## Facts

- Fong Haw Tan, a Chinese national and noncitizen, was convicted in one criminal case of two murders charged in two counts of a single indictment.
- The jury set punishment at life imprisonment on each count, and the trial court entered one judgment sentencing him to life imprisonment.
- After his conviction, immigration officials initiated deportation proceedings under § 19(a) of the Immigration Act of 1917 and took him into custody following his parole and release from prison.
- The government asserted Tan was deportable because he had been “sentenced more than once” to imprisonment for a term of one year or more for crimes involving moral turpitude.

## Issues

1. Whether an alien convicted on two counts in a single trial and sentenced by a single judgment has been “sentenced more than once” under § 19(a) of the Immigration Act of 1917.
2. Whether ambiguity in a deportation statute should be resolved in favor of the government or the alien.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit.
- The Court held that “sentenced more than once” in § 19(a) does not include multiple convictions and terms imposed in a single criminal proceeding culminating in one judgment.
- The Court concluded the statute targets recidivism: a person convicted and sentenced, who later commits another qualifying crime and is again convicted and sentenced.
- Because Tan’s two convictions and life sentence arose from one trial and one judgment, § 19(a)’s “sentenced more than once” ground for deportation was not satisfied.

## Legal Principles

- Deportation statutes are construed narrowly when statutory language is ambiguous, given the severe consequences of deportation.
- When multiple plausible readings exist, courts apply the most restrictive construction consistent with the text, favoring the alien.
- In § 19(a) of the Immigration Act of 1917, “sentenced more than once” requires successive convictions and sentences for separate qualifying crimes, not multiple counts resolved and sentenced in a single proceeding.

## Conclusion

The Court held that § 19(a)’s “sentenced more than once” deportation ground applies only to sequential criminality followed by separate convictions and sentences; it does not reach an alien convicted on multiple counts in one trial and sentenced by a single judgment, and Tan therefore was not deportable on that basis.


Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U.S. 6 (1948)