Court Opinion

ID: 9417998
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:46:15.473826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:53.929101
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Holmes
delivered the opinion of the court.
This case comes here on a certificate from the Circuit Court of Appeals presenting certain questions of law. It appears that the appellee, being detained by the master of the Steamship Doric for return to China, presented a petition for habeas corpus to the District Court, alleging that he was a native-born citizen of the United States, returning after a temporary *259departure, and was denied permission to land by the collector of the port of San Francisco. It also appears from the petition that he took an appeal from the denial, and that the decision was affirmed by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. No further grounds are stated. The writ issued and the United States made return, and answered showing all the proceedings before the Department, which are not denied to have been in regular form, and setting forth all of the evidence and the orders made. The answer also denied the allegations of the petition. Motions to dismiss the writ were made on the grounds that the decision of the Secretary was conclusive and that no abuse of authority was shown. These were denied, and the District Court decided seemingly on new evidence, subject to exceptions, that Ju Toy was a native-born citizen of the United States. An appeal was taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals alleging errors the nature of which has been indicated. Thereupon the latter court certified the following questions:
“First. Should a District Court of the United States grant a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person of Chinese descent being held for return to China by the steamship company which brought him therefrom, who having recently arrived at a port of the United States made application to land as a native-born citizen thereof and who, after examination by the duly authorized immigration officers, was found by them not to have been born in the United States, was denied admission and ordered deported, which finding and action upon appeal was affirmed by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, when the foregoing facts appear to the court and the petition for the writ alleges unlawful detention on the sole ground that petitioner does not come within the restrictions of the Chinese exclusion acts, because born in and a citizen of the United States and does not allege or show in any other way unlawful action or abuse of their discretion or powers by the immigration officers who excluded him?
“Second. In a habeas corpus proceeding should a District *260Court of the United States dismiss the writ or should it direct' a new or further hearing upon evidence to be presented where the writ had been, granted in behalf of a person of Chinese descent being held by the steamship company for return to China from, whence it brought him, who recently arrived from that country and asked permission to land upon the ground that he was born in and was a citizen of the United States, when the uncontradicted return and answer show that such person was granted a hearing by the proper immigration officers who found he was not born in the United States, that his application for admission was considered and denied by such officers, and that thé denial was affirmed upon appeal to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and where nothing more appears to show that such executive officers failed to grant a proper hearing, abused their discretion, or acted in any unlawful or improper way upon the case presented to them for determination?
“Third. In a habeas corpus proceeding in a District Court of the United States instituted in behalf of a person of Chinese descent being held for- return to China by the steamship company which recently brought him therefrom to a port of the United States and who applied for admission therein upon the ground that he was á native-born citizen thereof but who, after a hearing, the lawfully designated immigration officers found was not born therein and to whom they denied admission which finding and denial, upon appeal to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, was affirmed — should the court treat the finding and action of such executive officers upon the question of citizenship' and other questions of fact as having been made by a tribunal authorized to decide the same and as final arid conclusive unless it be made affirmatively to appear that' such officers, in the case submitted to them, abused the discretion .vested iri them or in some other way in hearing and determining the same committed prejudicial error?”
We assume in what we have to say, as the questions assume, *261that no abuse of authority of any kind is alleged. That being out of the case, the first of them is answered by the case of United States v. Sing Tuck, 194 U. S. 161, 170. “A petition for habeas corpus ought not to be entertained, unless the court is satisfied that the petitioner can make out at ldast a prima jade case.” This petition should have been denied on this ground, irrespective of what more.we have to say, because it alleged nothing except citizenship. It disclosed neither abuse of authority nor the existence of evidence not laid before the Secretary. It did not even set forth that evidence or allege its effect. But as it was entertained and the .District Court found for the petitioner it would be a severe measure to order the petition to be dismissed on that ground now, and we pass on to further considerations.
