Lopez v. Franklin, Civ. A. No. 6-72502 and 6-72558.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1977
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 6-72502 and 6-72558.
• Parties: Jose M. LOPEZ and Albania G. Lopez, Plaintiffs, v. Jerry M. FRANKLIN, District Director, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Defendant. Emiliano DURAN and Carolina Duran, Plaintiffs, v. Jerry M. FRANKLIN, District Director, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

427 F. Supp. 345

Jose M. LOPEZ and Albania G. Lopez, Plaintiffs, v. Jerry M. FRANKLIN, District Director, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Defendant.

Emiliano DURAN and Carolina Duran, Plaintiffs, v. Jerry M. FRANKLIN, District Director, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Defendant.

Civ. A. Nos. 6-72502 and 6-72558.

United States District Court, E. D. Michigan, S. D.

February 28, 1977.

M. Hector Cisneros, Detroit, Mich., for plaintiffs.

Michele Coleman Mayes, Asst. U. S. Atty., Detroit, Mich., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

PHILIP PRATT and FEIKENS, District Judges.

These individual cases were consolidated for purposes of a single hearing on two issues of constitutional significance common to both: (1) Whether § 201(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act violates the Equal Protection Clause in permitting a native-born citizen over the age of 21 to sponsor the admission of his "immediate relatives" for purposes of permanent residency without regard to numerical limitations while denying such permission to a native-born citizen under the age of 21? (2) Whether the formal deportation of illegal alien parents infringes on the constitutional rights, privileges and immunities of their citizen-child?

There is a general agreement as to the factual situation in each of these cases. The plaintiffs in each action are aliens, citizens of Columbia and Mexico, respectively, who legally entered the United States several years ago on visitor's visas. In each instance, the husband and wife overstayed their allowed visitation time and upon apprehension by the Immigration and Naturalization authorities agreed to depart the country voluntarily rather than undergo formal deportation. In each instance, the couple did not abide by the agreement but rather stayed on illegally and gave birth to a child in this country. The families were subsequently apprehended by Immigration and Naturalization officials. An Immigration Board was convened which found them to be residing illegally in the United States and again ordered their deportation. An application for stay of the deportation order was denied by defendant. Each couple retained counsel who on their behalf instituted an action in federal court, seeking a preliminary injunction against their deportation. As the issue in each case was identical, the courts have consolidated these actions for purposes of the plaintiffs' motions for preliminary injunction based on the constitutional issues¹ delineated above. Oral argument was heard by both judges in the courtroom of Judge John Feikens on Friday, January 21, 1977.²

I.

Briefly restated: It is plaintiffs' contention that 8 U.S.C. § 1151(b) violates the Fifth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment according to native-born citizens over the age of 21 the privilege of sponsoring the immigration of their alien "immediate relatives" without regard to numerical limitations and waiting periods while not according a similar privilege to native-born citizens below the age of 21.

This issue was raised recently in an unpublished order of the Sixth Circuit, Sotelo v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 492 F.2d 1244 (6th Cir., filed February 5, 1974). In that order, the Court of Appeals noted appellant's reliance upon this same argument for the unconstitutionality of 8 U.S.C. § 1151(b) and rejected the argument, relying on United States ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U.S. 72, 77 S.Ct. 618, 1 L.Ed.2d 652 (1957) and Perdido v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 420 F.2d 1179 (5th Cir. 1969). This decision is controlling on the Court here and accordingly the plaintiffs' first ground for a preliminary injunction must be dismissed.

II.

The plaintiffs pose the second issue as follows: "whether the United States can constitutionally compel a citizen to submit to deportation, de facto or de jure?" (Emphasis added).

In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 18 S.Ct. 456, 42 L.Ed. 890 (1898), the Supreme Court held that:

"Citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.

* * * * * *

The power of naturalization, vested in Congress by the Constitution, is a power to confer citizenship, not a power to take it away . . . Congress having no power to abridge the rights conferred by the Constitution upon those who have become naturalized citizens by virtue of acts of Congress, a fortiori no act or omission of Congress, as to providing for the naturalization of parents or children of a particular race, can affect citizenship acquired by a birthright, by virtue of the Constitution itself, . . ."

It is manifest that deportation may not be imposed upon citizens born in the United States, but only upon aliens. 8 U.S.C. § 1251. Thus, it is clear that these citizen children may not be the subject of formal deportation orders of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

This is not the precise issue here however. These actions are being brought by the alien parents of citizen-children, and the allegation is that deportation of the parents must, as a practical matter, result in the de facto deportation of these citizen-children as well. Plaintiffs contend that the de facto deportation of citizens, as well as de jure deportation, is violative of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the first instance, the Court is reluctant to accept at face value plaintiffs' characterization of these actions as instances of "de facto deportation." "Deportation" is a term of art and is not synonymous with mere departure from the country. The term denotes an involvement by the federal government and means, in effect, an official expulsion. Thus, plaintiffs' use of the phrase "de facto deportation" tends to assume the federal government's responsibility for the effect of plaintiffs' formal deportation on their children, and this cannot be assumed. The responsibility of the federal government for indirectly causing the removal of plaintiffs' citizen-children is precisely the issue involved here. In short, this case must be decided upon its own facts, not upon some label such as "de facto deportation."

The government relies on Perdido v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 420 F.2d 1179 (5th Cir. 1969) for the proposition that whatever description is applicable to these facts, the deportation of illegal alien parents of a citizen child does not deprive that child of any constitutional rights, even if the circumstances require that he accompany his parents back to their native lands. Perdido in turn relies on United States ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U.S. 72, 77 S.Ct. 618, 1 L.Ed.2d 652 (1957) and Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 72 S.Ct. 512, 96 L.Ed. 586 (1952) for this rule. This Court's independent reading of the latter cases, however, indicates that they were decided solely on the question of whether denial of an application for stay of deportation was an abuse of discretion. Contrary to the government's argument, the constitutional issue herein was not raised or discussed by either the majority or dissenting opinions in Hintopoulos. For this reason, the persuasive position which would normally be accorded the Perdido decision is substantially undercut.

There are, however, several other appellate decisions to the same effect. As early as 1958 an analogous issue was decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In Swartz v. Rogers, 103 U.S. App.D.C. 1, 254 F.2d 338, 339, the court said:

"The second question is whether the marriage in 1942 gave the appellant wife a contract right or a marital status which is so protected by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment that her husband could not be deported by the retrospective application of a 1952 act of Congress. Appellants argue that the due process clause gave her a right, upon marriage, to establish a home, create a family, have the society and devotion of her husband, etc.; and that to deport her husband by the retrospective application of a statute would unconstitutionally destroy that marital status. But the essence of appellants' claim, when it is analyzed, is a right to live in this country. Certainly deportation would put burdens upon the marriage. It would impose upon the wife the choice of living abroad with her husband or living in this country without him. But deportation would not in any way destroy the legal union which the marriage created. The physical conditions of the marriage may change, but the marriage continues. Under these circumstances we think the wife has no constitutional right which is violated by the deportation of her husband."

In Mendez v. Major, 340 F.2d 128 (8th Cir. 1965), the court was confronted with essentially the same issue as that before this Court, and it stated:

"The contention of appellants that to enforce the two year residence abroad requirement would be in violation of their United States citizen son's constitutional rights is without substance. There can be no doubt that Congress has the power to determine the conditions under which an alien may enter and remain in the United States, . . .; even though the conditions may impose a certain amount of hardship upon an alien's wife or children." 340 F.2d at 131-32.

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