CAYETANO LIM AND MARCIANO LIM, PETITIONERS AND APPELLANTS, VS. THE INSULAR COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS, RESPONDENT AND APPELLEE.

The real question raised on this appeal is whether the Insular Collector of
Customs may lawfully deny entry into the Philippine Islands to two children aged
8 and 14 years, respectively, under and by authority of the Chinese Immigration
Laws, it appearing that the children arrived at the Port of Manila accompanied
by and in the custody of their mother, a Filipino woman; that they were born in
China, out of lawful wedlock; and that their father was a Chinese person.

It is contended, on behalf of the Insular Collector of Customs, that these
children being Chinese persons are denied the right of entrance into the
Philippine Islands under the express terms of the Chinese immigration laws. On
the other hand, it is urged on behalf of the children that they are entitled to
enter, regardless of the provisions of the Chinese immigration laws, since the
admitted facts, as it is said, disclose that they are citizens of the Philippine
Islands; and for the further reason, that their mother, who is entitled to their
custody and charged with their maintenance and education, is clearly entitled to
take up her residence in the Philippine Islands and should not be required, to
that end, to abandon her minor children.

Without discussing or deciding any of the contentions of the parties as to
the rights of citizenship of these children, actual or inchoate, we are of
opinion that by analogous reasoning to that upon which the Supreme Court of the
United States held that the wives and minor children of Chinese merchants
domiciled in the United States may enter that country without certificates,
these children must be held to be entitled to enter the Philippine Islands with
their mother, for the purpose of taking up their residence here with her, it
appearing that she is their natural guardian, entitled to their custody and
charged with their maintenance and education. (U. S. vs. Gue Lim, 176
U. S., 459.)

In the case just cited the court said:

“While the literal construction of the section would require a certificate,
as therein stated, from every Chinese person, other than a laborer, who should
come into the country, yet such a construction leads to what we think an absurd
result, for it requires a certificate for a wife of a merchant, among others, in
regard to whom it would be impossible to give the particulars which the statute
requires shall be stated in such certificate.

” ‘Nothing is better settled,’ says the present Chief Justice, in Lau Ow Bew
vs. United States (144 U. S., 59) ‘than that statutes should receive a
sensible construction, such as will effectuate the legislative intention, and,
if possible, so as to avoid an unjust or an absurd conclusion/

“The purpose of the sixth section, requiring the certificate, was not to
prevent the persons named in the second article of the treaty from coming into
the country, but to prevent Chinese laborers from entering under the guise of
being one of the classes permitted by the treaty. It is the coming of Chinese
laborers that the act is aimed against.

“It was said in the opinion in the Lau Ow Bew case, in speaking of the
provision that the sole evidence permissible should be the certificate: ‘This
rule of evidence was evidently prescribed by the amendment as a means of
effectually preventing the violation or evasion of the prohibition against the
coming of Chinese laborers. It was designed as a safeguard to prevent the
unlawful entry of such laborers, under the pretence that they belong to the
merchant class or to some other of the admitted classes.’

“It was also held in that case that although the literal wording of the
statute of 1884, section six, would require a certificate in the case of a
merchant already domiciled in the United States and who had left the country for
temporary purposes, animo revertendi, yet its true and proper
construction did not include his case, and the general terms used in the act
were limited to those persons to whom Congress manifestly intended to apply
them, which would be those who were about to come to the United States for the
first time, and not to those Chinese merchants already domiciled in the United
States who had gone to China for temporary purposes only, with the intention of
returning. The case of Wan Shing vs. United States (140 U. S., 424), was
referred to, and attention called to the fact that the appellant therein was not
a merchant but a laborer, who had acquired no commercial domicile in this
country, and was clearly within the exception requiring him to procure and
produce the certificate specified in the act. The ruling was approved, and the
differences in the two cases pointed out by the Chief Justice.

“To hold that a certificate is required in this case is to decide that the
woman cannot come into this country at all, for it is not possible for her to
comply with the act, because she cannot in any event procure the certificate
even by returning to China. She must come in as the wife of her domiciled
husband or not at all. The act was never meant to accomplish the result of
permanently excluding the wife under the circumstances of this case, and we
think that, properly and reasonably construed, it does not do so. If we hold
that she is entitled to come in as the wife, because the true construction of
the treaty and the act permits it, there is no provision which makes the
certificate the only proof of the fact that she is such wife.

