SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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                                    No. A-426
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          IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE ET AL. v. LEGALIZATION
                                                        __
             ASSISTANCE PROJECT OF THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY FEDERATION
                                 OF LABOR ET AL.


                             ON APPLICATION FOR STAY

                               [November 26, 1993]


  JUSTICE O'CONNOR, Circuit Justice.

  The Solicitor General, on behalf of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, requests that I stay an order of the District Court for the Western
District of Washington pending appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit.  The Court of Appeals has rejected the INS' application for such a
stay.  Though "stay application[s] to a Circuit Justice on a matter before a
court of appeals [are] rarely granted," Heckler v. Lopez, 463 U. S. 1328, 1330
                                        _______    _____
(1983) (REHNQUIST, J., in chambers), I believe this is an exceptional case in
which such a stay is proper.

                                        I
  In 1986, Congress enacted the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
(IRCA), 100 Stat. 3359, which provided a limited amnesty for immigrants who had
come to or stayed in the country illegally.  See 8 U. S. C. S1255a.  Not all
such immigrants were, however, eligible.  Among other restrictions, the amnesty
was available only to those who had "resided continuously in the United States
in an unlawful status since [January 1, 1982]," S1255a(a)(2)(A); also, those
who

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2                                  INS v. LEAP
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came to the country legally but stayed illegally could only get amnesty if their
"period of authorized stay . . . expired before [January 1, 1982]" or their
"unlawful status was known to the Government as of [January 1, 1982],"
S1255a(a)(2)(B).  Respondents, organizations that provide legal help to immig-
rants, believe the INS interpreted these provisions too narrowly, in violation
of the statute and the United States Constitution, and in 1988 brought their
challenge to court.
  In March 1989, the District Court ruled in respondents' favor, and in
September 1992, the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and
remanded to the District Court for further proceedings.  On June 1, 1993, the
District Court issued an order requiring the INS to, among other things,
identify and adjudicate legalization applications filed by certain categories of
applicants, not arrest or deport certain classes of immigrants, and temporarily
grant certain classes of immigrants stays of deportation and employment
authorizations.
  On June 18, 1993, this Court decided Reno v. Catholic Social Services, Inc.,
                                       ____    ______________________________
509 U. S. ___ (1993) (CSS), a case involving a very similar challenge to another
                    ______
portion of IRCA.  In CSS, we held that the claims of most of the plaintiff
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aliens were barred by the ripeness doctrine.  A federal court, we held, general-
ly ought not entertain a request for an injunction or declaratory judgment re-
garding the validity of an administrative regulation unless it is brought by
someone who has actually been concretely affected by the regulation.  Id., at
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___.  The mere existence of the regulation, we held, was not enough; rather, the
regulation must actually have been applied to the plaintiff.  Ibid.  We con-
                                                              _____
cluded that the only people who could ask for injunctive or declaratory relief
under IRCA were those who were told by the INS that they should not even bother
to file their applications - a policy called "front-desking" - and perhaps also
those who could show that the front-desking policy was a substantial cause of

                                 A-426 - OPINION

                                   INS v. LEAP                                 3
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their failure to apply in the first place.  Id., at ___, and n. 28.  Under the
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statute, aliens who did apply and whose applications were considered but reject-
ed could only get judicial review of this rejection if the INS tried to deport
them.  8 U. S. C. S1255a(f)(1).
  In light of our decision in CSS, the Government asked the District Court to
                              ___
vacate its order, on the theory that respondents' claims here, like the claims
of the CSS plaintiffs, were not ripe.  The District Court, however, disagreed. 
       ___
The CSS plaintiffs, the District Court pointed out, were individual aliens,
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whereas the plaintiffs in this case are organizations.  The District Court con-
cluded that the organizations had "suffered a concrete and demonstrable injury"
because "the challenged regulations drained organizational resources and im-
paired their ability to assist and counsel nonimmigrants"; therefore, the court
held, the organizations' claims were ripe.  App. B to Application 6, citing
Legalization Assistance Project of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor v.
_____________________________________________________________________________
INS, 976 F. 2d 1198, 1204 (CA9 1992), cert. pending, No. 93-73.  Therefore,
___
"because this case has assumed the posture of a broad-based challenge to the
regulations in question by organizations which the Ninth Circuit explicitly
found have standing to bring these claims," App. B to Application 6, the court
declined to vacate its June 1 order.

                                       II
  As a Circuit Justice dealing with an application like this, I must try to
predict whether four Justices would vote to grant certiorari should the Court of
Appeals affirm the District Court order without modification; try to predict
whether the Court would then set the order aside; and balance the so-called
"stay equities."  Heckler v. Lopez, supra, at 1330-1331.  This is always a
                  _______    _____  _____
difficult and speculative inquiry, but in this case it leads me to conclude that
a stay is warranted.

                                 A-426 - OPINION

4                                  INS v. LEAP
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  Respondents assert that the INS is violating the law of the land, and they ask
the federal courts to order the INS to stop this.  But the broad power to "take
Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" is conspicuously not granted to us by
the Constitution.  Rather, it is given to the President of the United States,
see U. S. Const., Art. II, S3, along with the power to supervise the conduct of
the Executive Branch, Art. II, SS1, 2, which includes the INS.  The federal
courts are granted a different sort of power - the power to adjudge "Cases" or
"Controversies," Art. III, S2, cl. 1, within the jurisdiction defined by
Congress, Art. III, S2, cl. 2.
  Congress has in fact considered the proper scope of federal court jurisdiction
to review administrative agency actions.  It has explicitly limited such review
to claims brought by "person[s] suffering legal wrong[s] because of agency
action" (not applicable to the respondent organizations involved here) or by
persons "adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of
                                                          _____________________
a relevant statute."  5 U. S. C. S702 (emphasis added).  We have consistently
__________________
interpreted this latter clause to permit review only in cases brought by a
person whose putative injuries are "within the `zone of interests' sought to be
protected by the statutory provision whose violation forms the legal basis for
his complaint."  Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U. S. 871, 883
                 _____    ____________________________
(1990) (NWF); see also Clarke v. Securities Industry Assn., 479 U. S. 388,
      ______           ______    _________________________
396-397 (1987).
  I believe that, were it presented with this question, this Court would grant
certiorari and conclude that the respondents are outside the zone of interests
IRCA seeks to protect, and that therefore they had no standing to seek the order
entered by the District Court.  The District Court's decision and the Court of
Appeals decision on which it relies, 976 F. 2d, at 1208, conflict with Ayuda,
                                                                       ______
Inc. v. Reno, ___ F. 3d ___ (CADC 1993), and relate to an important question of
____    ____
federal law.  See this

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                                   INS v. LEAP                                 5
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Court's Rule 10.  Moreover, on the merits, IRCA was clearly meant to protect the
interests of undocumented aliens, not the interests of organizations such as re-
spondents.  Though such organizations did play a role in the IRCA scheme -
during the amnesty period, they were so-called "qualified designated entities,"
which were to "assis[t] in the program of legalization provided under this sec-
tion," S1255a(c)(2) - there is no indication that IRCA was in any way addressed
to their interests.  The fact that the INS regulation may affect the way an
organization allocates its resources - or, for that matter, the way an employer
who currently employs illegal aliens or a landlord who currently rents to
illegal aliens allocates its resources - does not give standing to an entity
which is not within the zone of interests the statute meant to protect.  NWF,
                                                                         ___
supra, at 883.
_____
  The balance of equities also tips in the INS' favor.  The order would impose a
considerable administrative burden on the INS, and would delay the deportation
of - and require the granting of interim work authorizations to - at least those
aliens who are deportable and who could not seek relief on their own behalf
under CSS.  Moreover, if the above analysis is correct, the order is not merely
      ___
an erroneous adjudication of a lawsuit between private litigants, but an
improper intrusion by a federal court into the workings of a coordinate branch
of the Government.  See Heckler v. Lopez, 463 U. S., at 1336-1337; FCC v.
                        _______    _____                           ___
Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134, 141 (1940).  On the other hand,
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neither CSS nor this stay prevents those aliens who were ordered deported or
        ___
were front-desked, and are therefore possibly eligible for relief under CSS,
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from suing in their own right.  Likewise, neither CSS nor this stay prevents any
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membership organizations which have members whose claims are ripe under CSS from
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suing on behalf of those members, assuming the organi-

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6                                  INS v. LEAP
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zations meet the criteria required for organizational standing.
  I therefore grant the application to stay the District Court's order pending
final disposition of the appeal by the Court of Appeals.