United States Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Hibi 8212 1652
| Decision Date | 23 October 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 72,72 |
| Citation | 38 L.Ed.2d 7,414 U.S. 5,94 S.Ct. 19 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE v. Marciano Haw HIBI. —1652 |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
See 414 U.S. 1104, 94 S.Ct. 738.
Respondent filed his petition for naturalization in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on September 13, 1967. The District Court granted the petition, rejecting the negative recommendation of the naturalization examiner appointed by the Attorney General pursuant to § 335 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 66 Stat. 255, 8 U.S.C. § 1446. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 475 F.2d 7 (CA9 1973), holding that even though the deadline fixed by Congress for the filing of applications such as respondent's had expired more than 20 years earlier, petitioner was 'estopped' from relying on this fact.
Respondent was born in Manila in 1917, and in February 1941 enlisted in the Philippine Scouts, a unit that was part of the United States Army. He was captured by the Japanese Armed Forces and released after six months' internment. In April 1945 after the liberation of the Philippines by Allied Forces, he rejoined the Scouts and served until his discharge in December 1945.
Sections 701 and 702 of the Nationality Act of 1940, as amended, provided for the naturalization of noncitizens who served honorably in the Armed Forces of the United States during World War II.* Section 701 exempted certain alien servicemen who served outside the continental limits of the United States from some of the usual requirements for naturalization, including those of a period of residence in the United States and literacy in English. An amendment to this section specified that all petitions filed under it had to be filed no later than December 31, 1946. Section 702 provided for the overseas naturalization of persons eligible for naturalization under § 701 who were not within the jurisdiction of any court authorized to naturalize aliens; naturalization under § 702 could take place only during active service in the Armed Forces. Section 705 authorized the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, with the approval of the Attorney General, to make such rules and regulations as were necessary to carry into effect the provisions of the Act.
Respondent entered the United States for the first and only time on April 25, 1964, more than 17 years after the expiration of the time limit established by Congress for claiming naturalization under the 'exemptions of the Act.' He entered on a visitor-for-business visa, which expired on June 30, 1964. His subsequent petition for naturalization was based on the assertion that the Government was estopped from relying on the statutory time limit which Congress had attached to the provisions under which he claimed. The estoppel was said to arise from petitioner's failure to advise him, during the time he was eligible, of his right to apply for naturalization, and from petitioner's failure to provide a naturalization representative in the Philippines during all of the time respondent and those in his class were eligible for naturalization. The District Court adopted respondent's contention, and its conclusions were upheld by the Court of Appeals.
It is well settled that the Government is not in a position identical to that of a private litigant with respect to its enforcement of laws enacted by Congress.
Utah Power & Light Co. v. United States, 243 U.S. 389, 409, 37 S.Ct. 387, 391, 61 L.Ed. 791 (1917).
Here the petitioner has been charged by Congress with administering an Act which both made available benefits of naturalization to persons in respondent's class and established a cutoff date for the claiming of such benefits. Petitioner, in enforcing the cutoff date established by Congress, as well as in recognizing claims for the benefits conferred by the Act, is enforcing the public policy established by Congress.
While the issue of whether 'affirmative misconduct' on the part of the Government might estop it from denying citizenship was left open in Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308, 314, 315, 81 S.Ct. 1336, 6 L.Ed.2d 313 (1961), no conduct of the sort there adverted to was involved here. We do not think that the failure to fully publicize the rights which Congress ac- corded under the Act of 1940, or the failure to have stationed in the Philippine Islands during all of the time those rights were available an authorized naturalization representative, can give rise to an estoppel against the Government.
Respondent's effort to claim naturalization under a statute which by its terms had expired more than 20 years before he filed his lawsuit must therefore fail. The petition for certiorari is granted and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
The Court today summarily reverses the decision of the Court of Appeals, which found that the Government was estopped from denying citizenship to respondent under the Nationality Act of 1940.1 The Court reasons that estoppel is not even arguably applicable because there was no 'affirmative misconduct' on the part of the United States; it implies that there were merely failures to 'fully publicize' the rights given by the Act and 'to have stationed in the Philippine Islands during all of the time those rights were available an authorized naturalization representative.' Failures of this kind could, perhaps, be excused if caused by the exigencies of war as long as good-faith efforts to carry out the provisions of the Act had been made.
But the Court ignores the record and the decisions below when it speaks only of these failures. In 1942, Congress amended the Nationality Act of 1940 to extend the benefits of citizenship to individuals who had fought in the Armed Forces of the United States during World War II, authorizing the appointment of naturalization officers to confer these benefits on noncitizens outside the jurisdiction of a naturalization court.2 Between 1943 and 1946, these officers traveled from post to post, through England, Iceland, North Africa, and the islands of the Pacific, naturalizing thousands of foreign nationals pursuant to the mandate of Congress.
The story in the Philippines was different. After the Japanese occupation of the Philippines ended, an American vice-consul was authorized to commence naturalization proceedings in 1945. Almost immediately thereafter, the Philippine Government expressed its concern about Filipino men leaving the Territory after being granted American citizenship. In response to these concerns, the Commissioner of Immigration, on September 13, 1945, wrote a letter to the Attorney General recommending that the 'situation . . . be handled by revoking the authority previously granted (the vice-consul) and by...
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