File No. 5144/–1.
The Acting Secretary of State to the Swiss Minister.
Washington, March 16, 1907.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 14th instant, with which you transmit a copy of a letter addressed by the Swiss consulate in New York to the United States Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island requesting that one Charles Alphonse Leuba, a passenger on La Touraine, which sailed from Havre on March 9, and a Swiss fugitive from justice, be detained at Ellis Island and returned to Switzerland on account of embezzlement of more than 1,500 francs. You request that a copy of the Swiss consulate’s letter be forwarded to the United States Commissioner-General of Immigration in order that he may be informed of the facts.
In reply, I have the honor to advise you that the immigration laws of the United States provide for the deportation of fugitives who have been convicted of crime, but not for those who have merely been charged with crime and fled to this country. Accordingly, the department considers that they are inapplicable in the present instance, as it would appear that the fugitive Leuba is merely charged with embezzlement.
[Page 1045]The appropriate course to be pursued would seem to be the initiation of regular proceedings in extradition under the existing convention between the United States and Switzerland, by directing the Swiss consul at New York, or other properly authorized representative of your Government, to appear before a United States commissioner in extradition, obtain a warrant for the arrest of the fugitive, and proceed in the matter in accordance with the provisions of section 5270 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.
A copy of your note and of the department’s reply thereto has been sent to the Department of Commerce and Labor to be placed before the United States Commissioner-General of Immigration. Accept, etc.,