United States Eichenlaub v. Shaughnessy/Opinion of the Court

These cases present the question of whether § 1 of the Act of May 10, 1920, authorizes the deportation of an alien under the following circumstances occurring since that Act took effect: (1) The alien was naturalized; (2) while he was a naturalized citizen he was convicted of a conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act of 1917; (3) thereafter, in a denaturalization proceeding, his citizenship was revoked and his certificate of naturalization canceled on the ground that he had procured it by fraud; and (4) the proper authority, after the required hearings, found the alien to be an undesirable resident of the United States and ordered him deported. For the reasons hereinafter stated, we hold that the Act authorizes such deportation.

No. 3-The Eichenlaub Case.

Richard Eichenlaub, the relator, was born in Germany in 1905, and entered the United States from there in 1930. He was naturalized as an American citizen in 1936, and has resided in the United States continuously since his re-entry in 1937, when he returned from a visit to Germany. In 1941, on his plea of guilty in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, he was convicted of conspiring to act as an agent for a foreign government without having been registered with the Secretary of State. He was sentenced to imprisonment for 18 months and fined $1,000. In 1944, with his consent, a judgment was entered in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York canceling his citizenship on the ground of fraud in its procurement. Deportation proceedings were then instituted against him and, after a hearing before an Immigration Inspector and a review by the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Attorney General, in 1945, ordered his deportation.

This proceeding for a writ of habeas corpus was then filed in the court last named. After hearing, the writ was dismissed and the dismissal was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. 167 F.2d 659. We denied certiorari. 335 U.S. 867, 69 S.Ct. 137. However, when the Court of Appeals affirmed the Willumeit case, now before us, on the authority of this case, but called attention to the added impression which had been made upon it by the argument in favor of Willumeit on the point above stated, we vacated our denial of certiorari in this case and granted certiorari in both. 337 U.S. 955, 69 S.Ct. 1526.

No. 82-The Willumeit Case.

In 1905, Otto A. Willumeit, the relator, was born in Lorraine, which at that time was a part of Germany, but at the time of his arrest for deportation had become a part of France. He entered the United States from there in 1925. In 1931 he was naturalized, and he has resided in the United States continuously since his reentry in 1941 after a visit to Mexico. In 1942, on his plea of guilty in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, he was convicted of having conspired to violate that portion of the Espionage Act of 1917 which made it a crime to transmit to an agent of a foreign country information relating to the national defense of this country, with intent or reason to believe that such information would be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation. He was sentenced to imprisonment for five years. In 1944, with his consent, a judgment was entered in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois canceling his citizenship on the ground of fraud in its procurement. Deportation proceedings were then instituted against him and, after a hearing before an Immigration Inspector and a review by the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Attorney General, in 1947, ordered his deportation.

This proceeding for a writ of habeas corpus was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and, after a hearing, the writ was dismissed. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal on the authority of its decision in the Eichenlaub case. 171 F.2d 773. Because of the importance of the issue to American citizenship, we granted certiorari. 337 U.S. 955, 69 S.Ct. 1526.

The proper scope of the Act of 1920 as applied to these cases is found in the ordinary meaning of its words. The material provisions of the Act are as follows:

' * *  * That aliens of the following classes *  *  * shall, upon the warrant of the (Attorney General), be taken into his custody and deported *  *  * if the (Attorney General), after hearing, finds that such aliens are undesirable residents of the United States, to wit:

'(2) All aliens who since August 1, 1914, have been or may hereafter be convicted of any violation or conspiracy to violate any of the following Acts or parts of Acts, the judgment on such conviction having become final, namely:

'(a) (The Espionage Act of 1917, as amended).'

The above words require that all persons to be deported under this Act shall be 'aliens.' They do not limit its scope to aliens who never have been naturalized. They do not exempt those who have secured certificates of naturalization, but then have lost them by court order on the ground of fraud in their procurement. They do not suggest that such persons are not as clearly 'aliens' as they were before their fraudulent naturalization. There is no question as to the power of Congress to enact a statute to deport aliens because of past misconduct. That is what Congress did in the Act of 1920, and there is no occasion to restrict its language so as to narrow its plain meaning.

