In the 1952 case of Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding et al., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mr. Kwong, a Chinese seaman and legal resident alien who was detained upon his return to the United States after a brief trip abroad on maritime business. The Immigration Service had classified him as an "excludable" person under immigration law due to undisclosed reasons related to national security, denying him entry without providing any hearing or review process for his detention order. The court held that this violated Mr. Kwong's constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment which guarantees due process of law before depriving anyone (including aliens) their liberty or property rights; and also contradicted provisions within immigration laws themselves that protected lawful permanent residents from arbitrary exclusions without hearings when returning from temporary absences overseas.

In the dissenting opinion for Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding et al., Justice Robert H. Jackson disagreed with the majority's decision to grant habeas corpus relief to a lawful permanent resident who was denied entry into the United States without a hearing. He argued that immigration matters are primarily within Congress' jurisdiction, and courts should not interfere unless there is clear violation of constitutional rights or statutory authority. He believed that Mr. Chew's exclusion did not violate his due process rights because he had left U.S territory voluntarily, thus placing himself in the same position as an initial entrant seeking admission into America for the first time; hence, he could be excluded on security grounds without a hearing based on existing laws at that time.