United States v. Shaughnessy, 119

• Decision Date: 05 December 1952
• Docket Number: Docket 22530.,No. 119,119
• Citation: 200 F.2d 288
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. DOLENZ v. SHAUGHNESSY.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

200 F.2d 288 (1952)

UNITED STATES ex rel. DOLENZ v. SHAUGHNESSY.

No. 119, Docket 22530.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued November 13, 1952.

Decided December 5, 1952.

Myles J. Lane, U. S. Atty., Southern Dist. of New York, New York City, for respondent-appellee, William J. Sexton, Asst. U. S. Atty., New York City, Louis Steinberg, Dist. Counsel, Immigration & Naturalization Service, New York City, Max Blau, Attorney, Immigration & Naturalization Service, New York City, of counsel.

Feingold & Falussy, New York City, for relator-appellant, Alfred Feingold, Aloysius C. Falussy, and Robert Bloom, New York City, of counsel.

Before AUGUSTUS N. HAND, CHASE, and CLARK, Circuit Judges.

CHASE, Circuit Judge.

The primary question presented by this appeal is whether a failure by the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, acting as the duly designated delegate of the Attorney General, to find that a deportable alien would be physically persecuted in the country to which he has been deported is a compliance with the applicable law. The subordinate questions are (1) whether the appellant was given a hearing consonant with the requirements of due process; and (2) whether, on the proof presented, the delegate of the Attorney General was required to make findings of fact, and, if so, whether the failure to find that the appellant would be physically persecuted if deported as ordered was so arbitrary and capricious that it cannot stand.

The appellant is a citizen of Yugoslavia who came to this country in October 1949 as a seaman on the S. S. Huradsk and was admitted for shore leave. He then deserted the ship and has remained in this country ever since. He was arrested in February 1951 on an immigration warrant charging his unlawful entry as an immigrant not in possession of a valid immigration visa. During the hearing on this charge, it was shown that he had been a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia before his entry into the United States and remained a member of the Party after entry. He was ordered deported on each of the above mentioned grounds. On appeal to the Commissioner the order was modified to limit deportability insofar as it was based on membership in the Communist Party to his membership therein after entry. The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld this order and, the alien having declined to designate any country to which he desired to be deported, a warrant of deportation was issued directing his deportation to Yugoslavia if that country would receive him, otherwise to Italy.

Before the instant writ was obtained, the appellant sought to avoid deportation by means of three writs of habeas corpus, the first of which was dismissed and the others withdrawn. The last was withdrawn when he was granted an administrative stay of deportation to enable him to show that, if deported to Yugoslavia, he would be subjected to physical persecution.

The statute on which he now relies, 8 U.S.C. § 156, enumerates the countries to which deportable aliens may be sent, but also provides that "no alien shall be deported under any provisions of this chapter to any country in which the Attorney General shall find that such alien would be subjected to physical persecution."

The appellant is twenty-five years of age and was born in Fiume which was then a part of Italy, but now of Yugoslavia. He was active in the Communist Youth Movement in Yugoslavia before he became a seaman. Although one of the grounds on which he was ordered deported was his membership in the Communist Party after his entry to this country, he contends that if he is returned to Yugoslavia he will be subjected to physical persecution as a renegade from the Communist Party there.

From appellant's testimony it appears that he had been a lieutenant in the Yugoslavian army and for about two months, while still in the army, a member of the Ozna, the Yugoslav Secret Police. He was a member of the Communist Party in Yugoslavia although he testified that he did not want to be and was once suspended from such membership for forty-three days for a reason not disclosed. In June 1948 he had been beaten by communists while with others he was singing songs which were mistakenly thought to be against the Tito government; and he was again beaten when, unknown to his assailants, he was working with the Secret Police. His father still lived in Yugoslavia but his mother and a brother had escaped from that country and were in a camp for displaced persons in Italy. None of them had been persecuted in Yugoslavia. After leaving the army he attended the merchant marine school called Pomeriski Institute in Fiume where he was the secretary of the Skoj, a communist student organization, until March 1948. He then devoted his time to preparation for his final examinations which he took about three months later and qualified for service as a merchant seaman in which service he remained until he deserted his ship as above noted.

He further testified to show that he would be physically persecuted if deported to Yugoslavia, that he had severed his connection with the Communist Party both when he deserted his ship and also in November 1949 when in New York though he did not disclose what, if anything, he had done in New York to accomplish that. He had seen a Yugoslavian Army officer shot by a firing squad in 1944 and, though he didn't know the reason, "they were talking around that it was because he wanted to desert and was heard to say something against the Communist Party." A man in Fiume whose name he didn't know had "ideas" which were "contrary to the Communist Party" and one day "he got three shots in the back and the Yugoslav Secret Police came to take the details and looked for the fellow who killed him." He also testified that in 1947 he went to the cemetery with his sister and "I went inside in the mortuary chamber and I saw a man. I didn't know him, he was all chapped, every inch of his skin, face, legs and I asked `who is this fellow,' and the guard answered `we found him on the street, he had an accident.' If he dropped down from an airplane he would not have come down in this state he was in."

His testimony to show that he would be subjected to physical persecution if deported as ordered was supplemented by two witnesses, one a former Chief of the Foreign Press Department in the Tito government in Yugoslavia and the other a former citizen of Yugoslavia who had never been a member of the Communist Party though he had been a private in the army for about three months. Both had been in this country several years and both testified that in their opinion the appellant would be physically persecuted if deported as ordered.

No countervailing evidence was presented and the hearing officer filed his report showing he did not believe that the appellant would be subjected to physical persecution if deported to Yugoslavia. This report, together with the copy of the testimony, was reviewed by the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization who, as the delegate of the Attorney General, closed the matter on May 21, 1952. In the order, the Commissioner said that, "after a review of the facts in this case, I do not find that if this alien is deported to Yugoslavia he would be subjected to physical persecution."

Deportation proceedings must conform to procedural due process though compliance with sections 1004, 1006, and 1007 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S.C.A. § 1001 et seq., held necessary in Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U.S. 33, 70 S.Ct. 445, 94 L.Ed. 616, is no longer required. 8 U.S.C. § 155a. Appellant does not complain of any lack of due process up to the time when it was decided that he was a deportable alien but insists that there was a departure therefrom in directing that he should be deported to Yugoslavia. The officer who...