Chan Gun v. United States

9 App. D.C. 290, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 3114
CourtDistrict of Columbia Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 23, 1896
DocketNos. 607 and 606
StatusPublished

This text of 9 App. D.C. 290 (Chan Gun v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District of Columbia Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chan Gun v. United States, 9 App. D.C. 290, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 3114 (D.C. 1896).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Shepard

delivered the opinion of the Court:

1. The doctrine is thoroughly established that the admission of aliens within the United States, the conditions upon which they shall be permitted to remain, and the regulation of all proceedings for their deportation, when desired, are matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the political departments of the Government. Nishirmura Ekin v. United States, 142 U. S. 651, 659; Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, 730; Lem Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 538, 547; Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 236.

The execution of the laws for such purposes may be entrusted entirely to executive officers. And the judiciary have no jurisdiction or power whatever in the proceeding save such as may be expressly conferred by the acts of Congress. Lem Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 538, 545; Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 228, 235, 237.

When, however, the enactment goes beyond arrest and necessary detention for the purpose of deportation and undertakes also to punish the alien for his violation of the law, the judicial power will intervene and see that due provision shall have been made, to that extent, for a regular judicial trial as in all cases of crime. Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 237.

No question of that kind, however, is involved in this case, for the arrest and detention of the petitioner were for the sole purpose of his deportation.

This proceeding, as was said in Fong Yue Ting’s case, is in no proper sense a trial and sentence for a crime or offence. It is simply the ascertainment, by appropriate and lawful means, of the fact whether the conditions exist upon which Congress has enacted that an alien of this class may remain within the country. The order of deportation is not a punishment for crime. It is not a banishment in the sense in which that word is often applied to the expulsion of a citizen from his country by way of punishment. [299]*299It is but a method of enforcing the return to his own country of an alien who has not complied with the conditions upon the performance of which the government of the nation, acting within its constitutional authority and through the proper departments, has determined that his continuing to reside here shall depend. He has not, therefore, been deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; and the provisions of the Constitution securing the right of trial by jury, and prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures and cruel and unusual punishments, have no application.” 149 U. S. 730.

The justice of the Supreme Court of the District, who made the order, is without doubt “a United States Judge” within the meaning of the exclusion acts; and hence had jurisdiction to grant the orders for deportation as in said acts provided. But it is contended that he could only acquire jurisdiction through the formal arrest of the petitioner under a complaint made in writing as provided in Section 13 of the act of September 10, 1888, which contains the following clause:

That any Chinese person or person of Chinese descent found unlawfully in the United States or its territories may be arrested upon a warrant issued upon a complaint under oath, filed by any party on behalf of the United States, by any justice, judge or commissioner of any United States court, returnable before any justice, judge or commissioner of a United States court, or before any United States court, and when convicted, upon a hearing, and found and adjudged to be one not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States, such person shall be removed from the United States to the country whence he came.”

The authority for the arrest of the petitioner by the deputy collector of internal revenue, without complaint under oath, or warrant, is claimed under Section 6 of the act of November 3, 1893, which provides that any Chinese [300]*300laborer, who, without having complied with the requirements of the law for his identification, shall be found within the jurisdiction of the United States, etc., “may -be arrested by any United States customs official, collector of internal revenue or his deputies, United States marshal or his deputies, and taken before a United States judge, whose duty it shall be to order that he be deported from the United States.” 28 Stat. 7.

On behalf of the appellant it is contended, ip. the first place, that this section cannot apply to him because he has been adjudged to be a “Chinese person” and not a “Chinese laborer,” to whom the same only applies; and, in the second place, that the arrest therein directed must be made as provided in Section 13 of the Act of 1888, aforesaid, and in no other other manner.

We cannot agree with counsel that arrest upon a formal complaint under oath is a necessary prerequisite to the authority of the judge to make the order of deportation.

Let it be conceded that the law contemplates an arrest only after complaint under oath shall have been made, and yet it does not follow that when an alien, unlawfully in the country, shall have been seized without warrant, by one of the officers named, the judge before whom he may be brought is wholly without power to order his deportation. There is nothing in any provision of the several acts to warrant such a conclusion.

Grant, also, that there may be a substantial distinction between the case of a “Chinese laborer” and that of a “Chinese person,” not a laborer, and that a Chinese subject who shall have been arrested as a laborer should appear to be, not a laborer, within the definition of the act, but yet a Chinese person unlawfully within the country, would the judge nevertheless be without power to order his deportation? We cannot think so. Any other conclusion would violate the spirit of the several acts, if not their letter. As-, we have seen above, the proceeding is not a judicial one for [301]*301the punishment of a crime, but a mere executive process through which the unquestioned political power, in the case of aliens, is exercised.

The spirit of the laws (with the wisdom, policy or justice of which the judiciary department has nothing to do) is manifest in the several provisions that compel the order of deportation to be made, in all cases, unless the alien shall make proof of his compliance with all the conditions upon which his right to remain in the country depends. If a Chinese person, whether merchant or laborer, is arrested as unlawfully within the country, and, when brought before a United States judge for the necessary order of deportation, fails to produce his certificate or to make the proof required in lieu thereof, by the terms of the law his deportation must be ordered. The law is peremptory. See act of May 5,1892, Sec. 3; act of November 3, 1893, Sec. 1.

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Related

Nishimura Ekiu v. United States
142 U.S. 651 (Supreme Court, 1892)
Fong Yue Ting v. United States
149 U.S. 698 (Supreme Court, 1893)
Lem Moon Sing v. United States
158 U.S. 538 (Supreme Court, 1895)
Wong Wing v. United States
163 U.S. 228 (Supreme Court, 1896)

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9 App. D.C. 290, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 3114, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chan-gun-v-united-states-dc-1896.