United States Ex Rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,

dissenting.

If the essence of statutory construction is to find the thought beneath the words, the views expressed by Mr. Justice Jackson, in which I fully concur, enforce the purpose of Congress. The contrary conclusion substantially frustrates it.

Seventy years ago began the policy of excluding mentally defective aliens from admission into the United States. Thirty years ago it became our settled policy to admit even the most desirable aliens only in accordance with the quota system. By the so-called War Brides Act Congress made inroads upon both these deeply-rooted policies. (Act of December 28, 1945, 59 Stat. 659 , 8 U. S. C. § 232 et seq.) It lifted the bar against the exclusion even of “physically and mentally defective aliens.” It did this in favor of “alien spouses and alien minor children of citizen members who are serving or have served honorably in the armed forces of the United States during World War II.” H. R. Rep. No. 1320 and S. Rep. No. 860, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. (1945).

*548 This was a bounty afforded by Congress not to the alien who had become the wife of an American but to the citizen who had honorably served his country. Congress gave this bounty even though a physically or mentally defective person might thereby be added to the population of the United States. Yet it is suggested that the deepest tie that an American soldier could form may be secretly severed on the mere say-so of an official, however well-intentioned. Although five minutes of cross-examination could enable the soldier-husband to dissipate seemingly convincing information affecting the security danger of his wife, that opportunity need not be accorded. And all this, because of the literal reading of the provision of the War Brides Act that the alien spouse, though physically and mentally defective, is to be allowed to join her citizen husband “if otherwise admissible under the immigration laws.” Upon that phrase is rested the whole structure of Executive regulation based on § 1 of the Act of May 22, 1918, 40 Stat. 559 , as amended by the Act of June 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 252 , 22 U. S. C. § 223 , regarding the summary exclusion, without opportunity for a hearing, of an alien whose entry the Attorney General finds inimical to the public interest. *

This is not the way to read such legislation. It is true also of Acts of Congress that “The letter killeth.” Legislation should not be read in such a decimating spirit unless the letter of Congress is inexorable. We are reminded from time to time that in enacting legislation Congress is not engaged in a scientific process which takes account of every contingency. Its laws are not to be read as though every i has to be dotted and every t *549 crossed. The War Brides Act is legislation derived from the dominant regard which American society places upon the family. It is not to be assumed that Congress gave with a bountiful hand but allowed its bounty arbitrarily to be taken away. In framing and passing the War Brides Act, Congress was preoccupied with opening the door to wives acquired by American husbands during service in foreign lands. It opened the door on essentials — wives of American soldiers and perchance mothers of their children were not to run the gauntlet of administrative discretion in determining their physical and mental condition, and were to be deemed nonquota immigrants. Congress ought not to be made to appear to require that they incur the greater hazards of an informer’s tale without any opportunity for its refutation, especially since considerations of national security, insofar as they are pertinent, can be amply protected by a hearing in camera. Compare Buie 46 of the Rules of Practice for Admiralty Courts during World War II, 316 U. S. 717 ; 328 U. S. 882 , and see Haydock, Some Evidentiary Problems Posed by Atomic Energy Security Requirements, 61 Harv. L. Rev. 468 , 482-83 (1948). An alien’s opportunity of entry into the United States is of course a privilege which Congress may grant or withhold. But the crux of the problem before us is whether Congress, having extended the privilege for the benefit not of the alien but of her American husband, left wide open the opportunity ruthlessly to take away what it gave.

A regulation permitting such exclusion by the Attorney General’s fiat — in the nature of things that high functionary must largely act on dossiers prepared by others— in the case of an alien claiming entry on his own account is one thing. To construe such regulation to be authorized and to apply in the case of the wife of an honorably *550 discharged Americán soldier is quite another thing. Had Congress spoken explicitly we would have to bow to it. Such a substantial contradiction of the congressional beneficence which is at the heart of the War Brides Act ought not to be attributed to Congress by a process of elaborate implication. Especially is this to be avoided when to do so charges Congress with an obviously harsh purpose. Due regard for the whole body of immigration laws and policies makes it singularly appropriate in construing the War Brides Act to be heedful of the admonition that “The letter killeth.”

The Attorney General is to act on information that satisfies him; not only is there no opportunity for a hearing, but the Attorney General can lock in his own bosom the evidence that does satisfy him. 8 C. F. R. §§ 175.53 ,175.57 (1949).