Ludecke v. Watkins

¶3Mr. Justice Frankfurter

¶4delivered the opinion of the Court.

¶5The Fifth Congress committed to the President these powers:

“Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of. the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized, in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be sub*162ject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety.” (Act of July 6, 1798, 1 Stat. 577, R. S. § 4067, as amended, 40 Stat. 531, 50 U. S. C. §21.)

¶6This Alien Enemy Act has remained the law of the land, virtually unchanged since 1798.1 Throughout these one hundred and fifty years executive interpretation and decisions of lower courts have found in the Act an authority for the President which is now questioned, and the further claim is made that, if what the President did comes within the Act, the Congress could not give him such power.2 Obviously these are issues which properly brought the case here. 333 U. S. 865.

¶7Petitioner, a German alien enemy,3 was arrested on De*163cember 8, 1941, and, after proceedings before an Alien Enemy Hearing Board on January 16, 1942, was interned by order of the Attorney General, dated February 9, 1942.4 Under authority of the Act of 1798, the President, on July 14, 1945, directed the removal from the United States of all alien enemies “who shall be deemed by the Attorney General to be dangerous to the public peace and safety of the United States.” Proclamation 2655,10 Fed. Reg. 8947. Accordingly, the Attorney General, on January 18, 1946, ordered petitioner’s removal.5 Denial of a writ of habeas corpus for release from detention under this order was affirmed by the court below. 163 F. 2d 143.

¶8As Congress explicitly recognized in the recent Administrative Procedure Act, some statutes “preclude judicial review.” Act of June 11, 1946, § 10, 60 Stat. 237, 243. Barring questions of interpretation and constitutionality, *164the Alien Enemy Act of 1798 is such a statute. Its terms, purpose, and construction leave no doubt. The language employed by the Fifth Congress could hardly be made clearer, or be rendered doubtful, by the incomplete and not always dependable accounts we have of debates in the early years of Congress.6 That such was the scope of the Act is established by controlling contemporaneous construction. “The act concerning alien enemies, which confers on the president very great discretionary powers respecting their persons,” Marshall, C. J., in Brown v. United States, 8 Cranch 110, 126, “appears to me to be as unlimited as the legislature could make it.” Washington, J., in Lockington v. Smith, 15 Fed. Cas. No. 8448 at p. 760. The very nature of the President’s power to order the removal of all enemy aliens rejects the notion that courts may pass judgment upon the exercise of his discretion.7 This view was expressed by Mr. Justice Iredell shortly after the Act was passed, Case of Fries, 9 Fed. Cas. No. 5126, and every judge before whom the question has since come has held that the statute barred judi*165cial review.8 We would so read the Act if it came before us without the impressive gloss of history.

¶9The power with which Congress vested the President had to be executed by him through others. He provided for the removal of such enemy aliens as were “deemed by the Attorney General” to be dangerous.9 But such a finding, at the President’s behest, was likewise not to be subjected to the scrutiny of courts. For one thing, removal was contingent not upon a finding that in fact an alien was “dangerous.” The President was careful to call for the removal of aliens “deemed by the Attorney General to be dangerous.” But the short answer is that *166the Attorney General was the President’s voice and conscience. A war power of the President not subject to judicial review is not transmuted into a judicially reviewable action because the President chooses to have that power exercised within narrower limits than Congress authorized.

