Commissioners  of  Emigration.                       109

CIRCULAR.
Immigrant Tax Levied on each Return of Aliens.
 

Treasury Department,

Office of the Secretary,

Washington, D. C, June lo, 1885.

To Collectors of Customs and others :

You are hereby instructed that, in accordance with an opinion of
the Attorney-General, hereto annexed, payment of the duty prescribed
by the Act of August 3, 1882, as limited by Section 22 of the Shipping
Act of June 26, 1884, on account of alien passengers arriving in the
United States, is to be exacted on each successive return of each and
every one of such passengers to the United States.

Daniel Manning,

Secretary.
 

[Opinion of Attorney-General above referred to.~\

Department of Justice,    )
Washington, 9th June, 1885. f

Sir : Your communication of the 6th June instant, referring to my
opinion of the 21st May ultimo, holding that the duty of fifty cents a
passenger, imposed by the Act of 3d August, 1882, is collectible on
account of all itinerant persons, not citizens of the United States, com¬
ing to our ports in steam or sail vessels from foreign ports, asks whether
such duty " should be collected on each successive return of any such
person to the United States."

In my opinion, the duty is demandable as often as any such person
enters one of our ports. The statute makes no express provision for
exemption from the duty, and I see no ground for implying one.

It is hardly to be supposed that Congress could have intended such
an exemption, and yet have failed to provide for it. When Congress, by
the Act of 26th June, 1884 (Sess. Acts 1883-4, p. 57), was imposing a
tonnage tax on foreign vessels entering our ports, it remembered that
the tax would fall heavily on such of them as were constantly plying
between the United States and the ports of other nations, and there¬
fore especially provided that vessels hailing from some ports should