United States v. Shaughnessy

• Decision Date: 05 June 1953
• Citation: 113 F. Supp. 49
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. KWONG HAI CHEW v. SHAUGHNESSY, District Director of Immigration and Naturalization et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

113 F. Supp. 49

UNITED STATES ex rel. KWONG HAI CHEW v. SHAUGHNESSY, District Director of Immigration and Naturalization et al.

United States District Court S. D. New York.

June 5, 1953.

Ira Gollobin, New York City, for petitioner, Kwong Hai Chew.

J. Edward Lumbard, Jr., U. S. Atty., New York City (William J. Sexton, Asst. U. S. Atty., Lester Friedman, Attorney, Office of the District Counsel, Immigration and Naturalization Service, U. S. Dept. of Justice, New York City, of counsel), for the United States.

WEINFELD, District Judge.

Petitioner has been detained by the immigration authorities without bail since March 1951. For more than two years of that time he was denied information as to the nature of the charges upon which his detention was based. He had been ordered excluded without a hearing as an alien whose entry was deemed prejudicial to the public interest¹ pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 175.57(b).² This aspect of relator's matter was passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States,³ which held that such detention was not authorized by that regulation.

Chew is a native and citizen of China. He first entered the United States in April 1941 as a seaman and remained here until November 1941, when he reshipped. From November 1941 until sometime in November 1945, he sailed in war zones. His status as a permanent resident was legalized as of January 10th, 1945.⁴ In April 1950 he filed a petition for naturalization, which is still pending.

Chew is a seaman. In November 1950 he signed articles as chief steward on the S.S. Sir John Franklin, a vessel of American registry, with its home port in New York City. Immediately prior thereto, he had been screened and passed by the Coast Guard as a person whose presence aboard a merchant vessel of the United States would not be inimical to the security of the United States. When the S.S. Sir John Franklin on its return voyage reached San Francisco in March 1951, the immigration authorities ordered him "temporarily excluded" under 8 C.F.R. § 175.57 as an alien whose landing was deemed prejudicial to the United States. He was detained aboard the vessel and when it reached New York the Attorney General, acting under the aforesaid section, directed that his temporary exclusion be made permanent. The Attorney General refused the relator all information as to the nature of the accusation and an opportunity to be heard. His view was that the proceeding was an exclusion one, and his authority, the aforesaid section. The relator contended that the section was inapplicable to him as a permanent resident. His position was overruled both in the District Court⁵ and the Court of Appeals.⁶ The Supreme Court reversed,⁷ and upheld his contention. It ruled that he was entitled to notice of the nature of the charge and a hearing.

The government attempted to commence hearings on March 31st, 1953, without serving a written notice of the charges against relator. An order was thereafter obtained from the District Court commanding compliance with the Supreme Court's mandate. On April 3rd, 1953, Chew for the first time was apprised in writing that he was excludable under § 1 of the Act of October 16th, 1918, as amended by the Internal Security Act of 1950, in that he was an alien who had been a member of the Communist Party of the United States.⁸ Specifically, he was charged with membership therein from 1945, through 1947. During the progress of the hearings the charge was enlarged to include membership from 1943 until 1950.⁹ The hearings commenced on April 7th, 1953, continued a number of days thereafter and concluded on April 22nd. Four hundred and seventeen pages of testimony were taken. Relator was represented by counsel who cross-examined government witnesses.¹⁰

Three witnesses, former members of the Communist Party, testified that between 1945 and 1948, the relator was a member of the Communist Party of the United States, Waterfront Section; that he was a cardcarrying and a dues-paying member, who attended closed meetings; that he distributed Communist literature; that in 1948 he was a candidate on the Communist Party slate of officers during the 1948 National Maritime Union election, which slate had been defeated.

Chew testified and categorically denied the charges. His wife, his two brothers-in-law and two sisters-in-law, all American-born citizens, testified they had no knowledge and no reason to believe that relator at any time had been a member of the Communist Party of the United States. The Special Inquiry Officer resolved the conflict of fact against Chew and found he had been a voluntary member of the Communist Party of the United States from at least some time in 1945 until some time in September 1948. Accordingly, he held that Chew was excludable from admission to the United States under the Act of October 16, 1918, as amended by the Internal Security Act of 1950.

