Fong Mey Yuk v. United States

• Decision Date: 24 February 1902
• Docket Number: 716.
• Citation: 113 F. 898
• Parties: FONG MEY YUK v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

113 F. 898

FONG MEY YUK v. UNITED STATES.

No. 716.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

February 24, 1902

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California.

Lyman I. Mowry, for appellant.

Marshall B. Woodworth, U.S. Atty., and Benjamin L. McKinley, for the United States.

The appeal in this case is taken from the judgment of the district court affirming an order of deportation of the appellant, Fong Mey Yuk, who was arrested at San Francisco on April 20, 1901, upon a warrant issued by a United States commissioner upon a complaint sworn to and lodged with said commissioner charging the appellant with being a Chinese manual laborer without the certificate of residence required by the act of congress entitled 'An act to prohibit the coming of Chinese persons into the United States,' approved May 5, 1892, and the act amendatory, approved November 3, 1893. On May 2, 1901, the appellant was brought to trial before said commissioner. Upon the evidence adduced the commissioner made his findings and judgment of deportation, holding that the appellant is a Chinese manual laborer and a subject of the empire of China, and that she was found within the limits of the United States without the certificate of residence required by said acts, and that she had not shown that she had been unable to obtain such certificate for any of the reasons which the act specifies as excuses therefor.

Before GILBERT and MORROW, Circuit Judges, and HAWLEY, District Judge.

GILBERT Circuit Judge, after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court.

The appeal presents two questions-- First, had the United States commissioner jurisdiction to hear and determine the charge set forth in the complaint? And, second, was the evidence sufficient to justify his judgment? Section 12 of the act of May 6, 1882, provides that any Chinese person found unlawfully within the United States shall be deported to the country whence he came, after being brought before some 'justice, judge, or commissioner of a court of the United States, and found to be one not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States. ' Section 12 of the act of July 5, 1884, provides substantially the same remedy as that of the act of May 6, 1882. Section 13 of the act of September 13, 1888, provides that any Chinese person found unlawfully in the United States may be arrested upon a warrant issued upon a complaint under oath 'by any justice, judge, or commissioner of any United States court,' and when convicted upon a hearing, and found and adjudged to be one not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States shall be removed to the country whence he came. Section 2 of the act of May 5, 1892, provides 'that any Chinese person or person of Chinese descent, when convicted and adjudged under any of said laws to be not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States, shall be removed from the United States to China. ' The previous acts had required that such person be removed to the country whence he came. Section 6 makes...