¶10And so we reach the claim that while the President had summary power under the Act, it did not survive cessation of actual hostilities.10 This claim in effect nullifies the power to deport alien enemies, for such deportations are hardly practicable during the pendency of what is colloquially known as the shooting war.11 Nor does law *167lag behind common sense. War does not cease with a cease-fire order, and power to be exercised by the President such as that conferred by the Act of 1798 is a process which begins when war is declared but is not exhausted when the shooting stops.12 See United States v. Ander*168son, 9 Wall. 56, 70; The Protector, 12 Wall. 700; McElrath v. United States, 102 U. S. 426, 438; Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries Co., 251 U. S. 146, 167. “The state of war” may be terminated by treaty or legislation or Presidential proclamation. Whatever the mode, its *169termination is a political act.13Ibid.Whether and when it would be open to this Court to find that a war though merely formally kept alive had in fact ended, is a question too fraught with gravity even to be adequately formulated when not compelled. Only a few months ago the Court rejected the contention that the state of war in relation to which the President has exercised the authority now challenged was terminated. Woods v. Miller Co., 333 U. S. 138. Nothing that has happened since calls for a qualification of that view.14 It is still true, as was said in the opinion in that case which eyed the war power most jealously, “We have armies abroad exercising our war power and have made no peace terms with our allies, not to mention our principal enemies.” Woods v. Miller Co., supra, at p. 147 (concurring opinion). The situation today is strikingly similar to that of 1919, where this Court observed: “In view of facts of public knowledge, some of which have been referred to, that the treaty of *170peace has not yet been concluded, that the railways are still under national control by virtue of the war powers, that other war activities have not been brought to a close, and that it can not even be said that the man power of the nation has been restored to a peace footing, we are unable to conclude that the act has ceased to be valid.” Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries Co., 251 U. S. at 163.

¶11The political branch of the Government has not brought the war with Germany to an end. On the contrary, it has proclaimed that “a state of war still exists.” Presidential Proclamation 2714, 12 Fed. Reg. 1; see Woods v. Miller Co., supra, at p. 140; Fleming v. Mohawk Wrecking & Lumber Co., 331 U. S. 111, 116. The Court would be assuming the functions of the political agencies of the Government to yield to the suggestion that the unconditional surrender of Germany and the disintegration of the Nazi Reich have left Germany without a government capable of negotiating a treaty of peace. It is not for us to question a belief by the President that enemy aliens who were justifiably deemed fit subjects for internment during active hostilites do not lose their potency for mischief during the period of confusion and conflict which is characteristic of a state of war even when the guns are silent but the peace of Peace has not come.15 These are matters of political judgment for which judges have neither technical competence nor official responsibility.

¶12This brings us to the final question. Is the statute valid as we have construed it? The same considerations of reason, authority, and history, that led us to reject *171reading the statutory language “declared war” 16 to mean “actual hostilities,” support the validity of the statute. The war power is the war power. If the war, as we have held, has not in fact ended, so as to justify local rent control, a fortiori, it validly supports the power given to the President by the Act of 1798 in relation to alien enemies. Nor does it require protracted argument to find no defect in the Act because resort to the courts may be had only to challenge the construction and validity of the statute and to question the existence of the “declared war,” as has been done in this case.17 The Act is almost as old as the Constitution, and it would savor of doctrinaire audacity now to find the statute offensive to some emanation of the Bill of Rights.18 The fact that *172hearings are utilized by the Executive to secure an informed basis for the exercise of summary power does not argue the right of courts to retry such hearings, nor bespeak due process · Case Law">denial of due process to withhold such power from the courts.

¶13Such great war powers may be abused, no doubt, but that is a bad reason for having judges supervise their exercise, whatever the legal formulas within which such supervision would nominally be confined. In relation to the distribution of constitutional powers among the three branches of the Government, the optimistic Eighteenth Century language of Mr. Justice Iredell, speaking of this very Act, is still pertinent:

“All systems of government suppose they are to be administered by men of common sense and common honesty. In our country, as all ultimately depends on the voice of the people, they have it in their power, and it is to be presumed they generally will choose men of this description; but if they will not, the case, to be sure, is without remedy. If they choose fools, they will have foolish laws. If they choose knaves, they will have knavish ones. But this can never be the case until they are generally fools or knaves themselves, which, thank God, is not likely ever to become the character of the American people.” (Case of Fries, supra, at p. 836.)

