Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1896

Wong Wing v. United States

163 U.S. 228 | 16 S. Ct. 977 | 41 L. Ed. 140 | 1896 U.S. LEXIS 2260

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that Congress may deport unlawfully present aliens through administrative procedures, but it may not impose hard labor as punishment without the constitutional protections required in a criminal prosecution.

Background

Wong Wing and three other Chinese persons were arrested in Detroit after a deputy customs collector alleged that they were unlawfully present in the United States. A United States circuit-court commissioner conducted a summary hearing, found them unlawfully present, and ordered them imprisoned at hard labor in the Detroit House of Correction for sixty days, followed by deportation to China.

The prisoners sought habeas corpus relief in the federal Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. They argued that the commissioner could not impose hard labor without a grand-jury indictment and jury trial. The circuit court discharged the writ and remanded them to custody to serve their sentences. The Supreme Court reversed insofar as the order imposed imprisonment at hard labor, while preserving the Government's authority to detain them lawfully for deportation.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Fifth and Sixth Amendment protections governing infamous criminal punishment apply to aliens within the United States.

Holding

Yes. Aliens within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States are persons protected by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

Reasoning

The Court distinguished the Government's broad authority over exclusion and deportation from its authority to impose criminal punishment. Although Congress may regulate the admission and expulsion of aliens through executive or subordinate officials, that immigration power does not place aliens outside constitutional safeguards when the Government seeks to punish them for crime.

The Fifth Amendment protects any "person," not merely a citizen. Relying on the principle expressed in Yick Wo v. Hopkins that constitutional protections extend to all persons within territorial jurisdiction regardless of race or nationality, the Court concluded that aliens cannot be held to answer for capital or otherwise infamous crimes without the constitutional procedures required for criminal prosecution.

Issue #2

Whether Congress may authorize a commissioner, after a summary immigration hearing, to sentence an unlawfully present Chinese person to imprisonment at hard labor before deportation.

Holding

No. Imprisonment at hard labor is an infamous punishment and may not be imposed without a judicial criminal trial, including the protections of grand-jury indictment and jury trial.

Reasoning

Section 4 of the Geary Act did more than authorize custody needed to identify an alien, decide whether the alien could remain, and carry out deportation. It required imprisonment at hard labor for as long as one year as a consequence of being adjudged unlawfully present, followed by removal from the country.

Under Ex parte Wilson, compulsory imprisonment at hard labor is an infamous punishment. It is also involuntary servitude that the Thirteenth Amendment permits only as punishment for a crime of which a person has been duly convicted. Thus, Congress could make unlawful presence a criminal offense and attach a fine or imprisonment, but only if guilt were established through a proper judicial criminal proceeding.

The Constitution does not permit Congress to define an infamous offense and then authorize one of its own administrative agents to find guilt and impose the punishment through a summary hearing. The commissioner therefore lacked jurisdiction to sentence Wong Wing and the other prisoners to hard labor.

Issue #3

Whether the invalidity of the hard-labor sentence prevented the Government from holding the prisoners for deportation.

Holding

No. The prisoners could be discharged from the unlawful hard-labor sentence without prejudice to lawful detention necessary to effect deportation.

Reasoning

The Court reaffirmed that Congress may exclude aliens and deport aliens unlawfully present, and may entrust executive or subordinate officers with identifying, arresting, and removing those persons. Deportation is treated as an exercise of the national power over immigration rather than as criminal punishment.

Temporary custody may be necessary while immigration officials determine an alien's status and arrange removal. Such detention is materially different from a fixed term of imprisonment at hard labor imposed as punishment before deportation occurs.

Concurrences

Justice Field

Reasoning

Justice Field agreed that the hard-labor sentence was unconstitutional and that the prisoners were entitled to relief. He emphasized that a definite term of imprisonment at hard labor is plainly punishment, and indeed infamous punishment, rather than a permissible incident of deportation.

He stressed that the Fifth, Sixth, and Thirteenth Amendments protect Chinese aliens as fully as other persons within the Nation's jurisdiction. In his view, the Government's power to exclude or expel aliens could not justify imprisonment in a penitentiary at hard labor without a lawful criminal conviction.

Field also objected sharply to arguments suggesting that Chinese persons could be denied the Constitution's full protection against oppression and cruelty. At the same time, he accepted the Court's conclusion that Congress may lawfully exclude or deport aliens and may use executive officials to implement that immigration policy.