Karnuth v. United States Ex Rel. Albro
The Supreme Court ruled that daily border crossers who came to the United States to work for pay were not "temporary visitors for business" under the 1924 immigration law, so they could be turned away as regular immigrants subject to numerical quotas.
The Court also held that a 1794 treaty provision guaranteeing free passage across the U.S.-Canada border did not survive the War of 1812, clearing the way for Congress's immigration policy to control instead.
“It is wholly promissory and prospective and necessarily ceases to operate in a state of war, since the passing and repassing of citizens or subjects of one sovereignty into the territory of another is inconsistent with a condition of hostility.”
Explaining why the treaty's free-passage promise did not survive the War of 1812.
How it got here: A federal district court upheld their exclusion in a habeas corpus case; the Second Circuit reversed; the government asked the Supreme Court to review the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Mary Cook, a Scottish-born spinner living in Ontario, and Antonio Danelon, an Italian-born man who said he became Canadian through his father's naturalization, both lived near Niagara Falls and regularly crossed into the United States to work for pay. When they sought entry again as temporary business visitors, immigration officials said they were really quota immigrants and turned them away.
The question before the Court
Could two people who crossed the border from Canada every day to work in the United States enter as temporary visitors "for business" instead of as regular immigrants subject to quota limits?
Why it matters
The ruling meant that people living near the U.S.-Canada border who crossed daily to work for wages could be excluded as quota immigrants rather than admitted freely as visitors, reinforcing Congress's policy of protecting American jobs from foreign labor competition, and confirming that old treaty promises of free cross-border movement no longer controlled immigration decisions.
What changes now
The Supreme Court's reversal restored the district court's decision, meaning the two workers remained excluded from entering the United States to work. The ruling settled, for immigration purposes nationwide, that daily commuting laborers from Canada or elsewhere could not rely on the temporary-business exception, and that the old treaty right of free passage no longer limited Congress's immigration laws. This was a final decision on the merits, not a remand for further fact-finding.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the immigration statute and the treaty would actually have conflicted if the treaty provision were still in force; it resolved the case entirely on the ground that the treaty right had already been ended by the War of 1812, leaving that separate question unaddressed.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (1). Justice Sutherland (author).
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first addressed whether an 1794 treaty right of free passage across the U.S.-Canada border still existed, since if it had been wiped out by war, the immigration statute could be interpreted without worrying about a treaty conflict.
- Looking at general principles of international law, the Court explained that some treaty provisions survive war (like permanent boundary or property agreements) while others -- especially provisions resting on ongoing mutual trust between nations -- are automatically ended by war unless later revived.
- The Court distinguished the border-crossing promise at issue from a separate treaty provision protecting existing property rights, reasoning that the border-crossing promise was a forward-looking privilege dependent on peaceful relations, not a fixed, vested right, and so it did not survive the War of 1812.
- Turning to the immigration statute, the Court read the law's exception for people visiting 'temporarily for business' in light of Congress's clear goal, shown in committee reports, of shielding American workers from competition by foreign labor.
- Because allowing daily wage-workers to enter as 'business' visitors would undercut that protective purpose, the Court concluded that ordinary labor for hire does not count as 'business' under the exception, and upheld the regulation excluding such workers.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Society for the Propagation of the Gospel v. New Haven (8 Wheat. 464)
Property rights protected by a different treaty article were vested and permanent, unlike the border-crossing privilege here.