¶14*173Accordingly, we hold that full responsibility for the just exercise of this great power may validly be left where the Congress has constitutionally placed it — on the President of the United States. The Pounders in their wisdom made him not only the Commander-in-Chief but also the guiding organ in the conduct of our foreign affairs. He who was entrusted with such vast powers in relation to the outside world was also entrusted by Congress, almost throughout the whole life of the nation, with the disposition of alien enemies during a state of war. Such a page of history is worth more than a volume of rhetoric.19

¶15Judgment affirmed and stay order entered February 2, 19¿¡.8, vacated.

¶40MR. Justice Black,

¶41with whom Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Murphy and Mr. Justice Rutledge join,

¶42dissenting.

¶43The petition for habeas corpus in this case alleged that petitioner, a legally admitted resident of the United States, *174was about to be deported from this country to Germany as a “dangerous” alien enemy, without having been afforded notice and a fair hearing to determine whether he was “dangerous.” The Court now holds, as the Government argued, that because of a presidential proclamation, petitioner can be deported by the Attorney General’s order without any judicial inquiry whatever into the truth of his allegations.1 The Court goes further and holds, as I understand its opinion, that the Attorney General can deport him whether he is dangerous or not. The effect of this holding is that any unnaturalized person, good or bad, loyal or disloyal to this country, if he was a citizen of Germany before coming here, can be summarily seized, interned and deported from the United States by the At*175torney General, and that no court of the United States has any power whatever to review, modify, vacate, reverse, or in any manner affect the Attorney General's deportation order. Mr. Justice Douglas has given reasons in his dissenting opinion why he believes that deportation of aliens, without notice and hearing, whether in peace or war, would be a due process of law · Case Law">denial of due process of law. I agree with Mr. Justice Douglas for many of the reasons he gives that deportation of petitioner without a fair hearing as determined by judicial review is a denial of due process of law.2 But I do not reach the question of power to deport aliens of countries with which we are at war while we are at war, because I think the idea that we are still at war with Germany in the sense contemplated by the statute controlling here is a pure fiction. Furthermore, I think there is no act of Congress which lends the slightest basis to the claim that after hostilities with a foreign country have ended the President or the Attorney General, one or both, can deport aliens without a fair hearing reviewable in the courts. On the contrary, when this very question came before Congress after World War I in the interval between the Armistice and the conclusion of formal peace with Germany, Congress unequivocally required that enemy aliens be given a fair hearing before they could be deported.

¶44The Court relies on the Alien Enemy Act of 1798. 1 Stat. 577, 50 U. S. C. § 21-24. That Act did grant extraordinarily broad powers to the President to restrain and “to provide for the removal” of aliens who owe allegiance to a foreign government, but such action is authorized only “whenever there is a declared war between the United States” and such foreign government, or in the event that foreign government attempts or threatens the United States with “any invasion or predatory incursion.” *176The powers given to the President by this statute, I may assume for my purposes, are sufficiently broad to have authorized the President acting through the Attorney General to deport alien Germans from this country while the “declared” second World War was actually going on, or while there was real danger of invasion from Germany. But this 1798 statute, unlike statutes passed in later years, did not expressly prescribe the events which would for statutory purposes mark the termination of the “declared” war or threatened invasions. See Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries Co., 251 U. S. 146, 165, n. 1. In such cases we are called on to interpret a statute as best we can so as to carry out the purpose of Congress in connection with the particular right the statute was intended to protect, United States v. Anderson, 9 Wall. 56, 69-70; The Protector, 12 Wall. 700, 702, or the particular evil the statute was intended to guard against. McElrath v. United States, 102 U. S. 426, 437, 438. See Judicial Determination of the End of the War, 47 Col. L. Rev. 255.

