Mahler v. Eby

Background

A group of noncitizen residents who had been convicted of crimes were targeted for removal under the Act of May 10, 1920. They challenged their deportations through habeas corpus, arguing the law worked like a new criminal punishment and that their past convictions could not be used because the statutes under which they were convicted had been repealed. The Secretary of Labor issued warrants after administrative hearings and the cases reached the federal courts.

Reasoning

The Court explained that deportation is not a criminal punishment and that the Constitution’s ban on retroactive criminal laws applies only to criminal punishments. It held that Congress may classify aliens and may lawfully delegate to the Secretary of Labor the authority to select who in those classes should be deported. The Court also said past convictions may place a person in a removable class even if the underlying criminal law has been repealed. At the same time, the Court found the actual deportation warrants defective because they did not show the Secretary had made the statutory finding that each person was an “undesirable resident.”

Real world impact

Because the required administrative finding did not appear on the record, the Court reversed the district court’s order and refused to order immediate release. Instead it gave the Secretary reasonable time to correct the record by making the required finding on the original evidence or by initiating a new proceeding. Practically, the decision affirms government power to remove certain convicted noncitizens but requires clear administrative findings before deportation may go forward.