U.S. Supreme Court COSTANZO v. TILLINGHAST, 287 U.S. 341 (1932)

[Page 287 U.S. 341, 345]

containing a time limitation is read separately as an exception to the general rule declared by the proviso. We must look to the whole of the section, in order not to give undue effect to particular words or clauses ( Brown v. Duchesne, 19 How. 183, 194; Pollard v. Bailey, 20 Wall. 520, 525), and when so read, the proviso precludes a construction which would carry into all subsequent clauses the five-year limitation contained in the first.

If more were needed, the legislative history of section 19 shows that it is a compilation of earlier acts specifying different grounds for deportation; that in the prior legislation affecting aliens managing houses of prostitution, etc., no time limitation was included, and that, in combining those acts to form the present section, Congress did not intend to impose a period of limitation with respect to this cause for deportation. [Footnote 2] The administrative interpretation, as evidenced by the applicable rules of the Bureau of Immigration adopted in 1917 and carried forward in later regulations, has been uniform to the effect that no time limitation is applicable in a case like the present. [Footnote 3] The failure of Congress to alter or amend the section, notwithstanding this consistent construction by the department charged with its enforcement, creates a presumption in favor of the administrative interpretation, to which we should give great weight, even if we doubted the correctness of the ruling of the Department of Labor. Fawcus Machine Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 375, 378, 51 S.Ct. 144; McCaughan v. Hershey Chocolate Co., 283 U.S. 488, 492, 51 S.Ct. 510

The judgment is

Affirmed. Footnotes

Footnote 1 Chapter 29, 39 Stat. 874, 889 (8 USCA 155).

Footnote 2 Act of March 26, 1910, c. 128, 2, 36 Stat. 263; Senate Report No. 352, to accompany H.R. 10384 (64th Cong., 1st Sess.).

Footnote 3 Rules of Bureau of Immigration, May 1, 1917 (1st Ed., May, 1917), rule 22; 2d Ed., November, 1917; 3d Ed., March, 1919; 4th Ed., February, 1920; 5th Ed., December, 1920; 6th Ed., September, 1921; 4th Ed., August, 1922. See, also, Rules of the Bureau of Immigration, February 1, 1924, p. 31, and of July 1, 1925, p. 63.