights belongs to them as well as to all citizens. It protects them as long as they reside within the boundaries of our land. It protects them in the exercise of the great individual rights necessary to a sound political and economic democracy. Neither injunction, fine, imprisonment nor deportation can be utilized to restrict or prevent the exercise of intellectual freedom. Only by zealously guarding the rights of the most humble, the most unorthodox and the most despised among us can freedom flourish and endure in our land.

 The opinion of the Court states that the Attorney General conceded that the evidence was admitted in violation of the Rules. The Department of Justice made no such concession in this Court. And we think that the Attorney General’s decision, which is quoted by the Court, when fairly read, stated no more than that the objection based on the rules came too late; that had the question been raised in time, compliance with the rules would have been required (it was not stated what compliance with the rules would have entailed); that if the Inspector, after deliberation, then had rejected the objection based on the rules, it would have been “appropriate” to raise the objections before the Board of Immigration Appeals; and that the right to raise the objection had been waived. Plainly he did not state or suggest that objections to their admissibility would have been valid if timely made, and there was no occasion for him to consider that question.