¶45The 1798 Act was passed at a time when there was widespread hostility to France on the part of certain groups in the United States. It was asserted by many that France had infiltrated this country with spies preaching “subversive” ideas and activities. Mr. Otis, the chief congressional spokesman for the measure, expressed his fears of “. . . a band of spies . . . spread through the country, from one end of it to the other, who, in case of the introduction of an enemy into our country” might join the enemy “in their attack upon us, and in their plunder of our property . . . .” Annals of Congress, 5th Cong., 2d Sess. 1791. Congressional discussions of this particular measure appear at pp. 1573-1582, 1785-1796, and 2034-2035, Annals of Congress, 5th Cong., 2d Sess.,3*177and show beyond any reasonable doubt that the Alien Enemy Act of 1798 was intended to grant its extraordinary powers only to prevent alien enemies residing in the United States from extending aid and comfort to an enemy country while dangers from actual fighting hostilities were imminently threatened. Indeed, Mr. Otis, who was most persistent in his expressions of anti-French sentiments and in his aggressive sponsorship of this and its companion Alien and Sedition Acts, is recorded as saying “. . . that in a time of tranquility, he should not desire to'put a power like this into the hands of the Executive; but, in a time of war, the citizens of France ought to be considered and treated and watched in a very different manner from citizens of our own country.” Annals of Congress, 5th Cong., 2d Sess. 1791. And just before the bill was ordered to be read for its third time, Mr. Gal-latin pointed out that the Alien Act had already made it possible for the President to remove all aliens, whether friends or enemies; he interpreted the measure here under consideration, aimed only at alien enemies, as providing “in what manner they may be laid under certain restraints by way of security.” For this reason he supported this bill. Annals of Congress, 5th Cong., 2d Sess. 2035.

¶46German aliens could not now, if they would, aid the German Government in war hostilities against the United States. For as declared by the United States Department of State, June 5, 1945, the German armed forces on land and sea had been completely subjugated and had unconditionally surrendered. “There is no central Government or authority in Germany capable of accepting responsibility for the maintenance of order, the admin*178istration of the country and compliance with the requirements of the victorious Powers.” And the State Department went on to declare that the United States, Russia, Great Britain, and France had assumed “supreme authority with respect to Germany, including all the powers possessed by the German Government, the High Command, and any state, municipal, or local government or authority.” 12 State Dept. Bull. 1051. And on March 17, 1948, the President of the United States told the Congress that “Almost 3 years have elapsed since the end . . .” of the war with Germany. See Court opinion, n. 15.

¶47Of course it is nothing but a fiction to say that we are now at war with Germany.4 Whatever else that fiction might support, I refuse to agree that it affords a basis for today’s holding that our laws authorize the peacetime banishment of any person on the judicially unreviewable conclusion of a single individual. The 1798 Act did not grant its extraordinary and dangerous powers to be used during the period of fictional wars. As previously pointed out, even Mr. Otis, with all of his fervent support of anti-French legislation, repudiated the suggestion that the Act would vest the President with such dangerous powers in peacetime. Consequently, the Court today gives the 1798 Act a far broader meaning *179than it was given by one of the most vociferous champions of the 1798 series of anti-alien and anti-sedition laws.

¶48Furthermore, the holding today represents an entirely new interpretation of the 1798 Act. For nearly 150 years after the 1798 Act there never came to this Court any case in which the Government asked that the Act be interpreted so as to allow the President or other person · Case Law">any other person to deport alien enemies without allowing them access to the courts. In fact, less than two months after the end of the actual fighting in the first World War, Attorney General Gregory informed the Congress that, although there was power to continue the internment of alien enemies after the cessation of actual hostilities and until the ratification of a peace treaty, still there was no statute under which they could then be deported.5 For this reason the Attorney General re*180quested Congress to enact new legislation to authorize deportation of enemy aliens at that time. The bill thereafter introduced was endorsed by both the Attorney General and the Secretary of Labor in a joint letter in which they asked that it be given “immediate consideration” in view of the “gravity of this situation.” Hearings before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization on H. R. 6750, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. 42-43. Several months later Attorney General Palmer submitted substantially the same statements to the House and Senate Committees on Immigration. H. R. Rep. 143, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. 2; S. Rep. 283, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. 2. See also Report of the Attorney General, 1919, 25-28.

