Chin Yow v. United States

• Decision Date: 06 January 1908
• Docket Number: No. 76,76
• Citation: 208 U.S. 8,28 S.Ct. 201,52 L.Ed. 369
• Parties: CHIN YOW, Appt., v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

208 U.S. 8

28 S.Ct. 201

52 L.Ed. 369

CHIN YOW, Appt.,

v UNITED STATES.

No. 76.

Submitted December 13, 1907.

Decided January 6, 1908.

Mr. Maxwell Evarts for appellant.

Assistant Attorney General Cooley for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 8-10 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a petition for habeas corpus by a Chinese person, alleging that he is detained unlawfully by the general manager of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company on the ground that he is not entitled to enter the United States. The petition alleges that the petitioner is a resident and citizen of the United States, born in San Francisco of parents domiciled there, but it discloses that the commissioner of immigration at the port of San Francisco, after a hearing, denied his right to land, and that the Department of Commerce and Labor affirmed the decision on appeal. The petitioner thereupon was placed in custody of the steamship company to be sent to China. So far the case is within United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U. S. 253, 49 L. ed. 1040, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 644, and the petition was dismissed for want of jurisdiction (presumably on the ground of that decision), as sufficiently appears from the record, the reasons assigned for the appeal, and the order allowing the same. But the petition further alleges that the petitioner was prevented by the officials of the commissioner from obtaining testimony, including that of named witnesses, and that had he been given a proper opportunity he could have produced overwhelming evidence that he was born in the United States and remained there until 1904, when he departed to China on a temporary visit. We do not scrutinize the allegations as if they were contained in a criminal indictment before the court upon a special demurrer, but without further detail read them as importing that the petitioner arbitrarily was denied such a hearing, and such an opportunity to prove his right to enter the country, as the statute meant that he should have. The question is whether he is entitled to a writ of habeas corpus on such a case as that.

Of course, if the writ is granted, the first issue to be tried is the truth of the allegations last mentioned. If the petitioner was not denied a fair opportunity to produce the evidence that he desired, or a fair though summary hearing, the case can proceed no farther. Those facts are the foundation of the jurisdiction of the district court, if it has any jurisdiction at all. It must not be supposed that the mere allegation of the facts opens the merits of the case, whether those facts are proved or not. And, by way of caution, we may add that jurisdiction would not be established simply by proving that the commissioner and the Department of Commerce and Labor did not accept certain sworn statements as true, even though no contrary or impeaching testimony was adduced. But, supposing that it could be shown to the satisfaction of the district judge that the petitioner had been allowed nothing but the semblance of a hearing, as we assume to be alleged, the question is, we repeat, whether habeas corpus may not be used to give the petitioner the hearing that he has been denied.

The statutes purport to exclude aliens only. They create or recognize, for present purposes it does not matter which, the right of citizens outside the jurisdiction to return to the...