Opinion of the Court.

view of the well-being of its own people. If then these regulations have the force of law, they bind the courts.

The first article of the treaty of December 8, 1894, provides that "the coming, except under the conditions hereinafter specified, of Chinese laborers to the United States shall be absolutely prohibited." The second paragraph of article three reads: "It is also agreed that Chinese laborers shall continue to enjoy the privilege of transit across the territory of the United States in the course of their journey to or from other countries, subject to such regulations by the Government of the United States as may be necessary to prevent said privilege of transit from being abused."

We regard this as explicitly recognizing existing regulations, and as assenting to their continuance, and to such modification of them as might be found necessary to prevent abuse. It dealt with the subject specifically, and was operative without an act of Congress to carry it into effect.

The treaty of 1880, 22 Stat. 826, in declaring in respect of the coming of Chinese laborers into this country that the Government of the United States might "regulate, limit or suspend such coming or residence," did not refer to the privilege of transit, and, as it was not self-executing, the act of May 6, 1882, was passed to carry the stipulation into effect. But the provision of this treaty applicable here, in recognizing the privilege of transit and providing that it should continue, proceeded on the ground of its existence and continuance under governmental regulations, and no act of Congress was required. Lee Gon Yung v. United States, 111 Fed. Rep. 998.

Nor is the provision open to the ingenious construction suggested, that it is only after transit has commenced that the privilege may be abused. The abuse of the privilege might consist in the use of passage across the country to reach a point from which to effect an entrance into it, contrary to law. The journey contemplated would in effect be continuous, and the intermediate destination could not absolve from the guilt involved in the effort to attain that forbidden ulterior destination. Such an abuse of the privilege could only be prevented by arresting the journey on the threshold.

Opinion of the Court.

Necessarily the collector's decision could not be controlled by the bare production of a through ticket to a point in foreign territory. The very question to be determined is good faith in the transit, and good faith would be lacking if that transit were merely a means of effecting admission into the United States. And the decision of the Treasury Department as to the right of admission is made final by statute.

For instance, it is difficult, if not impossible, to police effectively the long frontier between the United States and Mexico, and if, in a given case, a Chinese laborer arrives at San Francisco ostensibly bound to a port in Mexico, but going there for the purpose of crossing thence into this country, this would be an abuse of the privilege, and denial of transit would be justified. And this, in cases where such is the intent and purpose, is in accordance with the terms of the treaty, and not in the exercise of a general power to prohibit that which the treaty permits.

By the act of August 18, 1894, 28 Stat. 390, the decision of the proper executive officer, if adverse to an alien's admission, was made final unless reversed on appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury.

That act came under consideration in Lem Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 538. Petitioner contended that while the immigration officers had authority to exclude aliens from coming into the United States, yet if an alien was entitled of right to enter the country, and was nevertheless excluded by such officers, the latter exceeded their jurisdiction, and the courts might intervene; but Mr. Justice Harlan, speaking for the court, said: "That view, if sustained, would bring into the courts every case of an alien who claimed the right to come into the United States under some law or treaty, but was prevented from doing so by the executive branch of the Government. This would defeat the manifest purpose of Congress in committing to subordinate immigration officers and to the Secretary of the Treasury exclusive authority to determine whether a particular alien seeking admission into this country belongs to the class entitled by some law or treaty to come into the country, or to a class forbidden to enter the United States.

Opinion of the Court.

Under that interpretation of the act of 1894 the provision that the decision of the appropriate immigration or customs officers should be final, unless reversed on appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury, would be of no practical value."

So in the case before us, the treaty manifestly operated to commit the subject of transit to executive regulation and determination; and by the then, as well as the present, regulations, the final decision as to permitting transit was devolved on the collector of customs, and no appeal to the Secretary was provided for. In appears from the official documents referred to on the argument that the Treasury Department has “held that neither the treaty nor the laws relating to the exclusion of Chinese, either expressly or by implication, give to Chinese persons refused the privilege of transit the right of appeal;" but possession of the power to grant an appeal, or to supervise the action of the collector in some other appropriate way, in circumstances demanding intervention, has not been disavowed.

This case is an attempt to transfer the inquiry from the collector to the courts. Congressional action has placed the final determination of the right of admission in executive officers, without judicial intervention, and this has been for many years the recognized and declared policy of the country. The regulations to prevent abuse of the privilege of transit have been and are intended to effectuate the same policy, and recourse to the courts by habeas corpus to determine the existence of such abuse appears to us equally inadmissible.

The record does not present a case of regulation or action in contravention of the Constitution, and we think that, upon the admitted facts, the orders of the collector cannot be held to have been invalid.

Order affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER and MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM dissented.

VOL. CLXXXV-20

Opinion of the Court.

LEE GON YUNG v. UNITED STATES.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA.

Argued January 7, 1902.-Decided May 5, 1902.

Fok Yung Yo v. United States, ante 296, followed.

The authority of the Government in prescribing regulations in respect of transit being unqualified, and the existing regulations not open to constitutional objection, the court below could not interfere by habeas corpus with the collector's orders, and its ruling on an offer of evidence, the entire record considered, was not erroneous.

THE case was argued with the preceding case by the same counsel.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the court.

This case was a writ of habeas corpus substantially like the preceding case of Fok Yung Yo v. United States, ante, 296. The petition was addressed to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of California; and alleged that the petitioner had taken passage from the agent of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company at Hong Kong to the city of Mexico, and received from him a ticket for passage on one of its steamships to the port of San Francisco, and an order upon the agent of the company at that port for passage by rail thence to the city of Mexico; that upon arriving at San Francisco the petitioner was on September 28, 1901, examined by a customs inspector, his baggage and private papers opened, and his person searched; and that he was held in custody under an order of deportation by the collector of the port. The agent of the steamship company at San Francisco made a return to the writ, stating that he detained the petitioner under the collector's order of deportation. The District Attorney of the United States, in an intervention filed by leave of court, suggested

Opinion of the Court.

"that the United States collector of customs at the port of San Francisco, after a careful and due investigation, has decided that he is not satisfied that the said Chinese person, the petitioner herein, does intend in good faith to continue his voyage, if permitted so to do, through the territory of the United States to the Republic of Mexico, and has denied the said Chinese person for that reason the privilege to further continue his journey through the territory of the United States, and has ordered the said person deported to China, the country whence he came;" and that the court had no jurisdiction of the person of the petitioner, or of the subject matter of the proceeding.

The petitioner filed a demurrer to the return, and to the intervention. The court overruled the demurrers, and ordered the writ of habeas corpus to be discharged, and the petitioner remanded to custody. 111 Fed. Rep. 998. The court also allowed a bill of exceptions, stating that it excluded, against the objection and exception of the petitioner, evidence offered by him tending to support each and all of the allegations of his petition. He appealed to this court.

This case must take the same course as that just decided. The difference between them is that in this case the court sustained the objection to an offer of evidence. But as in our view the authority of the Government in prescribing regulations is unqualified, and these regulations are not essentially unreasonable and do not transgress constitutional limitations, jurisdiction to interfere with the collector's orders was lacking, and the ruling was not erroneous. If petitioner had just cause of complaint of the conduct of the collector's subordinates, the remedy is not to be found in his discharge on habeas corpus.

Order affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER and MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM dissented.