Cheng Lee King v. Carnahan, 15415.
Decision Date | 24 March 1958 |
Docket Number | No. 15415.,15415. |
Citation | 253 F.2d 893 |
Parties | CHENG LEE KING, Appellant, v. Davis H. CARNAHAN, as Regional Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Appellee. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Fallon & Hargreaves, San Francisco, Cal., for appellant.
Lloyd H. Burke, U. S. Atty., Charles Elmer Collett, Asst. U. S. Atty., for appellee.
Before FEE and CHAMBERS, Circuit Judges, and WALSH, District Judge.
Cheng Lee King, a merchant seaman born in Hainan Islands (now within the limits of Communist China), seeks adjustment of his immigration status as a permanent resident under Section 6 of the Refugee Relief Act of 1953.1 He is a national of Communist China, but asserts he is anti-Communist. When eleven years of age he was taken to Singapore in the Malay States where he was a resident until 1939. He left there as a seaman that year and has never returned to Singapore or to China. Since leaving Singapore he seems to have established no residence other than his tenuous "residence" in the United States.
During World War II he sailed out of British ports into the Mediterranean area. Since the war he has been generally on Panamanian Ships (American owned) or on American ships out of American ports.
The immigration service appears to have concluded that he does qualify under the act as having entered the United States lawfully as a non-immigrant, but has denied him adjustment because of his former residence in Singapore. He produces proof that he cannot return to Singapore for residence.2 Also, he fears persecution in China because of his service on American ships carrying munitions to the Korean theatre during the Korean hostilities. The last two factual matters were conceded by the immigration authorities.
The immigration service and the district court have decided against him. So where can this Philip Nolan go? Of course, the Congress does not have to admit all Philip Nolans. Our question involves a construction of the aforementioned Section 6 which reads as follows:
67 Stat. 403 (Aug. 7, 1953) 68 Stat. 1044 (Aug. 31, 1954).
Literally the key words "unable to return to the country of his birth, or nationality, or last residence" are in the disjunctive. Literally King is entitled to relief if he can't go back because of fear of persecution on account of political opinion to the country of his birth or to the country of his nationality or to the country of his last residence.
When the Congress was passing the act it was in a beneficent mood, but we cannot attribute to the Congress a construction, a meaning so broad as...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Leong Leun Do v. Esperdy
...seeks to have us adopt the interpretation which the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reached and applied in Cheng Lee King v. Carnahan, 253 F.2d 893 (9 Cir.1958). In that case a merchant seaman, a Chinese national, born in China but with a "last residence" in Singapore, sought permane......
-
Bajalieh v. Beechie
...no longer exists, he is unable to "return" to that "country". Appellant relies upon the decision of this court in Cheng Lee King v. Carnahan, 1958, 9 Cir., 253 F.2d 893. Cheng Lee King was a national of Communist China, but last resided at Singapore. He could not return to the country of hi......
-
Leong Leun Do v. Esperdy
...Republic has refused permission for his return to that country. An analogous situation was presented in the case of Cheng Lee King v. Carnahan, 9 Cir., 1958, 253 F.2d 893. There the plaintiff was born in China and was taken at an early age to Singapore, where he resided until 1939. Thereaft......