Opinion of the Court. UNITED SHOE MACHINERY CORP. v. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS. No. 394. Argued April 26-27, 1954. Decided May 17, 1954. The case having been fully argued and the Court being satisfied that the findings of the District Court are justified by the evidence and support the decree, the judgment is affirmed. 110 F. Supp. 295, affirmed. John L. Hall, Robert Proctor and Claude R. Branch argued the cause for appellant. With them on the brief were Walter Powers, John B. Reigeluth and Conrad W. Oberdorfer. Ralph S. Spritzer argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Sobeloff, Assistant Attorney General Barnes, Marvin E. Frankel, Margaret H. Brass and C. Worth Rowley. PER CURIAM. The case having been fully argued and the Court being satisfied that the findings are justified by the evidence and support the decree, the judgment is affirmed. MR. JUSTICE JACKSON and MR. JUSTICE CLARK did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case. GALVAN v. PRESS, OFFICER IN CHARGE, IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT. No. 407. Argued January 11-12, 1954.-Decided May 24, 1954. 1. Section 22 of the Internal Security Act of 1950, providing for the deportation of any alien who has been a member of the Communist Party at any time after entry, is constitutional-as here applied to a resident alien shown to have been willingly a member of the Communist Party from 1944 to 1946 although not shown to have been aware of its advocacy of violent overthrow of the Government. Pp. 523–532. (a) In the light of the broad power of Congress over the admission and deportation of aliens, it cannot be said that the classification by Congress contained in § 22 is so baseless as to be violative of due process and therefore beyond the power of Congress. Pp. 529–532. (b) The ex post facto clause of the Constitution has no application to deportation. P. 531. 2. On the record in this case, the evidence adduced at the administrative hearings was sufficient to support a finding that petitioner, a resident alien, had been a "member" of the Communist Party from 1944 to 1946 and, therefore, was deportable under § 22 of the Internal Security Act of 1950, even though he may not have known the full purposes or program of the Communist Party. Pp. 523-529. (a) The word "member" in § 22 cannot be construed as applying only to aliens who joined the Communist Party fully conscious of its advocacy of violence. Pp. 525–529. (b) It is enough that the alien joined the Party, aware that he was joining an organization known as the Communist Party which operates as a distinct and active political organization, and that he did so of his own free will. P. 528. (c) The record in this case does not show a relationship to the Party so nominal as not to make petitioner a "member" within the terms of the Act. Pp. 528–529. 201 F.2d 302, affirmed. 522 Opinion of the Court. Harry Wolpin and A. L. Wirin argued the cause for petitioner. With them on the brief were Morris L. Ernst and Osmond K. Fraenkel. Oscar H. Davis argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Robert L. Stern, then Acting Solicitor General, Assistant Attorney General Olney and Beatrice Rosenberg. MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner, an alien of Mexican birth, first entered the United States in 1918 and has since resided here with only occasional brief visits to his native country. In the course of two questionings, in March 1948, by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, he indicated that he had been a member of the Communist Party from 1944 to 1946. In March of 1949, the petitioner was served with a deportation warrant, and on the same day a preliminary deportation hearing was held to acquaint him with the charges against him—that after entry he had become a member of an organization which advocated the violent overthrow of the United States Government, and of an organization which distributed material so advocating. In December 1950, petitioner had a de novo hearing at which the transcripts of all earlier proceedings were, by agreement, made part of the record. Shortly after the hearing commenced, the Examining Officer lodged the additional charge against the petitioner that after entry he had been a member of the Communist Party, membership in which had been made a specific ground for deportation by the Internal Security Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 987, 1006, 1008. At this final hearing the evidence against the petitioner was derived from two principal sources. The first was Opinion of the Court. 347 U.S. his own testimony during the two interrogations by immigration authorities in 1948. During those interrogations, he had testified as to the time and place he had joined the Communist Party, talked freely about his membership in the Party, and indicated generally that the distinction between the Party and other groups was clear in his mind; he had explained that the reason he had not applied for naturalization was that he feared his former Party membership might be revealed, and had offered to make amends by rejoining the Party as an undercover agent for the Government. At the hearing in December of 1950, petitioner denied that in his prior hearing he had admitted joining the Party, insisting that at the time he thought the question related to labor union activities. In response to a question whether he had ever attended meetings of the Spanish Speaking Club, an alleged Communist Party unit, he replied: "The only meetings I attended were relating to the Fair Employment Practices Committee." The second source of information was the testimony of a Mrs. Meza to the effect that she had been present when petitioner was elected an officer of the Spanish Speaking Club. Petitioner denied the truth of this and other statements of Mrs. Meza calculated to establish his active participation in the Communist Party and said: "She must have been under great strain to imagine all those things." The Hearing Officer found that petitioner had been a member of the Communist Party from 1944 to 1946 and ordered him deported on that specific ground. He did not deem it necessary to make findings on the more general charges contained in the original warrant. The Hearing Officer's decision was adopted by the Assistant Commissioner and an appeal was dismissed by the Board of Immigration Appeals. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus was denied by the District Court, and the dismissal 522 Opinion of the Court. was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 201 F. 2d 302. On certiorari, petitioner challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain deportation under § 22 of the Internal Security Act of 1950 and attacked the validity of the Act as applied to him.' These are issues that raise the constitutionality and construction of the 1950 Act for the first time and so we granted certiorari. 346 U. S. 812. Petitioner's contention that there was not sufficient evidence to support the deportation order brings into question the scope of the word "member" as used by Congress in the enactment of 1950, whereby it required deportation of any alien who at the time of entering the United States, or at any time thereafter, was a "member" of the Communist Party. We are urged to construe the Act as providing for the deportation only of those aliens who joined the Communist Party fully conscious of its advocacy 1 In his petition, petitioner also contended that the procedure used against him was unfair because of the new charge lodged by the Examining Officer in the December 1950 hearing. Apart from the fact that this claim was not pressed in the argument or petitioner's brief, it is sufficient to note that there was no element of surprise in the additional charge, since it was simply in more specific terms the same ground for deportation that petitioner already knew he had to defend against, namely, membership in the Communist Party. Furthermore, petitioner declined the Hearing Officer's offer of a continuance to meet the new charge. 2 Section 22 of the Internal Security Act of 1950 provides that the Attorney General shall take into custody and deport any alien. "who was at the time of entering the United States, or has been at any time thereafter, . . . a member of any one of the classes of aliens enumerated in section 1 (2) of this Act . . . ." Subparagraph (C) of § 1 (2) lists "Aliens who are members of or affiliated with (i) the Communist Party of the United States . . . . The substance of this provision was incorporated in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 163, 205, 8 U. S. C. § 1251 (a) (6) (C). |