Powers of the President during crises

by J. Malcolm Smith; Cornelius P. Cotter

It has become an axiom of democratic government that in time of emergency threatening the health or safety of the community or the territorial integrity of the nation, the objective of communal survival takes precedence over the desires and conveniences of the individual. The energies, wealth, talents of individuals may be conscripted in the national interest. Democratic governments also have asserted the right to constrict the range of permissible activities of individuals whose freedom, if unlimited, is calculated to exacerbate the emergency. Such limitations may apply to the population generally or to defined segments of it. The intensity of such limitations may be measured on a continuum ranging from precautionary detention to the relatively mild requirement that persons in defined categories register with the government.

Preventive Detention: At an early date Congress, with judicial approval, exercised the power to apprehend and detain all enemy aliens. On December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt issued the first of ten wartime proclamations founded upon Congressional enactments of 1798 and 1918, imposing limitations upon the activities of enemy aliens, and specifically announcing that “All aliens shall be liable to restraint, or to give security,”[181] and that dangerous aliens might be subjected to arrest and confinement. In two statutes enacted in 1952, Congress reiterated its desire that illegal entrants be apprehended and detained pending deportation. These statutes provided for the search of vessels and arrest of persons seeking to enter the United States illegally,[182] and authorized the establishment of necessary detention facilities to hold those arrested.[183]

It is well known that in World War II persons of Japanese ancestry, including even those possessed of American citizenship, were subjected to preventive detention.[184] Presidential exercise of this form of restraint is now sanctioned on a standby basis. Title II of the Internal Security Act of 1950 empowers the President in time of “Internal Security Emergency” to order the apprehension and detention of persons “as to whom there is reasonable ground to believe that,” if free, they “will engage in, or probably will conspire with others to engage in, acts of espionage or of sabotage.”[185] The President may declare a state of internal security emergency upon the invasion of the United States or any of its territories or possessions, the declaration of war by Congress, or insurrection within the United States in aid of a foreign enemy.

Access to the U.S. and U.S. Citizenship: Closely related to the detention of enemy aliens or others whose liberty is perceived to endanger the security of the state is the control of access to the United States and the acquisition of United States citizenship. By Act of June 20, 1941[186] Congress instructed American diplomatic and consular officers to refuse visas or entry permits to aliens believed seeking entry into the United States for the purpose of engaging in activities which would endanger the public safety. The following day Congress granted the President power during the existing national emergency to place restrictions and prohibitions in addition to those already provided by law upon the departure of persons from and their entry into the United States.[187] In proclamations of July and September 1945 and April 1946, President Truman ordered the deportation of enemy aliens resident in the United States without admission under the immigration laws, or enemy aliens deemed dangerous to the public peace and safety of the United States.[188]

In an earlier statute Congress excluded from admission to the United States persons who have departed from the jurisdiction of the United States for the purpose of evading or avoiding training or service in the armed forces of the United States during time of war or during a period declared by the President to be a period of national emergency. Among the myriad restrictions of the Internal Security Act of 1950 are to be found additional categories of aliens ineligible for entry into the United States, principally aliens who at any time have been members of the Communist or other totalitarian party of any state of the United States, of any foreign state, or of any political or geographical subdivision of any foreign state, and aliens who advocate the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism or of any form of totalitarianism.[189]

Naturalization is refused or citizenship withdrawn from persons falling into classifications created by a security-conscious Congress. The Nationality Act of 1940[190] restricted the eligibility of alien enemies for nationalization to those whose declaration of intention was made not less than two years prior to the beginning of the state of war and specified that enemy aliens were eligible for apprehension and removal at any time previous to actual naturalization. Section 25 of the Internal Security Act amends the Nationality Act of 1940 to make ineligible for naturalization persons subscribing to or giving evidence of subscribing to anarchist, communist, or any totalitarian movement or body of sentiment. Those who within the ten years next preceding the filing of naturalization petitions, or in the period between such filing and the time of taking the final oath of citizenship, have been members of, or affiliated with, communist-front organizations registered under the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, must rebut a presumption that they are persons not attached to the principles of the Constitution and thus ineligible for citizenship.[191]

Congress has devised appropriate means for handling the cases of persons seeking to renounce American citizenship. To facilitate the surrender of United States citizenship by persons of Japanese ancestry, Congress in July, 1944, specified that with the permission of the Attorney General, and when the United States is at war, citizens may accomplish expatriation by the simple act of making in the United States a formal written renunciation of nationality in such form as may be prescribed by, and before an officer designated by the Attorney General.[192] The assumption that persons departing from or remaining outside of the jurisdiction of the United States in time of war for the purpose of evading or avoiding military service renounce their American citizenship was created by an Act of Congress in September, 1944.[193]

President Roosevelt by proclamation of July 1941 provided for establishment of “The Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals” to be published in the Federal Register. The list was to contain the names of those persons deemed to be, or to have been, acting on behalf of the interests of Germany and Italy. Any material or article exported from the United States through the efforts of German and Italian “blocked nationals” was declared to be detrimental to the interest of national defense in the United States.[194] The Secretary of State, acting in conjunction with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Commerce, the Administrator of Export Control, and the Coordinator of Commercial and Cultural Relations between the American Republics was required to prepare the list.[195]

Persons naturalized after January 1, 1951 created a prima facie case that they were not attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States at the time of naturalization, if within five years after naturalization they joined as a member or affiliated with any organization, attachment to which would have precluded or hindered naturalization in the first place. The unwary risked cancellation of his citizenship for fraud if found to be connected with an organization whose goals and objectives were directed against the United States. This is one of the Internal Security Act provisions[196] designed to exclude communists from naturalization. The Expatriation Act of 1954 provides for the loss of nationality of persons (whether natural born or naturalized citizens) convicted by a court or court martial of committing treason against the United States, or engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them.[197]

Circumscribing Movement of Persons: The area of permissible mobility is narrowed for all persons in time of war or emergency. The population generally is excluded from specified security areas. By Act of January, 1938,[198] Congress authorized the President to define certain vital military and naval installations or equipment and made it unlawful to photograph or sketch such installations without proper authority. This obviously limits access to and activity in areas adjacent to such equipment. A 1950 amendment to the Civil Aeronautics Act, for example, empowered the Secretary of Commerce, after consultation with the Department of Defense and the Civil Aeronautics Board, to define zones or areas in the airspace above the United States, its Territories, and possessions as he may find necessary in the interests of national security. The Secretary is also given authority to prohibit or restrict flights of aircraft which he cannot effectively identify, locate, and control in those areas.[199] Selected groups of persons, generally enemy aliens, may be prohibited from entering or remaining in certain areas of the country. Proclamation No. 2525, December 7, 1941,[200] forbade the presence of alien Japanese in the Canal Zone, and restricted their entry into, or departure from, Hawaii, the Philippine Islands, and the United States, and provided for their exclusion from designated areas. Of maximum severity were limitations on mobility beyond the limits of a community, or confinement in a camp or cell. The movement to restrict travel by Americans dates from the 1935 endeavor of the American Congress to avoid American involvement in any future conflict. Section 6 of the Neutrality Act of 1935[201] empowered the President to prohibit or regulate travel by American citizens as passengers on the vessels of any belligerents in a war in which the United States was a neutral. Individuals travelling in violation of orders did so at their own risk.