Shaughnessy, District Director of Immigration and Naturalization, v. United States ex rel. Mezei (345 U.S. 206)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 16, 1953 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 345 U.S. 206 · 73 S. Ct. 625
- Docket
- No. 139
- Argued
- January 7, 1953
- Decided
- March 16, 1953
- Term
- October Term 1952
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Clark
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Minton, Justice Clark (wrote), Justice Burton, Justice Reed
- Dissenting
- Justice R. H. Jackson (wrote), Justice Douglas, Justice Frankfurter, Justice Black (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Clark delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns an alien immigrant permanently excluded from the United States on security grounds but stranded in his temporary haven on Ellis Island because other countries will not take him back. The issue is whether the Attorney General’s continued exclusion of respondent without a hearing amounts to an unlawful detention, so that courts may admit him temporarily to the United States on bond until arrangements are made for his departure abroad. After a hearing on respondent’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the District Court so held and authorized his temporary admission on $5,000 bond. The Court of Appeals affirmed that action, but directed reconsideration of the terms of the parole. Accordingly, the District Court entered a modified order reducing bond to $3,000 and permitting respondent to travel and reside in Buffalo, New York. Bond was posted and respondent released. Because of resultant serious problems in the enforcement of the immigration laws, we granted certiorari. 344 U. S. 809. Respondent’s present dilemma springs from these circumstances: Though, as the District Court observed, “[t]here is a certain vagueness about [his] history,” respondent seemingly was born in Gibraltar of Hungarian or Rumanian parents and lived in the United States from 1923 to 1948. In May of that year he sailed for Europe,…
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