## Facts

- Congress enacted the Immigration Act of 1882, requiring payment of a fifty-cent duty for each non-citizen passenger arriving from a foreign port, with proceeds placed in an immigration fund.
- Funch, Edye & Co., acting as consignees/agents for transatlantic vessels, handled the Dutch ship *Leerdam*, which arrived in New York in October 1882 carrying 382 non-citizen passengers.
- The vessel’s master submitted the required passenger list accurately, including identifying details for each passenger.
- William H. Robertson, Collector of the Port of New York, demanded payment of fifty cents per non-citizen passenger under the statute.
- The shipowners paid the sums under protest and, after similar collections on additional arrivals, sued to recover the payments.
- The shipowners argued the charge was unconstitutional and/or contrary to treaty obligations, including asserted protections under a treaty involving the Netherlands.
- The actions were resolved against the shipowners in federal circuit courts; the shipowners sought Supreme Court review. Companion cases involving Cunard and others were argued together because they presented the same legal questions.

## Issues

1. Whether the 1882 federal head-money assessment on non-citizen passengers arriving by vessel is a valid exercise of Congress’s power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.
2. Whether the assessment is a “tax” subject to constitutional limits on taxation (including direct-tax and uniformity constraints) or a permissible regulatory charge incident to commerce regulation.
3. Whether alleged conflicts between the statute and prior treaties could invalidate the assessment in domestic courts, and whether treaty provisions asserted by private parties were judicially enforceable against a later federal statute.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the judgments for the Collector and upheld the 1882 statute.
- The Court held the head-money assessment was a valid exercise of Congress’s foreign commerce power as part of immigration regulation.
- The Court characterized the exaction as a regulatory “contribution” funding immigration-related administration, not a constitutional “tax” triggering the asserted tax limitations.
- The Court rejected the argument that the assessment lacked constitutional uniformity, reasoning that uniformity is satisfied when a rule operates identically wherever the subject of the charge occurs.
- The Court concluded that, to the extent a treaty could be viewed as inconsistent with the statute, domestic courts apply the later-in-time federal statute; treaty enforcement, if any, is primarily a matter for the political branches in international relations.

## Legal Principles

- Congress’s power to regulate commerce with foreign nations includes authority to regulate the admission of non-citizen passengers by sea and to impose per-passenger charges to support that regulatory program.
- A per-passenger exaction tied to the activity of bringing foreign passengers into the United States and dedicated to immigration-related purposes may be treated as a regulatory charge rather than a general revenue tax for constitutional analysis.
- Constitutional “uniformity” for federal exactions concerns uniform operation wherever the taxed subject appears, not equal geographic distribution of the burden.
- Treaties and federal statutes are both supreme domestic law; when they conflict, a later federal statute controls in domestic courts (last-in-time rule).
- Treaty provisions are judicially enforceable only insofar as they operate as domestic law conferring enforceable private rights; otherwise, compliance and remedies are primarily matters of diplomacy and political-branch action.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld Congress’s authority to impose a fifty-cent per-passenger head charge on arriving non-citizen passengers as an incident of regulating foreign commerce and immigration, and it confirmed that a later federal statute governs in domestic courts even if it conflicts with an earlier treaty.


Edye & Another v. Robertson, 112 U.S. 580 (1884)