Louis Brandeis

“ Upon receipt of a telegraphic or written warrant of arrest the alien shall be taken before the person or persons therein named or described and granted a hearing to enable him to show cause, if any there be, why he should not be deported. ”

“ For the statutory provision which puts upon the person arrested in deportation proceedings the burden of establishing his right to remain in this country applies only to persons of the Chinese race and in other cases. ”

“ But he made no such claim at that time; nor does he now contend, by allegation in his petition for habeas corpus, or otherwise, that he is a citizen of the United States. He rests his claim to relief on an entirely different ground. He asserts that, because of the manner in which the evidence of alienage was procured, the warrant of deportation is a nullity. He argues that alienage is essential to jurisdiction; that the government has the burden of establishing the fact; that it can be established only by legal evidence ”

“ To render a hearing unfair the defect, or the practice complained of, must have been such as might have led to a denial of justice, or there must have been absent one of the elements deemed essential to due process. ”

“ Deportation proceedings are civil in their nature. Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 730, 13 Sup. Ct. 1016, 37 L. Ed. 905; Bugajewitz v. Adams, 228 U.S. 585, 591, 33 Sup. Ct. 607, 57 L. Ed. 978. Neither statute nor rule requires that matter alleged in the warrant of arrest shall, in the absence of an express admission, be taken to be denied. A person arrested on the preliminary warrant is not protected by a presumption of citizenship comparable to the presumption of innocence in a criminal case. ”