¶49A bill to carry out the recommendations of the Wilson administration was later passed, 41 Stat. 593 (1920), but not until it had been amended on the floor of the House of Representatives to require that all alien enemies be given a fair hearing before their deportation. 58 Cong. Rec. 3366. That a fair hearing was the command of Congress is not only shown by the language of the Act but by the text of the congressional hearings, by the committee reports and by congressional debates on the bill. In fact, the House was assured by the ranking member of the Committee reporting the bill that in hearings to deport alien enemies under the bill “a man is entitled to have counsel present, entitled to subpoena witnesses and summon them before him and have a full hearing, at which the stenographer’s minutes must be taken.” 58 Cong. Rec. 3373. See also 3367 and 3372. Congress therefore after the fighting war was over authorized the deportation of interned alien enemies only if they were *181“given full hearing, as in all cases of deportation under existing laws.” H. R. Rep. No. 143, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. 2.

¶50This petitioner is in precisely the same status as were the interned alien enemies of the first World War for whom Congress specifically required a fair hearing with court review as a prerequisite to their deportation. Yet the Court today sanctions a procedure whereby petitioner is to be deported without any determination of his charge that he has been denied a fair hearing. The Court can reach such a result only by rejecting the interpretation of the 1798 Act given by two Attorney Generals, upon which Congress acted in 1920. It is held that Congress and the two Attorney Generals of the Wilson administration were wrong in believing that the 1798 Act did not authorize deportation of interned enemy aliens after hostilities and before a peace treaty. And in making its novel interpretation of the 1798 Act the Court today denies this petitioner and others the kind of fair hearing that due process of law was intended to guarantee. See The Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U. S. 86, 100-101, read and explained on the floor of the House of Representatives at 58 Cong. Rec. 3373, read into the House Committee hearings, supra at 19-20, and quoted in part in note 2 of Mr. Justice Douglas’ dissenting opinion.

¶51The Court’s opinion seems to fear that Germans if now left in the United States might somehow have a “potency for mischief” even after the complete subjugation and surrender of Germany, at least so long as the “peace of Peace has not come.” This “potency for mischief” can of course have no possible relation to apprehension of any invasion by or war with Germany. The apprehension must therefore be based on fear that Germans now residing in the United States might emit ideas dangerous to the “peace of Peace.” But the First Amend*182ment represents this nation’s belief that the spread of political ideas must not be suppressed. And the avowed purpose of the Alien Enemy Act was not to stifle the spread of ideas after hostilities had ended.6 Others in the series of Alien and Sedition Acts did provide for prison punishment of people who had or at least who dared to *183express political ideas.7 I cannot now agree to an interpretation of the Alien Enemy Act which gives a new life to the long repudiated anti-free speech and anti-free press philosophy of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts. I would not disinter that philosophy which the people have long hoped Thomas Jefferson had permanently buried when he pardoned the last person convicted for violation of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

¶52Finally, I wish to call attention to what was said by Circuit Judge Augustus Hand in this case speaking for himself and Circuit Judges Learned Hand and Swan, before whom petitioner argued his own cause. Believing the deportation order before them was not subject to judicial review, they saw no reason for discussing the . . nature or weight of the evidence before the Repatriation Hearing Board, or the finding of the Attorney General . . . But they added: “However, on the face of the record it is hard to see why the relator should now be compelled to go back. Of course there may be much not disclosed to justify the step; and it is of doubtful propriety for a court ever to express an opinion on a subject over which it has no power. Therefore, we shall, and should, say no more than to suggest that justice may perhaps be better satisfied if a reconsideration be given him in the light of the changed conditions, since the order of removal was made eighteen months ago.” 163 F. 2d at 144.

¶53It is not amiss, I think, to suggest my belief that because of today’s opinion individual liberty will be less secure tomorrow than it was yesterday. Certainly the security of aliens is lessened, particularly if their ideas happen to be out of harmony with those of the govern*184mental authorities of a period. And there is removed a segment of judicial power to protect individual liberty from arbitrary action, at least until today’s judgment is corrected by Congress8 or by this Court.

