Flemming v. Nestor
Headline: Court upholds law cutting Social Security benefits for certain deported noncitizens, reversing the lower court and allowing the government to stop payments to affected deported immigrants and their nonresident dependents.
Holding: The Court upheld a federal law that terminates Social Security benefits for certain deported noncitizens, ruling the cut-off does not create an accrued property right and is not unconstitutional punishment or arbitrary under the Fifth Amendment.
- Allows government to stop Social Security payments to certain deported noncitizens.
- Leaves eligible spouses residing in the United States able to receive benefits.
- Treats Social Security benefits as noncontractual, making due process challenges harder.
Summary
Background
An immigrant from Bulgaria who came to the United States in 1913 became eligible for old-age Social Security benefits in November 1955. In July 1956 he was deported for past Communist Party membership, and a 1954 law then in force led the Social Security Administration to stop his monthly payments and notify his wife, who remained in the United States. He sued, and the District Court held the benefit-termination provision unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment. The Secretary appealed to this Court, which first considered a jurisdictional question and then reached the merits.
Reasoning
The Court explained that Social Security benefits are part of a contributory national insurance scheme administered under broad congressional authority, and are not the same as a private contractual annuity. The majority concluded the beneficiary did not hold an "accrued property right" protected from change. On due process review, the Court applied a rational-basis standard and found terminating payments to deportees (and, in specified situations, to noncitizen dependents abroad) bears a rational relation to the program’s aims. The Court also found the cut-off was not punishment in the constitutional sense and therefore not a bill of attainder or an unlawful ex post facto law.
Real world impact
The decision reverses the District Court and allows the Government to stop Social Security payments to persons deported for the grounds listed in the statute. Spouses or dependents who remain in the United States may still receive benefits in many cases. The ruling treats Social Security benefits as noncontractual, narrowing the path for challenges that treat them as protected property.
Dissents or concurrances
Several Justices dissented, arguing the law takes away what contributors had earned and is punitive, raising bill-of-attainder and ex post facto concerns; they would have left the District Court judgment intact.
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