Charles Zartarian v. George Billings

• Decision Date: 07 January 1907
• Docket Number: No. 120,120
• Parties: CHARLES ZARTARIAN, Appt., v. GEORGE B. BILLINGS, United States Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of Boston
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

204 U.S. 170

27 S.Ct. 182

51 L.Ed. 428

CHARLES ZARTARIAN, Appt.,

v GEORGE B. BILLINGS, United States Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of Boston.

No. 120.

Submitted December 7, 1906.

Decided January 7, 1907.

Mr. Daniel B. Ruggles for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from page 171 intentionally omitted]

Assistant Attorney General Cooley for appellee.

Mr. Justice Day delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from an order of the circuit court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts, denying a pe- tition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Charles Zartarian in behalf of Mariam Zartarian, his daughter, who, it was alleged, was unlawfully imprisoned, detained, and restrained of her liberty at Boston by the United States Commissioner of Immigration, which imprisonment was alleged to have been in violation of the constitutional rights of the said Mariam Zartarian, without due process of law, and contrary to the provisions of § 2172 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1334), which section, it is alleged, made said Mariam a citizen of the United States by virtue of the citizenship of her father, the petitioner.

The United States District Attorney and the attorney for the petitioner stipulated the following facts:

'The petitioner, Charles Zartarian, formerly a subject of the Sultan of Turkey, became a naturalized citizen of the United States on September 12, 1896, at the circuit court of Cook county, in the state of Illinois. That his daughter Mariam, on whose behalf this petition is brought, is a girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age, and was born just prior to the petitioner leaving Turkey. That in the latter part of the year 1904 the Turkish government, at the request of the United States minister at Constantinople, granted permission to the petitioner's wife, minor son, and his said daughter, Mariam, to emigrate to the United States, it being stipulated in the passport issued to them that they could never return to Turkey. That on March 22, 1905, the Hon. G. V. L. Meyer, then United States Ambassador at Rome, Italy, issued a United States passport to your petitioner's said wife and daughter. That said Mariam arrived at Boston from Naples, Italy, on April 18, 1905, and that on April 18, 1905, she was found to have trachoma, and was debarred from landing by a board of special inquiry appointede by the United States Commissioner of Immigration for the port of Boston.'

The petitioner's child, Mariam Zartarian, was debarred from landing at the port of Boston under the provisions of the act of March 3, 1903, chap. 1012, 32 Stat. at L. 1213, U. S. Comp. Stat Supp. 1903, p. 170, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1905, p. 274, entitled 'An Act to Regulate the Immigration of Aliens into the United States.'

Section 2 of that act, among other things, provides that certain classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission to the United States, including 'persons afflicted with a loathsome or with a dangerous contagious disease.' Upon the finding of the board of inquiry that said Mariam had trachoma, she was debarred from landing.

The contention is that she does not come within the terms of this statute, not being an alien, but entitled to be considered a citizen of the United States, under the provisions of § 2172 of the Revised Statutes, which provides: 'The children of persons who have been duly naturalized under any law of the United States . . . being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of the naturalization of their parents, shall, if dwelling in the United States, be considered as citizens thereof.'

As Mariam was born abroad, a native of Turkey, she has not become a citizen of the United States, except upon compliance with the terms of the act of Congress, for, wanting native birth, she cannot otherwise become a citizen of the United States. Her right to citizenship, if any she has, is the creation of Congress, exercising the power over this subject conferred by the Constitution. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 702, 42 L. ed. 890, 909, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 456.

The relevant section, 2172, which it is maintained confers the right of citizenship, is the culmination of a number of acts on the subject passed by Congress from the earliest period of the government. Their history will be found in vol. 3, Moore's International Law Digest, p. 467.

The act of 1872 is practically the same as the act of April 14, 1802 (2 Stat. at L. 153, chap. 28, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1334), which provided:

'The children of persons duly naturalized under any of the laws of the United States . . . being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of their parents being so naturalized . . . shall, if dwelling in the United States, be considered as citizens of the United States; and the children of persons who are now or have been citizens of the United States shall, though born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, be...