A treatise on the laws governing the exclusion and expulsion of aliens in the United States

Front matter

THE UNIVERSITY

OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY

325. \

Preface

The purpose of this book is to present the general result of the decisions of the Federal Courts which have been rendered in cases involving the right of foreigners to enter or remain in the United States under the provisions of the statutes passed dealing with their exclusion and expulsion from this country during the past thirty years. The author has attempted to show that, in the United States, the right of foreigners to enter or remain cannot be adequately considered as a purely administrative question, or one the solution of which lies in the application of the accepted precepts of international law governing the subject; that the acts of Congress the purpose of which was to regulate the admission and residence of aliens in the United States, together with the judicial decisions by which they have been enforced, form a distinct and important branch of our municipal law. That this is so appears not only from the abundant list of cases adjudicated since the early days of Congressional legislation on immigration, but from a casual glance at the decisions which are being handed down to-day in the Circuit and District Courts.

Although the work is primarily designed for the use of those engaged in practice before the courts, or in Departmental practice, whether at ports of entry or before the Bureau of Immigration at Washington, it is thought that it may contain matter of value to those whose office demands from time to time the consideration of questions concerning the exclusion and expulsion of aliens from the broad standpoint of the law of nations.

The compilation of foreign laws contained in the appendix was to a large extent made simple by the assistance provided by M. Martini’s excellent work, L’Expulsion des Etrangers, in which many of these laws, particularly those vi

Preface.

of the European countries, were carefully compiled, and appear here translated from the French.

For the presence in the appendix of the laws or summaries of laws, consisting mainly of those of Great Britain and her Colonies, the author acknowledges his grateful indebtedness to Mr. Daniel J. Keefe, Commissioner General of Immigration, the officers of his Law Division, and particularly to Mr. W. W. Husband, formerly with the Immigration Commission, and now Chief of the Contract Labor Division of the Department of Commerce and Labor. And it is with a sense of deep gratitude that he acknowledges the encouragement and painstaking assistance of Mr. A. Warner Parker, law officer of the Bureau of Immigration, during the greater period of the preparation of this work, to whose suggestions, criticisms, and careful revision of many portions thereof whatever merit it may be found to contain will be in large part due.

Washington, Sept. 12, 1912.