¶65Mr. Justice Douglas,

¶66with whom Mr. Justice Murphy and Mr. Justice Rutledge concur,

¶67dissenting.

¶68I do not agree that the sole question open on habeas corpus is whether the petitioner is in fact an alien enemy.1 That delimitation of the historic writ is a wholly arbitrary one. I see no reason for a more narrow range of judicial inquiry here than in habeas corpus arising out of any other deportation proceeding.

¶69It is undisputed that in peacetime an alien is protected by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 228. Federal courts will then determine through habeas corpus whether *185or not a deportation order is based upon procedures affording due process of law. Vajtauer v. Commissioner, 273 U. S. 103, 106. In deportation proceedings due process requires reasonable notice (Tisi v. Tod, 264 U. S. 131, 134), a fair hearing (Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U. S. 135, 156; Chin Yow v. United States, 208 U. S. 8, 12; Low Wah Suey v. Backus, 225 U. S. 460), and an order supported by some evidence (Vajtauer v. Commissioner, supra, p. 106; Zakonaite v. Wolf, 226 U. S. 272, 274). And see Kwock Jan Fat v. White, 253 U. S. 454.

¶70The rule of those cases is not restricted to instances where Congress itself has provided for a hearing. The Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U. S. 86, decided in 1903, so held. The Court in that case held that due process required that deportation be had only after notice and hearing even though there, as here, the statute prescribed no such procedure but entrusted the matter wholly to an executive officer.2 Consistently with that principle we held in Bridges v. Wixon, supra,that a violation of the rules governing the hearing could be reached on habeas corpus, even though the rules were prescribed not by Con*186gress but by the administrative agency in charge of the deportation proceeding. We stated, p. 154:

“We are dealing here with procedural requirements prescribed for the protection of the alien. Though deportation is not technically a criminal proceeding, it visits a great hardship on the individual and deprives him of the right to stay and live and work in this land of freedom. That deportation is a penalty — at times a most serious one — cannot be doubted. Meticulous care must be exercised lest the procedure by which he is deprived of that liberty not meet the essential standards of fairness.”

¶71The same principles are applicable here. The President has classified alien enemies by regulations of general applicability and has authorized deportation only of those deemed dangerous because they have adhered to an enemy government, or the principles thereof. Petitioner was in fact given a hearing in 1945 before the Repatriation Hearing Board in addition to one in 1942 before the Alien Enemy Hearing Board. The order for his deportation recites that “upon consideration of the evidence presented” before those Boards, the Attorney General, in the words of the Proclamation, deems petitioner “to be dangerous to the public peace and safety of the United States because he has adhered to a government with which the United States is at war or to the principle thereof.” Those findings and conclusions and the procedure by which they were reached must conform with the requirements of due process. And habeas corpus is the time-honored procedure to put them to the test.

¶72The inquiry in this type of case need be no greater an intrusion in the affairs of the Executive branch of government than inquiries by habeas corpus in times of peace into a determination that the alien is considered to be an “undesirable resident of the United States.” See *187Mahler v. Eby, 264 U. S. 32. Both involve only a determination that procedural due process is satisfied, that there be a fair hearing, and that the order be based upon some evidence.

¶73The needs of the hour may well require summary apprehension and detention of alien enemies. A nation at war need not be detained by time-consuming procedures while the enemy bores from within. But with an alien enemy behind bars, that danger has passed. If he is to be deported only after a hearing, our constitutional requirements are that the hearing be a fair one. It is foreign to our thought to defend a mock hearing on the ground that in any event it was a mere gratuity. Hearings that are arbitrary and unfair are no hearings at all under our system of government. Against them habeas corpus provides in this case the only protection.

¶74The notion that the discretion of any officer of government can override due process is foreign to our system. Due process does not perish when war comes. It is well established that the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties. Home Bldg. & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398, 426.