United States ex rel. Lee Kum Hoy v. Shaughnessy

133 F. Supp. 850, 1955 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2960
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedAugust 8, 1955
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 133 F. Supp. 850 (United States ex rel. Lee Kum Hoy v. Shaughnessy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States ex rel. Lee Kum Hoy v. Shaughnessy, 133 F. Supp. 850, 1955 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2960 (S.D.N.Y. 1955).

Opinion

DIMOCK, District Judge.

Respondent has submitted a form of order dismissing a writ of habeas corpus. The writ was originally sued out to attack respondent’s right to hold three children of the Chinese race born in China who had been excluded from the United States. They had claimed American citizenship by virtue of one Lee Ha whom they claimed as their father. The Board of Special Inquiry, largely on the basis of blood tests held to preclude paternity, rejected their claim and they were taken in custody pursuant to that determination. I held that relators had been wrongfully denied opportunities to attack the blood tests and directed that the writ should be sustained unless the hearings were reopened in order to afford relators those opportunities. United States ex rel. Lee Kum Hoy v. Shaughnessy, D.C., 115 F.Supp. 302. The hearings were reopened and relators were afforded the opportunities to which they were entitled. The Board of Special Inquiry reached the same result as it had on the earlier hearing and its determination was sustained by the Board of Immigration Appeals. Following the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals respondent sought, before me, a dismissal of the writ. On that occasion, the second time that the matter was before me, relators claimed: first, that the mere requirement of a blood test was a denial of due process of law and, second, that blood tests were actually used only in cases of persons of the Chinese race and that this limitation of the use of the tests constituted such a discrimination as to deny these relators due process of law. I held that relators’ first point was unfounded but that “[i]f the facts established a deliberate use of the blood test technique to exclude Chinese and admit others similarly qualified except for race, the discrimination would clearly be unconstitutional” and I stated that the writ would be sustained unless the hearing before the Board of Special Inquiry were reopened “for the purpose of (a) the introduction of evidence with respect to the requirement of blood grouping tests in the cases of persons of the Chinese race and the omission to require blood grouping tests under similar circumstances in the cases of persons of other races and (b) the determination, upon such evidence, of the issue of discrimination.” United States ex rel. Lee Kum Hoy v. Shaughnessy, D.C., 123 F.Supp. 674, 678. Following the decision the hearings were reopened. Relators sought from me a direction that documents on the subject of discrimination be produced before the Special Inquiry Officer. I held it beyond my power to grant the application. United States ex rel. Lee Kum Hoy v. Shaughnessy, D.C., 16 F.R.D. 558. The Special Inquiry Officer found, as a fact, that “there was no discrimination at the time these applicants sought admission to the United States in 1952”, and reached the same result as before. His determina[852]*852tion was affirmed by the Board of Immigration Appeals. The case is now before me, for the third time, on respondent’s application for an order dismissing the writ.

The issue of discrimination has been thrown into such bold relief in the case and relators have made such extraordinary efforts to get into the record all that the Government possessed on the subject, that I am justified in determining that issue upon that record.

It has become so clear that the policy of the Immigration Authorities is to apply blood tests to all Chinese and to no whites that even the presumption of administrative finality will not support a determination to the contrary. The Government has been unable to point to a single instance where a white person had been subjected to a blood test or a Chinese excused from one.

In July of 1953, when charges of racial discrimination against the Chinese in blood tests were first made in relators’ application for a writ of habeas corpus, the government denied that Chinese were singled out for such tests and claimed that blood tests were required in all cases where there were no birth certificates or other documents of identity. Thus, in the Government brief, it was stated that blood tests were not imposed upon Chinese persons alone, but upon “all persons attempting to enter the United States without birth certificates and similar documents”. Similar statements were contained in several subsequent government affidavits to the effect that blood tests were required only in those cases where there was an absence of birth cerificates and other documentary evidence of identity.

In answering this argument of the government, relators cited two cases where Chinese persons were blood tested notwithstanding the fact that they had birth certificates. This was noted by me in my decision at 123 F.Supp. 674, 677, supra, where I said that these two cases lent substance to the claim that Chinese, regardless of the availability of birth certificates or other documents, were always subjected to a blood test while other persons never were.'

In the reopened hearing following that decision, the Immigration Bureau witness sought to minimize the importance of birth certificates in determining whether a blood test was necessary, stating that it was “Qnly one of the many criteria” for determining whether a blood test was needed in a particular case. According to the witness there are three common patterns of children of American citizens born abroad who apply for admittance to the United States as citizens. The first' involves an American child in an “American colony” abroad, whose parents keep in close touch with the Consulate, and where the births and marriages would be registered at the Consulate. The second pattern, which, like the first, is not the usual pattern for Chinese children, would be where the American parent is not known to the Consulate, but where birth and marriage certificates are produced to substantiate the claim and, most important, the children involved are born in an area where the Consul could speedily conduct an investigation and ascertain from neighbors, friends and local government officials, the true identity of the child.

In the foregoing two patterns of cases, the witness stated “there would be no need for using blood test evidence to verify an obvious relationship”. The third type of situation was one which he said was typical of Chinese. This was where the child was born in the remote interior of China, where no birth or marriage certificates were kept, and, most important of all, the claimed area of birth was inaccessible to the Consul and hence where he could not conduct any investigation as to the circumstances of the child’s birth. The witness then concluded and reaffirmed on cross examination that the most important factor in determining whether a blood test would be required is whether a child is born in an area where the American Consul can readily conduct an investigation. He [853]*853said that, if the Consul could verify the identity of the child involved from his investigation, by talking to neighbors, friends and local officials, there would be no need for a blood test.

Although the witness testified that the most important criterion for determining the necessity of a blood test— namely, the ability of the consulate to investigate the area of a person’s birth— had been a factor in immigration investigations which antedated by a long time the use of blood tests, he admitted that, in the government brief filed when this case was first argued, there was no mention at all of this “most important” criterion.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. Shaughnessy
237 F.2d 307 (Second Circuit, 1957)
United States ex rel. Lee Kum Hoy v. Shaughnessy
237 F.2d 307 (Second Circuit, 1956)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
133 F. Supp. 850, 1955 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2960, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-ex-rel-lee-kum-hoy-v-shaughnessy-nysd-1955.