Juan Suarez-Seja v. Herman R. Landon, District Director of Immigration and Naturalization, Department of Justice, District No. 16

This is an appeal from a decision dismissing appellant’s action for relief by way of injunction and declaratory judgment against an order of deportation issued by appellee District Director. The plaintiff, an alien admitted to the United States for permanent residence in 1910, was ordered deported on the ground that he “became a voluntary member of the Communist Party of the United States at Los Angeles, California in about Au gust 1938 and remained a member through December 1938.”

The proceedings against plaintiff were initiated by a warrant for his arrest, issued by the defendant District Director on June 8, 1953. His hearing was before a Special Inquiry Officer of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, who made the order for deportation. He appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals which considered the appeal and dismissed it.

The complaint in the court below challenged the order on the ground that the procedure prescribed and followed here for determination of plaintiff’s deportability denied him due process of law in that it commingles in one person, the Special Inquiry Officer, both prosecuting and adjudicative functions. While it appears to have been otherwise…