The broad question is presented whether or not the decision of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor is conclusive. It was held in United States v. Sing Tuck, 194 U. S. 161, 167, that the act of August 18, 1894, c. 301, § 1, 28 Stat. 372, 390, purported to make it so, but whether the statute could have that effect constitutionally was left untouched, except by a reference to cases where an opinion already had been expressed. To quote the latest first, in The Japanese Immigrant Case (Yamataya v. Fisher), 189 U. S. 86, 97, it was said: “That Congress may exclude aliens of a particular race from the United States; prescribe the terms and conditions upon which certain classes of aliens may come to this country; establish regulations for sending out of the country such aliens as come here in violation of law; and commit the enforcement of such provisions, conditions and regulations exclusively to exécutive officers, without judicial intervention, are. principles firmly established by the decisions of this court.” See also Turner v. Williams, 194 U. S. 279, 290, 291; Chin Bak Kan v. United States, 186 U. S. 193, 200. In Fok Young Yo v. United States, 185 U. S. 296, 304, 305, it was held that the decision of the collector of customs on the right of transit *262across the territory of the United States was conclusive, and, still more to the point, in Lem Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 538, where the petitioner for habeas corpus alleged facts which, if true, gave him a right to enter and remain in the country, it was held that the decision of the collector was final as to whether or.not he belonged to the privileged class.
It is true that it may be argued that these cases are not directly conclusive of the point now under decision, it may be said that the parties concerned were aliens, and that although they alleged absolute rights, and facts which it was contended went to the jurisdiction of the officer making the decision, still, their rights were only treaty or statutory rights, and therefore were subject to the implied qualification imposed by the later statute, which made the decision of the collector with regard to them final. The meaning of the cases and the language which we have quoted is not satisfied by so narrow an interpretation, but we do not delay upon them. They can be read.
It is established, as we have said, that the act purports to make the decision of the Department final, whatever the ground on which the right to enter the country is claimed — as well when it is citizenship as when it is domicil and the belonging to a class excepted from the exclusion acts. United States v. Sing Tuck, 194 U. S. 161, 167; Lem Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 538, 546, 547. It also is established by the former case and others which it cites that the relevant portion of the act of August 18, 1894, c. 301, is not void as a whole. The statute has been upheld and enforced. But the relevant portion being a single section, accomplishing all its results by the same general words, must be valid as to all that it embraces, or altogether void. An exception of a class constitutionally exempted.cannot be read into those general words merely for the purpose of saving what remains. That has been decided over and over again. United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214, 221; Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82, 98, 99; Allen v. *263Louisiana, 103 U. S. 80, 84; United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 641, 642; Virginia Coupon Cases, 114 U. S. 269, 305; Baldwin v. Franks, 120 U. S. 678, 685-689; Smiley v. Kansas, 196 U. S. 447, 455. It necessarily follows that when, such words are sustained they are sustained to their fuál extent.
In view of the cases which we have cited it seems no longer open to discuss the question propounded as a new one. Therefore we do not analyze the nature of the right of a person presenting himself at the frontier for admission. In re Ross, 140 U. S. 453, 464. But it is not improper to add a few words. The petitioner, although physically within our boundaries, is to be regarded as if he had been stopped at the limit of our jurisdiction and kept there while his right to enter was under debate.. If, for the purpose of argument, we assume that the 'Fifth Amendment applies to him and that to deny entrance to a citizen is to deprive him of liberty, we nevertheless are of opinion that with regard to him due process of law does no.t require'’a judicial trial. That is the result of the cases which we have cited and the almost necessary result of the power of . Congress to pass exclusion laws. That the decision may be entrusted to an executive officer and that his decisión is due process of law was affirmed and explained in Nishimura Ekiu v. United States, 142 U. S. 651, 660, and in Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, 713, before the authorities to which we already have referred. It is unnecessary to repeat the often quoted remarks of Mr. Justice Curtis, speaking for the whole court in Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 280, to show that the requirement of a judicial trial does not prevail in every case. Lem Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 538, 546, 547; Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U. S. 86, 100; Public Clearing House v. Coyne, 194 U. S. 497, 508, 509.
We are of opinion that the first question should be answered, no; that the third question should be answered, yes, with the result that the second question should be answered *264that the writ should be dismissed, as it should have been dismissed in this case.
It will be so certified: