Speech #760229190

That is right. The prohibition in the constitution of ex post facto laws and bills of attainder refers to criminal proceedings and not to civil proceedings. As has been said. deportation is not punishment for a crime. but a civil proceeding. This bill comes here with almost the unanimous support of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. The distinguished gentleman from California . presented this matter to the committee in a general bill and as a result of his able presentation of the facts. the gentleman from Louisiana . introduced this bill before the Congress. Mr. Oppenheim in his work on international law. says: Just as a state is competent to refuse admission to an alien. so. in conformity with its territorial supremacy. it is competent to expel at any moment an alien who has been admitted into its territory. It is an accepted maxim of international law that every sovereign nation has the power. as inherent in sovereignty. and essential to selfpreservation. to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominion. or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe. That statement was made by the Supreme Court of the United States in a case involving the constitutionality of the Immigration Act of March 3. 1891. The absolute right of control over immigration by a nation is essential to the preservation of its national existence. The expulsion of aliens is necessarily embraced in the power to regulate their admission and exclusion.