“In the case of the minor children, the same result must follow as in that of
the wife. All the reasons which favor the construction of the statute as
exempting the wife from the necessity of procuring a certificate apply with
equal force to the case of minor children of a member or members of the admitted
classes. They come in by reason of their relationship to the father, and whether
they accompany or follow him, a certificate is not necessary in either case.
When the fact is established to the satisfaction of the authorities that the
person claiming to enter, either as wife or minor child, is in fact the wife or
minor child of one of the members of the class mentioned in the treaty as
entitled to enter, then that person is entitled to admission without the
certificate.”

We are not advised of any provision of Chinese law which differentiates the
status of infant children, born out of lawful wedlock, from that of similar
children under the laws in force in the Philippine Islands. We assume,
therefore, that in China as well as in the Philippine Islands such children have
the right to look to their mother for their maintenance and education, and that
she is entitled to their custody and control in fulfilling the obligations
towards them which are imposed upon her, not only by the natural impulses of
love and affection, but also by the express mandate of the law. And it having
been held on the highest authority that the general terms of the Act were
limited to those to whom Congress manifestly intended to apply them as set forth
in the foregoing opinion, and that “nothing is better settled than that statutes
should receive a sensible construction, such as will effectuate the legislative
intention, and, if possible, so as to avoid an unjust or an absurd conclusion,”
we are of opinion that the Chinese Immigration Laws should not be construed so
as to exclude infant children of a Filipino mother, born out of lawful wedlock,
seeking entrance to the Philippine Islands for the purpose of taking up their
residence with her in her native land.

It has been suggested that such a ruling opens the door to fraud and evasion,
but we are not much impressed with the force of this suggestion, knowing as we
do that the immigration authorities have been furnished by the law with
peculiarly effective machinery for its enforcement, well calculated to defeat
any attempt to make an unauthorized or improper use of so manifestly reasonable
an exception from the literal construction and application of its general
provisions.

Some confusion seems to have arisen in the court below as to the precise
nature and effect of the somewhat inartificial pleadings upon which these
proceedings were submitted. The case appears to have been submitted upon an
answer to an order to show cause why a writ of habeas corpus should not issue
upon the petition filed on behalf of the infant children. In the form in which
the answer is couched, there is much in the contention of the appellee that the
trial court should have treated the answer as in substance and effect a demurrer
to the petition, admitting the truth of the facts alleged therein, but praying
judgment as to whether it sets forth facts sufficient to constitute a cause of
action and to justify the issuance of the writ. We are inclined to think,
however, that the understanding of the parties and of the court below was that
the answer should be treated rather as in the nature of a return to a writ of
habeas corpus, accepting as true the allegations of the petition but maintaining
the legality of the detention upon the facts thus submitted. Without considering
at this time whether in habeas corpus proceedings the respondent may, without
consent of court, demur to, instead of answering an order to show cause why the
writ should not issue, and without considering or deciding the course which
should be pursued where a respondent attempts to file a demurrer to a petition
for a writ of habeas corpus in lieu of the return prescribed by the statute to.
the writ when actually issued; we treat the answer to the order to show cause in
the case at bar as we think the parties and the court below understood it should
be treated, that is to say, as in substance and effect the return which the
Insular Collector desired to make to the writ of habeas corpus issued or assumed
to have been issued in response to the petition on behalf of the children held
in custody by him.

We conclude, therefore, that, it appearing that the respondent Collector of
Customs is detaining the petitioners under an erroneous construction of the
immigration laws, and it appearing from the facts disclosed by the
administrative proceedings that these children are entitled to admission into
the Philippine Islands, the order entered in the court below should be reversed,
and in lieu thereof an order should be entered directing the discharge of these
children from the custody of the Insular Collector of Customs, with the costs in
both instances, de officio. So ordered.

Torres, Moreland, Trent, and Araullo, JJ.,
concur.