Wong You v. United States

• Citation: 181 F. 313
• Decision Date: 14 June 1910
• Docket Number: 328.
• Parties: WONG YOU et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

181 F. 313

WONG YOU et al. v. UNITED STATES.

No. 328.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

June 14, 1910

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York.

Petition by Wong You and others for a writ of habeas corpus. From orders of the District Court (176 F. 933) dismissing the writs and remanding petitioners, they appeal. Reversed and remanded.

Appeal from orders dismissing writs of habeas corpus and remanding the petitioners, Wong You, Wong Chun, Hom Chee, Wong Yip, and Ju Fong. The petitioners are Chinese persons, who in October and November, 1909, were taken into custody under warrants issued by the Department of Commerce and Labor charging them with being aliens unlawfully in the United States, in that they entered in violation of the provisions of the immigration act of February 20, 1907. The petitioners were given hearings before the Chinese and immigrant inspector at Malone, N.Y., and that official reported that they were alien subjects of China who had entered the United States surreptitiously, without examination under the immigration laws, at places not designated as ports of entry under such laws, and that they were in the United States in violation of law.

Upon the report of the inspector the Acting Secretary of Commerce and Labor, after finding that all the petitioners, with the exception of the petitioner Hom Chee, were in the United States in violation of said immigration act, in that they entered without inspection and that three years after their entering had not elapsed, ordered their deportation to China and issued warrants of deportation. The Secretary of Commerce and Labor has not yet determined the status of the petitioner Hom Chee, and he is still held under the departmental warrant of arrest. The other petitioners are held under the warrants of deportation. It appeared with sufficient clearness at the hearing before the inspector that the petitioners were laborers. Four of them were laundrymen, and the fifth had previously been excluded from admission to this country.

The especially relevant provisions of the statutes relating to the admission and exclusion of Chinese and of the immigration act of 1907 are printed in the footnote. ^[1]

R. M Moore and B. W. Berry, for appellants.

Harry E. Owen, Asst. U.S. Atty.

Before LACOMBE, COXE, and NOYES, Circuit Judges.

NOYES Circuit Judge (after stating the facts as above).

'Generalia specialibus non derogant' is an elementary rule governing the interpretation of statutes. A later general statute which in its most comprehensive sense would include that which is embraced in an earlier particular enactment, does not, as a general rule, repeal the latter, but applies only to such cases within its general language as are not within the provisions of the particular act. 'The general statute is read as silently excluding from its operation the cases which have been provided for by the special one. ' Endlich on the Interpretation of Statutes, Sec. 223.

The application of this rule of interpretation is decisive of the present case. The Chinese exclusion acts deal with the removal of Chinese laborers unlawfully in this country and prescribe the procedure to be followed in deporting them. These statutes constitute comprehensive particular legislation with respect to that subject. It follows, then, under the rule of interpretation, that the immigration act-- the later general statute-- although in its terms including all aliens, applies only to those Chinese aliens who are not subject to removal by the particular Chinese enactments. And this is a case especially for the application of the rule, because the immigration act expressly provides that it shall not be construed as repealing, altering, or amending the existing laws relating to the exclusion of Chinese persons.

It appears from the meager record that these petitioners are Chinese laborers and-- if the government's contentions be well founded-- that they are aliens and subject to deportation in accordance with the provisions of the statutes relating to the Chinese. As we understand it, the government contends that the petitioners may be deported under either the Chinese act or the immigration act, not that the former is inapplicable.

If this contention of the government be well founded, we have two statutes in force prescribing different methods of procedure for the deportation of alien Chinese laborers. And the immigration act-- if the government choose to act under it-- would supersede the Chinese statute, because it is evident that no alien Chinese laborer could come into this country unless he enter surreptitiously and without inspection. But any such interpretation of the statutes would conflict with the rule which we have considered, under which both statutes do not apply to the same thing, but the later applies to those cases within its general language not within the provisions of the earlier; that is, as already pointed out, the Chinese statutes prescribe the procedure to be followed in removing alien Chinese laborers, while the immigration act states the procedure for the deportation of all other aliens unlawfully in this country including Chinese other than laborers. We think that these petitioners, being subject to removal according to the provisions of the Chinese exclusion laws, are not subject to removal in accordance with the procedure of the immigration act.

This conclusion makes no distinction in favor of the Chinese. Chinese laborers are excluded by the Chinese act. All other Chinese persons, not being excluded by that act, are subject to the provisions of the immigration act. A Chinese laborer with or without a loathsome disease, cannot enter at all. The Chinese act governs the case....