by the U.S. Supreme Court

“ But when congress sees fit to further promote such a policy by subjecting the persons of such aliens to infamous punishment at hard labor, or by confiscating their property, we think such legilsation, to be valid, must provide for a judicial trial to establish the guilt of the accused.
No limits can be put by the courts upon the power of congress to protect, by summary methods, the country from the advent of aliens whose race or habits render them undesirable as citizens, or to expel such if they have already found their way into our land, and unlawfully remain therein. ”

“ We think it clear that detention or temporary confinement, as part of the means necessary to give effect to the provisions for the exclusion or expulsion of aliens, would be valid. Proceedings to exclude or expel would be vain if those accused could not be held in custody pending the inquiry into their true character, and while arrangements were being made for their deportation. Detention is a asual feature in every case of arrest on a criminal charge, even when an innocent person a wrongfully accused; but it is not imprisonment in a legal sense. ”

“ It is urged that the offense of being and remaining unlawfully within the limits of the United States by an alien is a political offense, and is not within the common-law cases triable only by a jury, and that the constitution does not apply to such a case. ”

“ The provisions of the fifth, sixth, and thirteenth amendments of the constitution apply as well to Chinese persons who are aliens as to American citizens.
The term 'person,' used in the fifth amendment, is broad enough to include any and every human being within the jurisdiction of the republic. A resident, alien born, is entitled to the same protection under the laws that a citizen is entitled to. ”

“ Imprisonment at hard labor in a state prison is also 'servitude,' to which no person under the constutition can be subjected except as a punishment for crime, whereof he shall have been duly convicted. ”

“ But while remarking upon and denouncing in the strongest language every form of cruelty and barbarity in the legislation or proceedings adopted for the expulsion or exclusion of Chinese from the country who do not enter by the permission of the government, in order to avoid a misconception of its authorized action in that respect, the declarations of the court with regard to the aliens named as to their entrance, and as to the time and manner of their departure, are adopted. ”

“ And the statement of the court in the present case that the United States can, as a matter of public policy, by congressional legislation, forbid aliens or classes of aliens from their territory, and can, in order to make effectual such legislation for their exclusion or expulsion, devolve the power and duty of identifying and arresting them, and causing their deportation upon executive or subordinate officials, is accepted as sound. ”

“ It does not follow that, because the government may expel aliens or exclude them from coming to this country, it can confine them at hard labor in a penitentiary before deportment, or subject them to any harsh and cruel punishment. ”

“ Wong Wing, one of the petitioners on proceedings to be released from the alleged unlawful imprisonment, is a subject of the Chinese government, with which the government of the United States has relations of peace and amity. ”

“ He owes obedience to the laws of the country in which he is domiciled, and, as a consequence, he is entitled to the equal protection of those laws.
This has been decided so often that the point does not require argument. ”

“ Our conclusion is that the commissioner, in ntencing the appellants to imprisonment at hard labor at and in the Detroit House of Correction, acted without jurisdiction, and that the circuit court erred in not discharging the prisoners from such imprisonment, without prejudice to their detention according to law for deportation. ”