822
Stevens, J., dissenting
tion accident on the Island. In 1942, the New York City Police Department formed a special squad to assist federal officials in questioning immigrants arriving at the Island. Thus, despite the fact that federal officials were in control of the Island, these incidents are consistent with the view that New York retained an interest in the Island, but New Jersey did not.10
VII
When courts considered the question, they consistently assumed or decided that Ellis Island was a part of New York. Thus, in 1915 one New York state court assumed that it had jurisdiction over an action for assault allegedly committed on the Island.11 In 1931, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which includes New Jersey, held that the District Court for the District of New Jersey did not have jurisdiction over a habeas corpus petition filed by an alien detained on the Island.12 The federal judges sitting in
10 The Master discounted this evidence by stating that there was evidence that New Jersey also policed the Island. Final Report of Special Master 114. The evidence cited, however, involved a single incident in 1966—over 10 years after the end of the relevant period. Tr. 3636-3637 (Aug. 8, 1996); see also 3 H. Unrau, Ellis Island, Statute of Liberty National Monument, New York-New Jersey 1173 (1984).
11 Rettig v. John E. Moore Co., 90 Misc. 664, 154 N. Y. S. 124 (App. Term 1915).
12 "The first contention is predicated on the assertion that Ellis Island is in the District of New Jersey and therefore within the jurisdiction of the District Court for that district.
"The island is property of the United States, ceded to the United States by the State of New York in 1808 and since 1891 used by the United States as an Immigration Station for the Port of New York. When it was property of New York it was within one or another of the counties of that state or within the waters thereof. With respect to federal jurisdiction over such counties and their waters, the United States by statute (28 U. S. C. § 178, Judicial Code, § 97) prescribed the territorial limits of the Southern District of New York and the Eastern District of New York as embracing certain counties 'with the waters thereof' and provided that the District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts 'shall have concurrent jurisdiction over the waters within the counties of New York, Kings, Queens, Nassau, Richmond, and Suffolk. * * *' This it would
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