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Federal Regulation of Aliens and the Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

T. Alexander Aleinikoff
T. Alexander Aleinikoff*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan Law School
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Extract

In two cases decided in the afterglow of the centennial of the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court said nearly everything the modern lawyer needs to know about the source and extent of Congress’s power to regulate immigration. The cases sustained the constitutionality of the first significant congressional restrictions on immigration—the shameful Chinese exclusion laws. Constitutional analysis of the immigration power has yet to shed the original sins of the Court’s ratification of Congress’s ignominious legislation.

Type
Rights—Here and There
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 83 , Issue 4 , October 1989 , pp. 862 - 871
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1989

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References

1 Chae Chan Ping v. United States, 130 U.S. 581 (1889).

2 149 U.S. 698(1893).

3 [Yamataya v. Fisher,] 189 U.S. 86 (1903).

4 Chinese Exclusion, 130 U.S. at 606.

5 Id. at 603–04.

6 149 U.S. at 711.

7 See, e.g., Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U.S. 275, 280 (1875) (invalidating California statute providing for inspection of arriving aliens).

8 Fong Yue Ting, 149 U.S. at 708 (quoting 1 T. Ortolan, Règles Internationales et diplomatie de la mer 297 (4th ed. 1864)).

9 For the most recent statement, see Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 32 (1982). See generally Legomsky, Immigration Law and the Principle of Plenary Congressional Power, 1984 Sup. Ct. Rev. 255, 269–70.

10 E.g., Chinese Exclusion, 130 U.S. at 606.

11 It should be made clear that an international law perspective did not compel either plenary congressional power or judicial abdication. The international authorities recognized that the power of a sovereign to exclude and deport aliens under international law “may be subjected, doubtless, to certain forms by the domestic laws of each country.” Fong Yue Ting, 149 U.S. at 708 (quoting 1 T. Ortolan, supra note 8, at 297). But there can be little doubt that associating the immigration power with the exercise of the foreign affairs power suggested a rather limited judicial role.

12 Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886).

13 Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228, 237 (1896).

14 The exception to this norm was The Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U.S. 86 (1903), which subjected deportation procedures to (albeit modest) constitutional scrutiny.

15 Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 32 (1982).

16 Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67 (1976).

17 The Court nominally applies a low level of scrutiny. But the standard is satisfied upon the merest of showings. See, e.g., Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787 (1977); Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753(1972).

18 E.g., Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266 (1973) (Fourth Amendment); Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135 (1945) (First Amendment).

19 403 U.S. 365(1971).

20 E.g., Examining Bd. of Eng’rs v. Otero, 426 U.S. 572 (1976); In re Griffiths, 413 U.S. 717 (1973) (bar admission); Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U.S. 634 (1973) (state civil service employment).

21 The Supreme Court has upheld state laws excluding aliens from employment as parole officers, Cabell v. Chavez-Salido, 454 U.S. 432 (1982); teachers, Ambach v. Norwick, 441 U.S. 68 (1979); and police officers, Foley v. Connelie, 435 U.S. 291 (1978).

22 Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982).

23 For example, there is no judicial review of visa denials by consular officers (see T. Aleinikoff & D. Martin, Immigration: Process and Policy 205–12 (1985)); aliens are not entitled to government-provided counsel in deportation proceedings, despite the complexity of the law and the interests at stake (see id. at 414–22); the exclusionary rule does not apply in deportation proceedings, INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032 (1984); and homosexuality is a bar to naturalization, In re Longstaff, 716 F.2d 1439 (5th Cir. 1983), cert, denied, 467 U.S. 1219(1984).

24 Professor Henkin’s recent review minces no words: “Chinese Exclusion—its very name an embarrassment—must go.” Henkin, The Constitution and United States Sovereignty: A Century of Chinese Exclusion and Its Progeny, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 853, 863 (1987).

25 Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 765 (1972).

26 For a structural analysis, see T. Aleinikoff & D. Martin, supra note 23, at 16–18.

27 Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 32 (1982).

28 E.g., Martin, Due Process and Membership in the National Community: Political Asylum and Beyond, 44 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 165, 173–75 (1983); Hart, The Power of Congress to Limit the Jurisdiction of Federal Courts: An Exercise in Dialectic, 66 Harv. L. Rev. 1362, 1386–96 (1953).

29 Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. at 32; see Fong Yue Ting, 149 U.S. at 762 (Fuller, C.J., dissenting) (deportation constitutes “deprivation of that which has been lawfully acquired”).

30 For another way to the same result—which, I believe, has received too little attention—see Van Alstyne, Cracks in “The New Property”: Adjudicative Due Process in the Administrative State, 62 Cornell L. Rev. 445 (1977) (suggesting that Due Process Clause includes within it a “liberty” interest in freedom from nonarbitrary adjudicative procedures).

31 See Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976).

32 See, e.g., Martin, supra note 28, at 208–34.

33 See, e.g., Maslow, Recasting Our Deportation Law: Proposals for Reform, 56 Colum. L. Rev.309 (1956); Hesse, The Constitutional Status of the Lawfully Admitted Permanent Resident Alien: The Inherent Limits of the Power to Expel, 69 Yale L.J. 262 (1959); Note, Immigration and the First Amendment, 73 Cal. L. Rev. 1889 (1985).

34 See, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) (per curiam).

35 Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 148 (1945); Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147, 160 & n.8 (1939).

36 8 U.S.C. §1251(a)(6)(B), (C) and (G) (1982).

37 342 U.S. 580(1952).

38 See, e.g., Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 792 (1977) (citing Harisiades favorably).

39 341 U.S. 494 (1951).

40 342 U.S. at 592.

41 See, e.g., Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973) (per curiam); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) (per curiam).

42 It is fitting that in the centennial year of Chinese Exclusion, a federal court has concluded, for the first time, that the deportation grounds mentioned in the text “are substantially overbroad and violate the First Amendment.” American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm. v. Meese, 714 F.Supp. 1060 (CD. Cal. 1989).

43 E.g., Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787 (1977). For a rare case invalidating an immigration regulation as a violation of equal protection, see Francis v. INS, 532 F.2d 268 (2d Cir. 1976) (striking down, not a statutory provision, but rather an administrative interpretation of the statute).

44 For a similar suggestion, see Rosberg, The Protection of Aliens from Discriminatory Treatment by the National Government, 1977 Sup. Ct. Rev. 275.

45 Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 383, 388 (1978) (requiring statute that interferes with right to marry to be justified by “sufficiently important state interests and … closely tailored to effectuate only those interests”). See Turner v. Safley, 107 S.Ct. 2254 (1987) (burden on right to marry); Moore v. City of E. Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977) (interference with decisions on family living arrangements).

46 Noel v. Chapman, 508 F.2d 1023 (2d Cir.), cert, denied, 423 U.S. 824 (1975).

47 See Henkin, The Constitution as Compact and as Conscience: Individual Rights Abroad and at Our Gates, 27 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 11 (1985).