Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Pangilinan Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Manzano

• Decision Date: 17 June 1988
• Docket Number: Nos. 86-1992,86-2019,s. 86-1992
• Citation: 108 S.Ct. 2210,486 U.S. 875,100 L.Ed.2d 882
• Parties: IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, Petitioner, v. Antolin Punsalan PANGILINAN et al. IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, Petitioner, v. Bonifacio Lorenzana MANZANO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

486 U.S. 875

108 S.Ct. 2210

100 L.Ed.2d 882

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, Petitioner,

v Antolin Punsalan PANGILINAN et al.

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, Petitioner,

v. Bonifacio Lorenzana MANZANO.

Nos. 86-1992, 86-2019.

Argued Feb. 24, 1988.

Decided June 17, 1988.

Rehearings Denied Sept. 15, 1988.

See 487 U.S. 1264, 109 S.Ct. 27.

Syllabus

Respondents, 16 Filipino nationals, who served with the United States Armed Forces during World War II, seek United States citizenship pursuant to §§ 701 through 705 of the Nationality Act of 1940, as amended in 1942. Under § 702 of the Act, the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization was authorized to designate representatives to receive petitions, conduct hearings, and grant naturalization outside the United States. In August 1945, the American Vice Consul in Manila was designated pursuant to § 702 to naturalize aliens. The Philippine Government, however, expressed its concern that a mass migration of newly naturalized veterans would drain the soon-to-be independent country's manpower, and so the naturalization officer's authority was revoked for a 9-month period between October 1945 and August 1946. Respondents would have been eligible for citizenship under the provisions of the 1940 Act if they had filed naturalization applications before the Act expired on December 31, 1946, but did not do so. More than 30 years later, they petitioned for naturalization, claiming that the 9-month absence of a § 702 naturalization officer violated the 1940 Act and deprived them of rights secured by the Fifth Amendment. The naturalization examiner, in all of the cases consolidated here, recommended against naturalization, and the District Courts rejected the naturalization petitions. On respondents' appeals (some of which were consolidated), heard in two cases by different Ninth Circuit panels, the Court of Appeals ultimately held that the revocation of the Vice Consul's naturalization authority violated what it characterized as the 1940 Act's mandatory language, and that the naturalization of respondents was an appropriate equitable remedy.

Held:

1. Neither by application of the doctrine of estoppel, nor by invocation of equitable powers, nor by any other means does a court have the power to confer citizenship in violation of the limitations imposed by Congress in the exercise of its exclusive constitutional authority over naturaliza- tion. Since respondents have no current statutory right to citizenship under the expired provisions of the 1940 Act, the Ninth Circuit lacked authority to grant the petitions for naturalization. The reasoning of INS v. Hibi, 414 U.S. 5, 94 S.Ct. 19, 38 L.Ed.2d 7—which held that the same official acts as those alleged here did not give rise to an estoppel that prevented the Government from invoking the December 31, 1946, cutoff date in the 1940 Act—suggests the same result as to the "equitable remedy" theory in this case. Even assuming that, in reviewing naturalization petitions, federal courts sit as courts of equity, such courts can no more disregard statutory provisions than can courts of law. Congress has given the power to the federal courts to make someone a citizen as a specific function to be performed in strict compliance with the terms of 8 U.S.C. § 1421(d), which states that a person may be naturalized "in the manner and under the conditions prescribed in this subchapter, and not otherwise." Pp. 882-885.

2. Assuming that respondents can properly invoke the Constitution's protections, and granting that they had statutory entitlements to naturalization, there is no merit to their contention that the revocation of the Vice Consul's naturalization authority deprived them of their rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and under its equal protection component. Respondents were not entitled to individualized notice of any statutory rights and to the continuous presence of a naturalization officer in the Philippines from October 1945 until July 1946. Moreover, the historical record does not support the contention that the actions at issue here were motivated by any racial animus. Pp. 885—886.

3. There is no merit to the separate arguments of respondents Litonjua and Manzano, including the argument that the Government did not introduce any evidence in their cases concerning the historical events at issue. It is well settled that the burden is on the alien applicant to establish his eligibility for citizenship. Pp. 886-887.

796 F.2d 1091 (CA9 1986), reversed.

SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and BRENNAN, WHITE, MARSHALL, STEVENS, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., concurred in the result. KENNEDY, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the cases.

Robert H. Klonoff, for petitioner.