The relator has appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. He contends that various substantial errors were committed by the Special Inquiry Officer sufficient to warrant a reversal of his decision and that whether or not he had a hearing which conformed with the requirements of due process can only be finally determined administratively by the Board of Immigration Appeals. An application to the District Director of Immigration and Naturalization for release on bail was denied. The present writ of habeas corpus essentially seeks relator's release upon bond pending his appeal. He urges that the denial of bail is arbitrary and capricious and a denial of due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

At the very outset the government denies the Court's power to consider the question of bail. It contends here, as it did in the Supreme Court, that the proceeding against Chew is an exclusion one. The government urges that in an exclusion proceeding the only applicable provision under which Chew may be released is § 212(d)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C.A. § 1182(d)(5), which permits the Attorney General in his discretion to release on bond or otherwise persons applying for admission to the United States for "emergent reasons or for reasons deemed strictly in the public interest".¹¹ Noting that Chew has not presented evidence to the Attorney General that his release is necessitated by an emergency or that it will be in the public interest, the government takes the position that he may not seek judicial review of the Attorney General's failure to release him on bond or otherwise, particularly after an order of exclusion has been entered.

Chew, on the other hand, denies that this is an exclusion proceeding. He contends that under the Supreme Court ruling his status has been assimilated to that of a permanent resident alien "continuously residing and physically present in the United States",¹² in consequence of which he is entitled to all the rights of such an alien — including the right to review an alleged arbitrary refusal by the Attorney General to grant bail pending deportation proceedings.

The government replies that the Supreme Court's holding is limited, that Chew is only entitled to notice of the charges and a hearing thereon — and this now having been accorded him, his rights have been fully expended.¹³ Alternatively, the government's position is that, assuming arguendo the present proceeding must be equated to an expulsion proceeding, there has been no showing that the refusal of bail¹⁴ was arbitrary or an abuse of executive power.

Because of the Supreme Court's detailed consideration of petitioner's situation, a close examination of its opinion is here necessitated. The Court construed 8 C.F.R. § 175.57 so as to avoid constitutional difficulties and held, therefore, that its provisions authorizing the denial of a hearing were not applicable to one in petitioner's situation. It said: "We do not regard the constitutional status which petitioner indisputably enjoyed prior to his voyage as terminated by that voyage. From a constitutional point of view, he is entitled to due process without regard to whether or not, for immigration purposes, he is to be treated as an entrant alien, and we do not now reach the question whether he is to be so treated."¹⁵ "Chew's status as a person within the meaning and protection of the Fifth Amendment cannot be capriciously taken from him."¹⁶

The Supreme Court did not find it necessary to decide whether the proceeding against Chew was one of exclusion or expulsion. Upon argument of the writ before me, government counsel suggested that under the Supreme Court ruling Chew's matter is sui generis. I do not think it is necessary for the purposes of the present application to decide its precise nature. As I read the Supreme Court decision, its underlying rationale appears to be that the circumstance of his employment as a seaman on a ship of American registry did not break the continuity of his permanent residence so as to deprive him of those rights which clearly he enjoyed as an alien resident on terra firma.¹⁷ Thus, the spirit of Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding leads me to hold that his rights are not limited simply to notice of the charges and a hearing thereon, but, rather, that encompassed within his assimilated status is also the right to question his alleged arbitrary detention without bail — a right accorded to every alien continuously residing here.¹⁸ To deny Chew this would be to penalize him for following a gainful occupation — one recognized, incidentally, as not breaking his residence for naturalization purposes.¹⁹

This brings me to a consideration of the question of the circumstances under which the refusal to grant bail may be considered arbitrary.²⁰ The right of a resident alien with respect to the admission of bail was exhaustively examined in Carlson v. Landon. There the Court posed the issue before it thus: "May the Attorney General * * * after taking into custody active alien communists * * * continue them in...