Lehmann v. United States Ex Rel. Carson

Background

A man from Italy entered the United States in 1919 as a stowaway and later served prison terms after being convicted twice of blackmail in 1936. He received a conditional state pardon for one conviction in 1945. A deportation proceeding under the older 1917 law was withdrawn because that law exempted pardoned offenses. Congress replaced the old law with the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, and new deportation proceedings were begun under the 1952 law for both his stowaway entry and his two convictions. A hearing officer and the Board ordered deportation; a federal appeals court reversed, relying on a savings clause that it said protected the man’s earlier nondeportable status.

Reasoning

The Court examined whether a general savings clause preserved protections from the earlier law or whether the 1952 Act specifically swept those situations into its deportation rules. The Court held that §241 of the 1952 Act expressly covers aliens who were excludable at the time of entry and those convicted after entry of two crimes involving moral turpitude, and that subsection (d) makes those rules apply even when the relevant facts occurred before the Act. The conditional state pardon did not qualify as a “full and unconditional” pardon, so it did not bar deportation under the 1952 law. The Court therefore reversed the appeals court and allowed deportation under the new statute.

Real world impact

The decision permits the Government to apply the 1952 deportation rules to people who entered or committed offenses before that law was passed. Long‑time residents who entered as stowaways or who have old criminal convictions may now be subject to removal under the newer statute, rather than kept safe by the prior statute’s time limits or limited pardon exceptions.

Dissents or concurrances

A dissent warned that applying the law this way is effectively new punishment and argued the ex post facto clause should better protect people from retroactive increases in legal burdens.