Donald L. Ungar, San Francisco, Cal., for respondents.

Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.

The respondents, 16 Filipino nationals who served with the United States Armed Forces during World War II, claim they are entitled to apply for and receive American citizenship under a special immigration statute that expired over 40 years ago, §§ 701 to 705 of the Nationality Act of 1940, Ch. 876, 54 Stat. 1137, as amended by the Second War Powers Act of 1942, § 1001, Ch. 199, 56 Stat. 182, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1001 to 1005 (1940 ed., Supp. V) (1940 Act). In the decisions below ¹ the Ninth Circuit has, for the third time, ordered naturalization under that expired provision. See Mendoza v. United States, 672 F.2d 1320 (CA9 1982), rev'd, 464 U.S. 154, 104 S.Ct. 568, 78 L.Ed.2d 379 (1984); INS v. Hibi, 475 F.2d 7 (CA9), rev'd, 414 U.S. 5, 94 S.Ct. 19, 38 L.Ed.2d 7 (1973). In part because the decision below was in direct conflict with the Second Circuit's decision in Olegario v. United States, 629 F.2d 204 (CA2 1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 980, 101 S.Ct. 1513, 67 L.Ed.2d 814 (1981), we granted certiorari, 484 U.S. 814, 108 S.Ct. 66, 98 L.Ed.2d 30.

I

A.

In March 1942, Congress amended the immigration laws to make American citizenship more readily available to aliens who served honorably in the United States Armed Forces during World War II. As amended at that time, § 701 of the 1940 Nationality Act exempted those aliens from such naturalization requirements as five years of residency in the United States and proficiency in the English language.² Section 702 authorized representatives designated by the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization to receive petitions, conduct hearings, and grant naturalization outside the United States.³ And § 705 authorized the Commissioner, with the approval of the Attorney General, to make such rules and regulations as were necessary to carry into effect the provisions of §§ 701 and 702.⁴

Over the next three years, approximately 7,000 Filipino soldiers were naturalized as American citizens in places outside the Philippine Islands (which were occupied during that entire period by Japan). Most of these were naturalized by courts in this country, but at least 1,000 others were naturalized by immigration officials appointed under § 702, traveling from post to post on rotation throughout England, Iceland, North Africa, and the islands of the Pacific. See Hibi, 414 U.S., at 10, 94 S.Ct., at 22-23 (Douglas, J., dissenting). After the Philippines were liberated from Japanese occupation in August 1945, George Ennis, the American Vice Consul in Manila, was designated to naturalize aliens pursuant to the 1940 Act. Almost immediately after that, the Philippine Government began to express its concern that a mass migration of newly naturalized veterans would drain the country of essential manpower, undermining postwar reconstruction efforts in the soon-to-be independent country. Accordingly, on September 13, 1945, the Commissioner recommended to Attorney General Clark that Vice Consul Ennis' naturalization authority be revoked.⁵ On October 26, 1945, Ennis was in- formed of that revocation. For the next nine months no official with § 702 authority to receive and act upon petitions for naturalization was present in the Philippines, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) apparently taking the position that appointment of such an official was authorized but not mandated. Not until August 1946 did the INS designate a new § 702 official for the Philippines, who naturalized approximately 4,000 Filipinos before the December 31, 1946, expiration date of the 1940 Act.

B

Attorney General Clark's revocation of Vice Consul Ennis' naturalization authority during those nine months of 1945 and 1946 has led to a stream of litigation involving efforts by Filipino veterans to obtain naturalization under the expired 1940 Act. In the suits we have before us here, all of the respondents except Mario Valderrama Litonjua and Bonifacio Lorenzana Manzano filed their petitions in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The INS has stipulated that all of these 14 respondents (the Pangilinan respondents) were eligible for naturalization under the 1940 Act and were present in the Philippines during the period from October 1945 to August 1946, though they had not taken affirmative steps to be naturalized before the cutoff date. The naturalization examiner who handled these cases recommended against naturaliza- tion, and the District Court decided against naturalization, relying on the Second Circuit's decision in Olegario. The naturalization petitions were consolidated for purposes of appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

Respondent Litonjua's petition for naturalization was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. Litonjua had served as a member of the United States Navy from May 1941 to April 1946, but had made no effort to apply for naturalization while on active duty. He made preliminary efforts to obtain citizenship while working as a civilian employee of the United States Army in...