United States ex rel. Glavas v. Williams

• Decision Date: 03 February 1911
• Citation: 190 F. 686
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. GLAVAS v. WILLIAMS, Commissioner of Immigration.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

190 F. 686

UNITED STATES ex rel. GLAVAS v. WILLIAMS, Commissioner of Immigration.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. New York.

February 3, 1911

Daniel Walton, for the United States.

George C. d'Arcy, for defendant.

HAND District Judge.

The affidavits presented by the petitioner upon the return to the writ may be regarded as a traverse to it, but they do not show any ground for the jurisdiction of this court. The relator was given ample opportunity by counsel to appear and present the testimony affecting the admission which was alleged against him, or any other evidence he had to offer and he chose not to do so.

The question whether the admission was obtained, through plying him with liquor, and by threats, was wholly a question of fact, for the executive authorities, with whose decision this court would have no right to interfere, had any such evidence been presented.

The alien is deported, among other reasons, as a person likely to become a public charge. Having been accorded a hearing, such as is required under the Japanese Immigration Case, 189 U.S 86, 23 Sup.Ct. 611, 47 L.Ed. 721, the court cannot inquire as to whether there is any evidence at all, which would justify the board in coming to that conclusion as matter of fact, or matter of law.

As I understand the decisions of the Supreme Court, the only cases in which a court may interfere are those in which the immigrant has been denied some right accorded him by the statute itself, or in case the facts appear without contradiction from which as matter of law it follows that he is not an alien at all. Gonzales v. Williams, 192 U.S. 1, 24 Sup.Ct. 171, 48 L.Ed. 317; U.S. v. Wong Kim, 169 U.S. 649, 18 Sup.Ct. 456, 42 L.Ed. 890. Even the determination of that question, if it depends upon disputed facts, seems to be within the control of the executive (U.S. v. Ju Toy, 198 U.S. 253, 25 Sup.Ct 644, 49 L.Ed. 1040), nor do I understand that even an abuse of authority is reviewable, provided that a hearing be given and certain elementary procedural rights are observed in form. The Japanese Immigrant Case, supra, came up on demurrer to a traverse alleging that the hearing was 'pretended,' and that the relator did not know what the inquiry was about. This I interpret as meaning that abuse of their powers by the authorities is a matter only of executive discipline provided that the requisite forms are not violated. If so, it is quite clear that...