1. Where, in a proceeding in habeas corpus challenging the
legality of an order of deportation under the Immigration Act of
1917, it appears that the action of the Secretary of Labor in
issuing the order was supported by evidence, his findings are not
subject to review by the courts. P.
287 U. S.
342.
Page 287 U. S. 342
2. Section 19 of the Immigration Act of 1917 imposes no period
of limitation with respect to the deportation of an alien found
managing a house of prostitution, and an alien may be taken into
custody and deported for this cause at any time after entry. P.
287 U. S.
343.
3. Rules of syntax should not be so applied in construing a
statute as to defeat the evident legislative intent. P.
287 U. S.
344.
4. A statute must be considered in its entirety in order not to
give undue effect to particular words or clauses. P.
287 U. S.
345.
5. The failure of Congress to alter or amend a statute,
notwithstanding a consistent construction by the department charged
with its enforcement, creates a presumption in favor of the
administrative interpretation which is entitled to great weight. P.
287 U. S.
345.
56 F.2d 566 affirmed.
Certiorari to review the affirmance of a decree dismissing a
writ of habeas corpus.
MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 19 of the Act of February 5, 1917, [
Footnote 1] directs,
inter alia, the
deportation of any alien who manages a house of prostitution. The
petitioner, a citizen of Italy, was arrested, given a hearing, and
ordered deported as such a manager. By writ of habeas corpus, he
challenged the legality of the order. The District Court dismissed
the writ, and the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decree. 56
F.2d 566.
A claim of violation of constitutional rights made in the court
below has been abandoned. The Circuit Court of Appeals properly
negatived the asserted absence of any evidence to support the
action of the Secretary of Labor,
Page 287 U. S. 343
and therefore refused, as we do, to review that officer's
findings.
Low Wash Suey v. Backus, 225 U.
S. 460,
225 U. S. 468;
Zakonaite v. Wolf, 226 U. S. 272,
226 U. S. 275;
Tisi v. Tod, 264 U. S. 131,
264 U. S. 133;
Vajtauer v. Comm'r of Immigration, 273 U.
S. 103,
273 U. S.
106.
Certiorari was granted to resolve a question as to the
construction of § 19 of the Act of 1917, which the petitioner says
authorized deportation for the cause assigned only within the five
years ensuing entry. He entered this country much more than five
years prior to the issuance of the warrant for his arrest.
The section, containing nearly nine hundred words, is a single
sentence, divided by semicolons and colons into clauses, qualified
by five provisos. The opening clause is that "At any time within
five years after entry, any alien who at the time of entry was a
member of one or more of the classes excluded by law," and the
predicate or final clause is, "shall, upon the warrant of the
Secretary of Labor, be taken into custody and deported." Inserted
between these, and separated from the first and from each other by
semicolons, are eleven subject clauses each referring to variously
described aliens, as "any alien who," etc., and each having as its
predicate the clause above quoted, "shall be taken into custody,"
etc. The evident purpose is to catalogue in one omnibus section the
different classes of aliens who may be deported, and thus avoid
repetition of the predicate verbs.
The dispute is as to whether the qualifying phrase of the first
clause, "within five years after entry," is to be carried over from
the clause in which it appears, and is to be read into each
following subject clause, including that applicable to the
petitioner, or is to be limited in effect to its own clause. The
petitioner urges that the grammatical structure of the sentence and
the punctuation require the adoption of the first alternative,
while, in support of the second, the government appeals to the
evident meaning
Page 287 U. S. 344
of the entire section, the legislative history, and settled
departmental interpretation.
It is to be noted that, of the eleven clauses following the
first, three contain references to periods of time after entry
within which the described aliens may be deported. Thus, with
reference to the classes which may be shortly defined as
"anarchists" and "convicts," the phrase used is "at any time after
entry;" concerning those who have entered without inspection, the
limitation is "at any time within three years after entry."
Respecting the remaining seven categories contained in as many
separate clauses (including that applicable to this case, "any
alien who manages . . . any house of prostitution . . . ") no words
of time are employed. Certainly, then, the five-year limitation of
the first clause does not apply to all the subsequent ones; and,
since the phrase has a proper office in qualification of the class
specified in the clause in which it appears, its effect should be
limited to that class, and not carried over to the others.
It has often been said that punctuation is not decisive of the
construction of a statute.
Hammock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust
Co., 105 U. S. 77;
Ford v. Delta & Pine Land Co., 164 U.
S. 662;
Barrett v. Van Pelt, 268 U. S.
85;
United States v. Shereveport Grain &
Elevator Co., ante, p.
287 U. S. 77. Upon
like principle, we should not apply the rules of syntax to defeat
the evident legislative intent.
The meaning of the sentence is made even plainer by the third
proviso, which is:
"
Provided further, That the provisions of this section,
with the exceptions hereinbefore noted, shall be applicable to the
classes of aliens therein mentioned irrespective of the time of
their entry into the United States."
There is nothing upon which this proviso may operate if such of
the preceding clauses as contain no time limitation are qualified
by the words of the first fixing the limitation at five years; not
so, however, if each clause
Page 287 U. S. 345
containing a time limitation is read separately as an exception
to the general rule declared by the proviso. We must look to the
whole of the section in order not to give undue effect to
particular words or clauses (
Brown v.
Duchesne, 19 How. 183,
60 U. S. 194;
Pollard v.
Bailey, 20 Wall. 520,
87 U. S. 525),
and, when so read, the proviso precludes a construction which would
carry into all subsequent clauses the five-year limitation
contained in the first.
If more were needed, the legislative history of § 19 shows that
it is a compilation of earlier acts specifying different grounds
for deportation; that, in the prior legislation affecting aliens
managing houses of prostitution, etc., no time limitation was
included, and that, in combining those acts to form the present
section, Congress did not intend to impose a period of limitation
with respect to this cause for deportation. [
Footnote 2] The administrative interpretation, as
evidenced by the applicable rules of the Bureau of Immigration
adopted in 1917 and carried forward in later regulations, has been
uniform to the effect that no time limitation is applicable in a
case like the present. [
Footnote
3] The failure of Congress to alter or amend the section,
notwithstanding this consistent construction by the department
charged with its enforcement, creates a presumption in favor of the
administrative interpretation, to which we should give great
weight, even if we doubted the correctness of the ruling of the
Department of Labor.
Fawcus Machine Co. v. United States,
282 U. S. 375,
282 U. S. 378;
McCaughan v. Hershey Chocolate Co., 283 U.
S. 488,
283 U. S.
492.
The judgment is
Affirmed.
[
Footnote 1]
C. 29, 39 Stat. 874, 889.
[
Footnote 2]
Act of March 26, 1910, c. 128, § 2, 36 Stat. 263; Senate Report
No. 352, to accompany H.R. 10384 (64th Cong., 1st Sess.).
[
Footnote 3]
Rules of Bureau of Immigration, May 1, 1917 (1st ed., May,
1917), rule 22; 2d ed., November, 1917; 3d ed., March, 1919; 4th
ed., February, 1920; 5th ed., December, 1920; 6th ed., September,
1921; 4th ed., August, 1922.
See also Rules of the Bureau
of Immigration, February 1, 1924, p. 31, and of July 1, 1925, p.
63.