103 F.2d 435 | 2d Cir. | 1939
The appellant is an alien, admitted to this country in 1920. He was ordered deported by the Secretary of Labor on May 15, 1935, as one found assisting a prostitute. The Act of February 5, 1917, section 19 (8 U.S.C. § 155, 8 U.S.C.A. § 155), provides that “any alien * * * who in any way assists any prostitute * * * shall, upon the warrant of the Secretary of Labor, be taken into custody and deported.” The appellant took out a writ of habeas corpus. The writ was heard and dismissed in the District Court.
The evidence bearing on the 1929 occurrence afforded a sufficient basis for the finding that the appellant had assisted a prostitute. His plea of guilty was an admission, but alone it would not suffice, because it was consistent with his receiving the man and the woman into the room not for prostitution but only for lewdness or assignation. There was further evidence, however; the woman was convicted of prostitution in the same transaction, and the appellant when questioned about the case explained that he had been caught with a key to a house of prostitution. These additional facts showed plainly enough that the charge to which the appellant pleaded guilty was one connected with prostitution rather than with lewdness or assignation. We see no reason to doubt that the reception of a man and woman into a room for the purpose of prostitution is rendering assistance to a prostitute. It is doubtless the law that the words in section 19 of the 1917 Act, “assists any prostitute”, broad as they are, are restricted in their sense to conscious assistance of a prostitute in pursuit of her unlawful business. Mita v. Bonham, 9 Cir., 25 F.2d 11; Marino v. Zurbrick, D.C., 52 F.2d 160. But there was enough in the record for the Secretary to find that the appellant had knowingly rendered that sort of assistance to a prostitute. It is hardly necessary to say again that findings of fact by the Secretary of Labor in a deportation case are not subject to review by the courts if there was substantial evidence before the Secretary to support the findings. Costanzo v. Tillinghast, 287 U.S. 341, 53 S.Ct. 152, 77 L.Ed. 350; United States ex rel. Di Tomas-so v. Martineau, 2 Cir., 97 F.2d 503.
On the issue of fair hearing the appellant complains that he was examined by the immigrant inspectors while in prison and without counsel, that no findings and conclusions of the examining inspectors were sent to the Secretary, and that the testimony of the police officers was taken without opportunity to the appellant to cross-examine them. The fact that the hearing was held in prison did not render it unfair. The appellant was given the chance to have counsel present. United States ex rel. Ciccerelli v. Curran, 2 Cir., 12 F.2d 394. As for findings and_ conclusions of the examining officers, it is true that they are required by departmental rules in deportation cases. See United States ex rel. Ohm v. Perkins, 2 Cir., 79 F.2d 533. The inspector who conducted the hearing after warrant of arrest did make findings and conclusions and did report them to the Secretary. After his report the case was reopened, and apparently no findings or conclusions were made by the examining inspector who conducted the later hearing. But the new testimony given at the later hearing added nothing to the case, and the record shows that the Secretary excluded it from consideration. In view of this fact the absence of a further report by the examining officer was of no moment. On inability to cross-
Order affirmed.