The one substantial issue is whether the Act requires that the relators not only must have been 'aliens' at the times when they were ordered deported, but that they must also have had that status at the times when they were convicted of designated offenses against the national security. The Government suggests that one route to a conclusion on this issue is to hold that the relators, as a matter of law, were 'aliens' when so convicted. The basis it suggests for so holding is that the judicial annulment of the relators' naturalizations on the ground of fraud in their procurement deprived them of their naturalizations ab initio. Rosenberg v. United States, 2 Cir., 60 F.2d 475. They thus would be returned to their status as aliens as of the date of their respective naturalizations. Accordingly, they would come within the scope of the Act of 1920, even if that Act were held to require that all offenders subject to deportation under it also must have had an alien status when convicted of the designated offenses.

In our opinion, it is not necessary, for the purposes of these cases, to give a retroactive effect to the denaturalization orders. A simpler and equally complete solution lies in the view that the Act does not require that the offenders reached by it must have had the status of aliens at the time they were convicted. As the Act does not state that necessity, it is applicable to all such offenders, including those denaturalized before or after their convictions as well as those who never have been naturalized. The convictions of the relators for designated offenses are important conditions precedent to their being found to be undesirable residents. Their status as aliens is a necessary further condition of their deportability. When both conditions are met and, after hearing, the Attorney General finds them to be undesirable residents of the United States, the Act is satisfied.

The statutory language which says that 'aliens who since August 1, 1914, have been or may hereafter be convicted, * *  * ' (emphasis supplied) refers to the requirement that the deportations be applicable to all persons who had been convicted of certain enumerated offenses since about the beginning of World War I (August 1, 1914), whether those convictions were had before or after May 10, 1920. The crimes listed were not crimes in which convictions depended upon the citizenship, or lack of citizenship, of their perpetrators. In fact, they were crimes against the national security, so that their commission by naturalized citizens might well be regarded by Congress as more reprehensible than their commission by aliens who never had been naturalized.

The recognized purpose of the Act was deportation. It is difficult to imagine a reason which would have made it natural or appropriate for Congress to authorize the Attorney General to pass upon the undesirability and deportability of an alien, never naturalized, who had been convicted of espionage, but would prohibit the Attorney General from passing upon the undesirability and deportability of aliens, such as the relators in the instant cases, who had procured certificates of naturalization before their convictions of espionage, but later had been deprived of those certificates on the ground of fraud in their procurement. If there were to be a distinction made in favor of any aliens because they were at one time naturalized citizens, the logical time at which that status would be important would be the time of the commission of the crimes, rather than the purely fortuitous time of their conviction of those crimes. Not even such a distinction finds support in the statute.

The failure of Congress to give expression to the distinction, here urged by the relators, between aliens who never have been naturalized and those who have been denaturalized, was not due to unfamiliarity with such matters. In 1920, Congress must have been familiar with the status of aliens denaturalized under § 15 of the Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 601, see 8 U.S.C. § 736, 8 U.S.C.A. § 736, or expatriated under § 2 of the Citizenship Act of March 2, 1907, 34 Stat. 1228, see 8 U.S.C. § 801, 8 U.S.C.A. § 801. It had had experience with the deportation of undesirable aliens under § 19 of the Immigration Act of February 5, 1917, 39 Stat. 889, see 8 U.S.C. § 155, 8 U.S.C.A. § 155, as well as under other wartime Acts and Proclamations. There Acts did not distinguish between aliens who never had been naturalized, and those who had obtained naturalization by fraud only to lose it by court decree. If the Act of 1920 had been intended to initiate the distinction here urged by the relators, it is likely that the change would have been made by express provision for it. We find nothing in its legislative history that suggests a congressional intent to distinguish between two such groups of undesirable criminals.

The Congressional Committee Reports demonstrate that, while this statute was framed in general language and has remained in effect for 30 years, its enactment originally was occasioned by a desire to deport some or all of about 500 aliens who were then interned as dangerous enemy aliens and who might be found, after hearings, to be undesirable residents, and also to deport some or all of about 150 other aliens who, during World War I, had been convicted of violations of the Espionage Act or other national security measures, and who might be found, after hearings, to be undesirable residents. It is hardly conceivable that, under those circumstances, Congress, without expressly saying so, intended to prevent the Secretary of Labor (or his successor, the Attorney General) from deporting alien offenders merely because they had received their respective convictions at times when they held certificates of naturalization, later canceled for fraud. To do so would permit the denaturalized aliens to set up a canceled fraudulent status as a defense, and successfully to claim benefits and advantages under it. Congress, in 1920, evidently wanted to provide a means by which to free the United States of residents who (1) had been or thereafter were convicted of certain offenses against the security of the United States, (2) had been or thereafter were found, after hearing, to be undesirable residents of the United States, and (3) being aliens were subject to deportation. Congress said just that.

