Ex parte Szumrak

278 F. 803, 1922 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 945
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Michigan
DecidedFebruary 23, 1922
DocketNo. 7766
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 278 F. 803 (Ex parte Szumrak) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex parte Szumrak, 278 F. 803, 1922 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 945 (E.D. Mich. 1922).

Opinion

TUTTLE, District Judge.

This is a petition filed £>y the above-named petitioner, an alien praying for writs of habeas corpus and cer-tiorari directed to P. L. Prentis, United States immigration inspector in charge at Detroit, in this district, whom the petitioner alleges to be unlawfully detaining him preparatory to deporting him as an undesirable alien. The writs sought having been granted, and the respondent having filed his return thereto, a hearing has been held thereon in open court, and the cause submitted upon briefs which have been carefully considered. The material facts are as follows:

Petitioner, who is an alien, being a citizen of Czecho-Slovakia, entered the United States January 4, 1911. On April 3, 1914, he pleaded guilty in this court to having theretofore and in June, 1913, kept, maintained, supported, and harbored in a house in said city of Detroit a certain alien woman for immoral purposes, in pursuance of the illegal importation by him of said alien woman, contrary to the provisions of section 3 of the Immigration Act then in force. Act Feb. 20, 1907, c. 1134, 34 Stat. 899, as amended by section 2, Act March 26, 1910, c.-128, 36 Stat. 264. Thereupon said alien was sentenced by this court to the Detroit House of Correction for a term of three months. While petitioner was serving this sentence, on. April 22, 1914, a warrant was issued by the Department of Labor for his arrest and deportation, on the ground that he was unlawfully within the United States, in that he had been convicted of violating section 3 of the aforesaid Immigration Act. Petitioner then being confined in the Detroit House of Correction, pursuant to the sentence of this court just mentioned, his hearing on the charge alleged in said warrant was held at said House of Correction on April 27, 1914. At the conclusion of said hearing the immigration inspector in charge thereof made a written finding that said alien had entered the United States at the date aforesaid, and was -unlawfully within the United States by reason of his conviction of a violation of section 3 of the Immigration Act, and his deportation was therein recommended. Petitioner was left in the custody of the warden of the House of Correction, “to await decision in his case by the Secretary of Labor.”

It will be noted that the sentence imposed upon him by this court had not then expired. A warrant of deportation was issued May 6, 1914, but for some unexplained reason petitioner was released from prison at the expiration of his sentence, July 2, 1914, without any effort to detain or deport him. (I take judicial notice of the World War commencing August 2, 1914, and resulting European conditions, which made deportation difficult, if not impossible, for a very long period.) No further action by the government was taken until March! 16, 1921, when another warrant for the arrest of petitioner was issued by the Department of Labor, charging that the alien in question, “who landed at an unknown port on or about the 15th of June, 1920, has been found in the United States in violation of the Immigra[805]*805tion Act of February 5, 1917 [Comp. St 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, §§ 959, 960, 42SS'b:ia-T-2891/4u], for the following, among other reasons: That he procured or attempted to procure or import a woman for an immoral purpose.” Petitioner was thereupon taken into custody under this warrant, and hearings held thereon on June 14, June 18, and July 1, 1921, at the conclusion of which hearings the immigration inspector in charge made a written finding that said alien “entered the United States at an unknown port on or about June 15, 1920, and that lie procured or attempted to procure or import a woman lor an immoral purpose.” His deportation was recommended, and another warrant of deportation issued, August 26, 1921, directing his deportation on the ground that he had been found in the United States “in violation of tiie Immigration Act cf February 5, 1917, to wit, that he procured or attempted to procure or import a woman for an immoral purpose.”

Tiie return of the respondent states that petitioner entered the United States on or about the 4th day of January, 1911; that the latter is an undesirable alien, in that lie procured or attempted to procure or import a woman for immoral pm poses into the United States, has pleaded guilty to the said offense before this Court, and been sentenced therefor; and that “respondent is holding said petitioner for deportation on a warrant charging that he procured or attempted to procure or import a woman into the United States for immoral purposes, a copy of said warrant being attached hereto.” Attached to said return are copies of the two warrants of deportation hereinbefore mentioned. Although the government places particular reliance on the proceedings and warrant of 1914, it does not waive the proceedings and warrant of 1921, and expressly claims the benefit of both proceedings, and the right to deport on either warrant.

While it is apparent from the foregoing that in the 1921 proceedings, following the issuance of the May 6, 1914, warrant of deportation, there lias been manifest, error and much confusion on the part of certain immigration officials, yet there is nothing about these subsequent proceedings which in any way affects the proceedings had in 1914. There is nothing about the warrant of 1921 and the proceedings in connection therewith, which would invalidate the warrant and proceedings of 1914. if said warrant of 1914 is otherwise now valid and enforceable. It is here conceded by both parties that petitioner entered this country January 4, 1911, and that the statute applicable to his rights and liabilities is the Immigration Act of 1907, as amended by the Immigration Act of 1910, hereinbefore mentioned, and not the Immigration Act of 1917. In determining the present validity and force of the warrant of May 6, 1914, I shall ignore, and treat as surplusage, all proceedings taken under the 1921 warrant of arrest and deportation. I shall decide the case upon the construction, scope, and effect of the applicable sections (3, 20, and 21) of the 1907 act as amended by the 1910 act, and a consideration of the actions and proceedings taken thereunder through, and pursuant to, the 1914 warrant: of arrest and deportation.

1. Section 3 of the act, before its amendment, provided as follows:

“That the importation into the United States of any alien woman or girl for tiie purpose oí prostitution, or for any other immoral purpose, is hereby forbidden; and whoever shall, directly or indirectly, import, or attempt to [806]*806import, into the United States, any alien woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral purpose, or whoever shall hold or attempt to hold any alien woman or girl for any such purpose in pursuance of such illegal importation, or whoever shall keep, maintain, control, support, or harbor in any house or other place, for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral purpose, any alien woman or girl, within three years after she shall have entered the United States, shall, in every such case, be deemed guilty of a felony, and on conviction thereof be imprisoned not more than five years and pay a fine of not more than five thousand dollars; and any alien woman or girl who shall be found an inmate of a house of prostitution or practicing prostitution, at any time within three years after she shall have entered the United States, shall be deemed to be unlawfully within the United States and shall be deported as provided by sections twenty and twenty-one of this act.”

After the 1910 amendment, this section read as follows:

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Bluebook (online)
278 F. 803, 1922 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 945, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-szumrak-mied-1922.