Costello v. Immigration & Naturalization Service’s Empirical Analysis
1964
Citation profile
132 federal appellate · 24 district · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 234 later decisions (15 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Elias-Zacarias (1992), Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca (1987)
132 federal appellate · 24 district · 9 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedCostello v. Immigration & Naturalization Service (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 8 U.S.C. § 1182 (§ 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter)) · 8 U.S.C. § 1251 (§ 241 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter)) · 8 U.S.C. § 1451 (§ 340 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter))
Relies on United States v. American Trucking Associations · Costello v. United States · Costello v. United States · Harisiades v. Shaughnessy · Galvan v. Press
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 234 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When the Congress provided for the deportation of aliens who at any time after entry had been convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude 'not arising out of a single scheme of criminal misconduct,' the Congress evidently had in mind that a criminal, while engaged in a single criminal enterprise, might be guilty of two or more distinct offenses. . . . Thus one engaged in a single scheme of robbing a bank may be guilty of the offense of robbery, and also of the offense of inflicting a criminal battery upon a bank official. Though he might be convicted of both of these offenses, it was not the intention of Congress that he should be deported on this ground alone.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“deportation is a drastic measure and at times the equivalent of banishment or exile, Delgadillo v. Carmichael, 332 U.S. 388 [68 S.Ct. 10, 92 L.Ed. 17 (1947) ]. It is the forfeiture for misconduct of a residence in this country. Such a forfeiture is a penalty. To construe this statutory provision [former Sec. 241(a)(4), now Sec. 241(a)(2)(A) ] less generously to the alien might find support in logic. But since the stakes are considerable for the individual, we will not assume that Congress meant to trench on [the alien's] freedom beyond that which is required by the narrowest of several possible meanings of the words used.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“before adopting a construction of [the statute] which would, with respect to an entire class of aliens, completely nullify a procedure so intrinsic a part of the legislative scheme”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.