We have given consideration to such other points as were raised by the relators, but we find that they do not affect the result.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals in each case is therefore affirmed.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice CLARK took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice JACKSON join, dissenting.

In light of the attitude with which the doom of deportation has heretofore been viewed by this Court, in the case of those whose lives have been intimately tied to this country, I deem it my duty not to squeeze the Act of May 10, 1920, 41 Stat. 593, as amended, 8 U.S.C. § 157, 8 U.S.C.A. § 157, so as to yield every possible hardship of which its words are susceptible. See Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U.S. 276, 284-285, 42 S.Ct. 492, 495, 66 L.Ed. 938; Delgadillo v. Carmichael, 332 U.S. 388, 391, 68 S.Ct. 10, 12, 92 L.Ed. 17; Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U.S. 6, 10, 68 S.Ct. 374, 376, 92 L.Ed. 433; Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 147, 65 S.Ct. 1443, 1449, 89 L.Ed. 2103; Fiswick v. United States, 329 U.S. 211, 222, note 8, 67 S.Ct. 224, 230, 91 L.Ed. 196; Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S. 601, 612, 69 S.Ct. 384, 389, modified, 336 U.S. 942, 69 S.Ct. 384. Because we have been mindful of the fact that such deportation may result 'in loss of both property and life; or of all that makes life worth living', this Court concluded that due process of law requires judicial determination when a claim of citizenship is made in a deportation proceeding, while upon entry or reentry the same claim may be determined administratively. It took into account the great difference 'in security of judicial over administrative action'. Ng Fung Ho v. White, supra, 259 U.S. at pages 284, 285, 42 S.Ct. 492, 495, 66 L.Ed. 938. I am aware of the fact that we are dealing here with a person whose citizenship has been taken from him. I maintain, however, that the rigorous statute permitting deportation of an 'alien' should be read to apply only to one who was an alien when convicted and should not be made to apply to persons in the position of these petitioners.

Since such construction is not unreasonable, due regard for consequences demands that the statute be so read. Where, as here, a statute permits either of two constructions without violence to language, the construction which leads to hardship should be rejected in favor of the permissible construction consonant with humane considerations. The Act of May 10, 1920, provides that 'All aliens who since August 1, 1914, have been or may hereafter be convicted' of certain offenses shall be deported upon a finding that they are 'undesirable residents of the United States.' Since neither of the petitioners herein was found to 'have been' convicted of any offense before passage of the Act, they come, it is urged, within the alternative prerequisite. But the statute, in terms, refers to aliens 'who * *  * may hereafter be convicted', not persons who are citizens when convicted and later transformed into aliens by the process of denaturalization. And this view of the statute is reinforced by the legislative history as well as by considerations relating to the impact of the Court's decision upon various other congressional enactments not now before us.

The Committee reports and congressional debate make plain that Congress was principally concerned with the status of about 500 persons who had been interned by the President during the First World War as dangerous alien enemies and about 150 aliens who had been convicted under various so-called war statutes. Congress could not have been unaware that naturalized citizens may lose their citizenship; yet nowhere in the legislative history to we find the remotest hint that Congress had also such denaturalized citizens in mind. On the contrary, the debates contain ample evidence that Congress had in mind only persons convicted when aliens.

The Court's decision has serious implications with respect to citizens denaturalized for reasons not involving moral blame, and who have, while citizens, committed one of a variety of acts not involving moral obliquity and certainly not endangering the security of the country but which nevertheless are covered by other statutory provisions in language similar to that before us. Thus, discriminations would as a matter of policy have to be drawn if this general problem were consciously faced by policy-makers. They are not within the power of this Court to draw. If and when Congress gives the matter thought, it may well draw distinctions between one who was an alien and one who was naturalized at the time of conviction, based on the manner in which citizenship was lost, the type of offense committed, and the lapse of time between conviction and denaturalization. These serious differentiations should not be disregarded by giving a ruthlessly undiscriminating construction to the statute before us not required by what Congress has written.