Tom C. Clark

“ United States, 1892, 142 U.S. 651, 12 S.Ct. 336, 35 L.Ed. 1146, argued that if § 8 was interpreted as making the administrative exclusion decision conclusive, she was deprived of a constitutional right to have the courts on habeas corpus determine the legality of her detention and, incidental thereto, examine the facts on which it was based. Relying on the peculiarly political nature of the legislative power over aliens, the Court was clear on the power of Congress to entrust the final determination of the facts in such cases to executive officers. ”

“ As the hundreds of cases in the lower courts demonstrate, the Attorney General's actions are voluminously challenged and freuently set aside. No doubt the respect accorded to his findings is much more extensive than that accorded to findings of other agencies, or, to put it technically, 'the scope of inquiry' is more limited. ”

“ And Kristensen's ineligibility for naturalization was set up in contesting the Attorney General's refusal to suspend deportation proceedings under the special provisions of § 19 (c) of the 1917 Immigration Act, as amended, 8 U.S.C.A. § 155 (c) . Heikkila's status as an alien is not disputed and the relief he wants is against an outstanding deportation order. He has not brought himself within Elg or Kristensen.
Appellant's Administrative Procedure Act argument is his strongest one. ”

“ Kristensen v. McGrath, 86 U.S.App.D.C. 48, 179 F.2d 796; Prince v. Commissioner, 6 Cir., 185 F.2d 578. Under this approach, the finality of an administrative decision must be absolute before the first exception to § 10 can apply. Our difficulty with this position begins with the nature of the writ and ends with the language of § 10. Regardless of whether or not the scope of inquiry on habeas corpus has been expanded, [11] the function of the courts has always been limited to the enforcement of due process requirements. ”

“ However such generalities are not dispositive of the issue here, else a balance would have to be struck between those in the Committee reports and material in the debates which indicates inconsistent legislative understandings as to how extensively § 10 changed the prior law on judicial review. [7] No easy answer is found in our decisions on the subject. Each statute in question must be examined individually ”