Respondents, Chinese merchants born in China and never naturalized elsewhere, applied at the port of San Francisco for admission into the United States. They had resided in French Indo-China and been engaged in business there for a number of years. They presented to the immigration authorities certificates of identification issued by officials of French Indo-China, with visas by the American Consul at Saigon, French Indo-China. They were denied admission on the ground that the certificate of identification required by section 6 of the Chinese Exclusion Act (Act of May 6, 1882, c. 126, 22 Stat. 58, 60 as amended by the Act of July 5, 1884, c. 220, 23 Stat. 115, 116, 117; U.S.C. title 8, § 265 (8 USCA § 265)), was a certificate of the government of which respondents were subjects, in this case the Chinese government, and not a certificate of the government of French Indo-China, where respondents merely resided. Their petitions for writs of habeas corpus were denied by the District Court for Northern California. On appeal the two cases were consolidated in the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the judgments of the District Court reversed. Loi Hoa v. Nagle, 13 F.(2d) 80. This court granted certiorari. 273 U.S. 682, 47 S.C.t. 237, 71 L. Ed. 837.
Article 2 of the treaty of November 17, 1880, between the United States and China (22 Stat. 826, 827), provides for the admission of Chinese subjects 'proceeding to the United States as * * * merchants.' Section 15 of the Exclusion Act, as amended (8 USCA § 273), makes the act applicable 'to all subjects of China and Chinese, whether subjects of China or any other foreign power.' Section 6 as amended (the relevant portions are in the margin ) requires 'every Chinese person, other than a laborer, who may be entitled by said treaty or this act' to admission, to 'obtain the permission of and be identified as so entitled by the Chinese government, or of such other foreign government of which at the time such Chinese person shall be a subject.' The sole question presented is whether the word 'subject' as used in section 6 is to be taken as including only those persons who by birth or naturalization owe permanent allegiance to the government issuing the certificate, or as embracing also those who, being domiciled within the territorial limits of that government, owe it for that reason obedience and temporary allegiance.
The word may be used in either sense. See The Pizarro, 2 Wheat. 227, 245, 4 L. Ed. 226; Carlisle v. United States, 16 Wall. 147, 154, 21 L. E. 426. If the narrower meaning be the appropriate one, the respondents were 'subjects' of the Chinese government, and it alone could issue certificates entitling them to admission. The government of French Indo-China could issue such certificates only to persons of the Chinese race who owed it permanent allegiance.
The Circuit Court of Appeals thought that, since the statute was in execution of a treaty with China, which related only to the immigration of Chinese nationals, the provisions in section 6 for the certification of identity could have no application to persons of Chinese race who were nationals of other governments, and so concluded that certificates were required of governments other than China only in the case of Chinese nationals resident under those governments.
But in this view it is overlooked that the amended Exclusion Act is broader than the treaty. Before the amendment the federal courts had not agreed whether persons of Chinese race who were nationals of countries other than China were affected by the statute. United States v. Douglas (C. C.) 17 F. 634; In re Ah Lung (C. C.) 18 F. 28. Section 15 of the amended act made all its provisions applicable 'to all subjects of China and Chinese, whether subjects of China or any other foreign power.' The avowed purpose of the amendment was to alter the act as interpreted in United States v. Douglas, supra, where it had been held to have no application to Chinese subjects of Great Britain. Report of Committee on Foreign Affairs, 48th Cong. 1st. Sess. H. Rep. 614, p. 2. The purpose, therefore, of the insertion in section 6 of the phrase 'of such other foreign government of which at the time such Chinese person shall be a subject' was to require Chinese immigrants owing permanent allegiance to governments other than China to present certificates from the governments of their allegiance.