## Facts

- Ignatz Mezei, a Hungarian-born alien, entered the United States in 1923 and lived in Buffalo, New York for about 25 years.
- In 1948, Mezei left the United States to visit his mother in Romania; he was unable to enter Romania and remained abroad for about 19 months.
- Mezei obtained a quota immigration visa from the American Consul in Budapest and traveled to New York.
- On February 9, 1950, upon arrival in New York, an immigration inspector found Mezei inadmissible and detained him at Ellis Island.
- Acting under regulations tied to the Passport Act, the Attorney General ordered Mezei permanently excluded without a hearing, relying on confidential information and concluding his entry would be prejudicial to the public interest for security reasons.
- No other country would accept Mezei, so he remained confined at Ellis Island for about 21 months, though legally treated as not having entered the United States.

## Issues

1. Whether Mezei’s continued confinement at Ellis Island, incident to exclusion on confidential security grounds without a hearing, constituted unlawful detention requiring judicial relief.
2. Whether an alien physically present at Ellis Island but treated as seeking entry has a Fifth Amendment due process right to a hearing or disclosure of the evidence supporting exclusion.
3. Whether federal courts may order the alien’s temporary parole into the United States pending arrangements for departure.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit.
- The Court held that the Attorney General’s continued exclusion and detention of Mezei at Ellis Island, without a hearing and based on confidential security information, did not amount to unlawful detention.
- The Court held that courts may not order Mezei’s temporary admission or parole into the United States pending removal arrangements.
- The Court treated Mezei as an “entrant” for constitutional purposes, despite his physical presence at Ellis Island and his prior long residence in the United States.

## Legal Principles

- Decisions to exclude noncitizens at the border, including those based on national security judgments, are primarily committed to the political branches and are largely insulated from judicial reexamination.
- For a noncitizen denied admission, the procedures Congress authorizes can satisfy due process; the Executive may exclude based on confidential security information without a hearing when authorized by statute and regulation.
- Physical presence at a port of entry and prior residence in the United States do not, by themselves, convert an exclusion case into a deportation case or confer the same procedural protections as for noncitizens already admitted.
- The “entry fiction” permits treating certain detained noncitizens as not having entered the United States for constitutional and procedural purposes, even when detained within U.S. territorial boundaries.
- Prolonged detention resulting from inability to effect removal does not, in an exclusion posture, itself create a judicially enforceable right to admission or to release into the United States.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Mezei’s continued confinement at Ellis Island as an excluded alien, ordered on confidential national security grounds without a hearing, was not unlawful detention and did not permit a court to order his parole into the United States pending arrangements for his departure.


Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206 (1953)