Greenwood v. Frick

233 F. 629, 147 C.C.A. 437, 1916 U.S. App. LEXIS 2499
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJune 30, 1916
DocketNo. 2779
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 233 F. 629 (Greenwood v. Frick) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Greenwood v. Frick, 233 F. 629, 147 C.C.A. 437, 1916 U.S. App. LEXIS 2499 (6th Cir. 1916).

Opinion

DENISON, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). [1] 1. The son has always been properly supported by his parents; but if his mother is deported, there is sufficient uncertainty of continuing support by the father alone to justify the finding that the son was, at •his entry, likely to become a public charge. It follows that his right to remain in this country must depend upon his mother’s similar right; if she is deported, he should be.

[2] -2. There is nothing whatever to support finding (a). It is not suggested, in the evidence, that she has ever been convicted of any offense. The finding that she has admitted committing an offense involving moral turpitude can refer to nothing except to her relations with Greenwood. Instead of admitting an offense, she has constantly insisted that, when she entered into the .common-law marriage with Greenwood, Griffin had disappeared, and had been gone for more than 2 years, and that she believed he was dead. Her belief has now been confirmed by the lapse of 11 years, during which she has not been able to learn of Griffin’s existence. Tacking proof that the first husband was living at the time of the marriage to the second, it cannot be said that she was guilty of bigamy; nor, in the presence of her belief that Griffin was dead, can it be said that her conduct involved moral turpitude.1 Support for the deportation must be found elsewhere than in ground (a). ' '

[3] 3. There is nothing to support the finding that she was directly liable to become a public charge. For some time before her departure in April, 1914, she had successfully supported herself in this country. There was no reason to suspect that she could not continue to do so. After her re-entry, she had no difficulty in finding remunerative work. The conclusion that she was likely to become a public charge is merely arbitrary — unless her entry was for an immoral purpose, thereby making her subject to possible prosecution and imprisonment at public expense or naturally tending to a life not supported by honest work, in either of which events there would be a basis for concluding that she was likely to become a public charge. Tam Fung Yen v. Frick, 233 [633]*633Fed. 393, - C. C. A. - (C. C. A. 6, June 16, 1916). It follows that if her entry was of this character, the proofs did tend to support charge (c); otherwise, not; and so charge (c) merges in charge (b).

f 4-6] 4. It was clearly the substantial theory of the deportation proceedings upon charge (b) that since she was not the lawful wife of Greenwood and since she had been allowed to enter for the purpose of living with him as his wife, her entry was for an immoral purpose. The proofs taken at Detroit were directed (except as hereafter stated) to this issue, and we think this is the substantial ground upon which the Secretary of Labor was intending to act when he ordered deportation. As we have seen that there was no evidence even tending to show that she was not Greenwood’s lawful wife, but that the tendency of all the evidence is to the contrary, charge (b) is without support and the deportation cannot rest upon it--except upon the one theory now to he considered and which presents, to our minds, the only close question in the case.

The May New York proofs probably had enough tendency to indicate an entry for the purpose of immoral relations with Cuthbert to furnish legal support for an order by the Secretary to deport her upon that ground. The proofs at Detroit, considered separately, had no such tendency (re Cuthbert). The order of admission made in May, although necessarily involving tlie finding that she' was not entering for this purpose, was not such an adjudication as to bar the Secretary’s subsequent inconsistent action (Pearson v. Williams, 202 U. S. 281, 26 Sup. Ct. 608, 50 L. Ed. 1029); and the Secretary had the lawful right to base his deportatiou order of October upon the charges re Cuthbert, as disclosed in the New York testimony of May, provided the New York testimony was properly brought into the deportation proceedings. The decisive questions, therefore, are two, and the answer to each bears upon the oilier: (1) Did the Secretary really intend this finding (b) to rest upon the Cuthbert affair? (2) If so, did the New York testimony so far come into the record in the deportation case as to justify the Secretary in acting thereon?

We have already indicated what we think the right answer to the first question. The deportation warrant and order made no reference to the May proceedings; they made no identifiable reference to the Cuthbert matter; of course, charge (b) and finding (b) must refer to something, but this reference is sufficiently satisfied by petitioner’s relations to Greenwood; the reasonable inference from the whole record is that the immigration officials had learned that she had not been frank with them regarding her marriage to Greenwood, and that this marriage was not regular and that they proposed to deport her upon that ground and for that reason. They charged this ground directly as the first accusation, charge (a); and charges (b) and (c) were incidental thereto. The Secretary of Labor had considered the Cuthbert affair in May; he had thought it not sufficient to justify exclusion; nothing had intervened tending to persuade him to change his mind; and we think it strongly to he presumed that he did not intend, in October, to order Mrs. Greenwood deported for the same reason and upon the same proofs which in May he had held insufficient to exclude her. We could be satisfied to find such an intent by the Sec[634]*634retary only if the record made that intent necessary to support his finding; but, as we have seen, upon his theory of the Greenwood matter his finding (b) was amply supported otherwise. In addition to this natural inference, we find that the warrant of deportation is expressly declared to rest upon “proofs submitted to me after due hearing * * * held at Detroit.” ■ While this language does not necessarily exclude the existence of other supporting proofs, it seems to do so. That there had been any other hearing except at Detroit would not be supposed by the reader of this warrant; but, if there is ambiguity in the warrant, there is none in the government’s answer, by Inspector Prick, which again declares that the finding of the Secretary was made “upon the aforesaid evidence” (that taken at Detroit); and the answer of the inspector summarizes and concludes by again stating that the process upon which petitioners are detained “is based upon hearing in said cause.” This must mean the same hearing before referred to, the only one mentioned, and the only hearing there had been “in said cause,” viz., in the deportation proceedings.

As to the second question: The New York testimony was in fact never offered in evidence in the deportation proceeding; Mrs. Greenwood never was notified that it was to be used against her or that it was to become a part of the deportation record; and, obviously, unless she was chargeable with notice that it was to be used against her, it formed no part of the “hearing.” The atmosphere of the case lends support to the idea that the new proceeding was intended by everybody to be distinct; the old proceeding was ended; it was not charged that she had proctired her entry by fraud, nor was she otherwise notified that it was proposed to review or reverse the former finding upon the old record.

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Bluebook (online)
233 F. 629, 147 C.C.A. 437, 1916 U.S. App. LEXIS 2499, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/greenwood-v-frick-ca6-1916.