Fighting Alien Registration in America: U.S. Federal Court to Hear Application Next Week for Permane

The legal fight to obtain a permanent injunction against the Alien Registration Act adopted by the State of Michigan, has been successful in ensuring that the matter will come up for hearing before the U.S. Federal Court on Tuesday, the 9th. inst. Both sides are making use of the interval to prepare to defend or to combat the Act. The State Commissioner for Public Safety has meanwhile dropped his preparations for establishing the necessary machinery for the enforcement of the Registration Law, which had been already started when the temporary injunction was secured.

Although the anxiety of the large numbers of aliens who would have been adversely affected by the operation of the law has diminished somewhat with the passing of the immediate danger, there is still considerable excitement among the alien population, not only in Michigan, but also in the other American States, where it is feared that if the Michigan Aliens Registration Act is upheld, the other States will follow suit.

The approaching proceedings in the Federal Court are for that reason being watched with great interest throughout the country.

A brief opposing the Michigan Alien Registration Law prepared by three prominent Michigan lawyers, Mr. Theodore Levin, and ex-Judge Patrick H. O’Brien, noted constitutional Layers, and Mr. Nathan L. Milstein, a Detroit attorney with wide experience in immigration matters, contends that the States have no power to regulate immigration or to exclude aliens or to interfere with the powers of the U.S. Congress. Quoting a series of Congressional Laws and decisions of the United States Supreme Court, these three authorities declare “the regulation of immigration belongs exclusively to Congress. The several States have no power to exclude aliens as such. As the States have no power to regulate interstate or foreign commerce, they have no power to restrict, prohibit or burden in any way the immigration of aliens. Even in the absence of legislation by Congress upon the subject, a State cannot exclude from its limits persons in the full possession of their faculties, sound in body, neither paupers nor criminals, and in all respects competent to earn a livelihood”.

The American Jewish Committee, through the Chairman of its Immigration Committee, Mr. Max J. Kohler, has also filed an objection to the Law with the Governor of the State, Mr. Wilbur M. Brucker, in the course of which he writes that “Since the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798-which contained registration of alien clauses-met with the vehement opposition of Jefferson, Madison, John Marshall and Alexander Hamilton-and led to the downfall of the Federalist party, I believe no serious attempt was made until now to enact State legislation on this subject, and it is clearly unconstitutional. The nearest approach to such State legislation was the California Alien Head Tax Act, which was promptly declared unconstitutional as violative of treaties and of the 14th. Amendment. Our own State Department protested against an attempt on the part of Cuba to require U.S. citizens residing there to be registered and President Arthur vetoed the Chinese Registration Bill of 1882 as probably unconstitutional and ‘undemocratic and hostile to the spirit of our constitutions’.

“Resident aliens in the United States are entitled under treaties and the 14th. Amendment, to engage in all the ordinary occupations without hindrance”.

“On its face,” Mr. Kohler goes on, “this measure concerns itself with aliens-who are the subject matter in large degree of U.S. treaties with foreign countries-and with the legality of their admission into the country-which since 1882 at least, has been exclusively a federal concern, and the U.S. Constitution forbids State legislation on such a subject. Even before the Federal Government in 1882 took over the regulation of immigration, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in adjudging a California immigration regulation act unconstitutional: “The passage of laws which concern the admission of citizens and subjects for foreign nations to our shores belongs to Congress, and not to the States. It has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations; the responsibility for the character of these regulations, and for the manner of their execution belongs solely to the National Government. If it be otherwise, a single State can, at her pleasure embroil us in disastrous quarrels with other nations”.