Court Opinion

ID: 9453318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:09:36.450379+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:36.310154
License: Public Domain

DUNIWAY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I dissent.
In my opinion, petitioner was not effectively “relieved * * * from such [military] training or service on such ground,” i. e., “on the ground that he is an alien.” (Section 315(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8 U.S.C. § 1426(a)). I think that the rationale of our decision in United States v. Lacher, 1962, 299 F.2d 919, leads to this result. In that case, we expressly relied on the decisions in In re Rego’s Petition, 3 Cir., 1961, 289 F.2d 174, Cannon v. United States, 2 Cir., 1961, 288 F.2d 269, and United States v. Hoellger, 2 Cir., 1960, 273 F.2d 760.
In Hoellger, the alien applied for and obtained a IV-C classification (alien exemption). He was first so classified on the board’s initiative, on September 11, 1952. He applied for a continuance of that classification in May, 1953. He continued to be classified IV-C until February 9, 1955, when he was reclassified I-A. He was inducted on April 6, 1957. In Rego, the alien applied for IV-C classification on June 29, 1951 and was so classified on October 16, 1951. *347Like Hoellger, he later asked to be continued in that classification, and this was done. He was reclassified I-A on April 24, 1956, and was inducted on June 5, 1956. In Lacher, the alien was classified IV-C on March 8, 1954. He was classified I-A on October 5, 1954 and was inducted on May 28, 1956. Cannon is a little different. There, the alien was classified IV-C on September 11, 1952. On May 21, 1953, he applied for a continuance of this classification. He remained IV-C until November 8, 1954, when he asked that his application for exemption be withdrawn. He was reclassified to I-A on the next day and was drafted November 10, 1956 and inducted November 30, 1956. As is noted in the majority opinion in the present case, the Korean conflict ended on July 27, 1953. Thus, as in this case, Hoellger, Regó and Cannon each obtained exemption as an alien during that conflict and the reclassification and induction of each occurred long after the end of that conflict. Yet in each ease the alien was held eligible for citizenship.
The statute itself makes no distinction between an alien who is relieved from military service on the ground that he is an alien during a time when this country is at war or engaged in a quasi-war or “police action,” and one who is so relieved while this country is at peace. Thus, both the statute and the cases cited above show that the existence of the Korean conflict is legally immaterial. I respectfully suggest that my brethren have allowed a perfectly natural emotional reaction to Lapeniek’s performance to affect their legal judgment.1
There then remains but one question: does the fact that Lapenieks, after being classified I-A and summoned to service, was not inducted because he was found physically unfit, while Lacher, Hoellger, Regó and Cannon were found fit and served, make a legal difference? I conclude that it does not. In all five cases, when the alien’s exemption was terminated, he ceased to be relieved from training or service in the Armed Forces “on such ground,” that is, “on the ground that he is an alien.” (Section 315(a), supra.) The relief then ceased to be “effective” in Lapeniek’s case, just as it did in the other four cases. The decision not to induct him, not to require him to serve, was not “on the ground that he is an alien.” It was on a ground applicable to all registrants, citizens and aliens alike, a ground not selected or selectable by the registrant, but one created by the government because it does not want the service of those whom it finds to be physically unfit according to a standard that it defines and applies. Surely, if Lap-enieks had never been classified IV-C but had been classified IV-F throughout, he would be eligible for citizenship. It may be easier for judges who have firm convictions about the duty to serve to accept the idea of granting citzenship to-an alien who actually serves after the government terminates his exemption than to accept the idea of granting it to Lapenieks, who did not serve because he turned out to be physically unfit.2 But his relief from service on the ground that he was an alien was just as completely terminated when he was reclassified I-A as was the relief granted to Lacher, Rego, Cannon and Hoellger “on such ground” when each of them was thus reclassified. The relief later granted to, or thrust upon, Lapenieks as IV-F was not “on the ground that he [was] an alien.”
*348My view is strengthened by the statement by this court in Mangaoang v. Boyd, 1953, 205 F.2d 553, 556, cert. denied, 346 U.S. 876, 74 S.Ct. 129, 98 L. Ed. 384, that a rule of strict construction should be applied to such statutes as the one before us. That rule was applied to this statute in Rego.
I would reverse.

. I suggest, too, that the decision of this court in Lacher requires that we follow the rationale of Hoellger, Regó and Cannon, on which we expressly relied. Thus, the fact that the court in In re Naturalization of Cuozzo, 3 Cir., 1956, 235 F.2d 184, may have had doubts about that rationale, the fact that Judge Goodman reached a result contrary to our Lacher holding in In re Cerati, N.D.Cal., 1957, 160 F.Supp. 531, and the fact that Judge Friendly dissented in Cannon are immaterial. We are bound by Lacher.

. This, I think, is the explanation for the dictum in Hoellger, 273 F.2d 762, n. 2. I note that a portion of that dictum, referring to an alien who voluntarily subjects himself to service after having been classified IV-C, was not followed in Cannon.