Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-18-17274/USCOURTS-ca9-18-17274-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 465
Nature of Suit: Other Immigration Actions
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT;

AL OTRO LADO; INNOVATION LAW 

LAB; CENTRAL AMERICAN 

RESOURCE CENTER,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the 

United States; WILLIAM P. BARR, 

Attorney General; JAMES MCHENRY, 

Director, Executive Office for 

Immigration Review (EOIR); CHAD 

WOLF, Acting Secretary, U.S. 

Department of Homeland Security; 

KENNETH T. CUCCINELLI, Acting

Director, U.S. Citizenship and 

Immigration Services; MARK A.

MORGAN, Acting Commissioner, 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection; 

MATTHEW T. ALBENCE, Acting 

Director, U.S. Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 18-17274

18-17436

D.C. No.

4:18-cv-06810-

JST

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Jon S. Tigar, District Judge, Presiding

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2 EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP

Argued and Submitted October 1, 2019

San Francisco, California

Filed February 28, 2020

Before: Ferdinand F. Fernandez, William A. Fletcher,

and Richard A. Paez, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Paez;

Concurrence by Judge Fernandez

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EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP 3

SUMMARY*

Immigration / Preliminary Injunctions

The panel affirmed the district court’s grant of a 

temporary restraining order and a subsequent grant of a 

preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of a rule and 

presidential proclamation that, together, strip asylum 

eligibility from every migrant who crosses into the United

States along the southern border of Mexico between 

designated ports of entry.

In November 2018, the Department of Justice and 

Department of Homeland Security adopted an interim final 

rule (“the Rule”) that makes migrants who enter the United 

States in violation of a “a presidential proclamation or other 

presidential order suspending or limiting the entry of aliens 

along the southern border with Mexico” categorically 

ineligible for asylum. The same day, President Trump 

issued a presidential proclamation (“the Proclamation”) that 

suspends the entry of all migrants along the southern border 

of the United States for ninety days, except for any migrant 

who enters at a port of entry and properly presents for 

inspection.

Legal services organizations that represent asylumseekers (“the Organizations”) sued to prevent enforcement 

of the Rule. The district court entered a temporary 

restraining order enjoining the Rule, concluding that it 

irreconcilably conflicted with the Immigration and 

Nationality Act (“INA”). The government appealed and 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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4 EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP

sought an immediate stay in this court of the district court’s 

order pending appeal. In a published order, a motions panel 

of this court denied the government’s request for a stay, and 

the government’s application for a stay from the Supreme 

Court was also denied. The district court issued an 

injunction barring enforcement of the Rule, the government 

appealed, and this court consolidated the two appeals.

First, the panel held that—given the preliminary stage of 

the appellate process at which the motions panel issued its 

order—the motions panel’s decision did not bind the present 

panel. The panel explained that, under the law-of-the-case 

doctrine, courts—at their own discretion—will generally 

refuse to reconsider an issue that has already been decided 

by the same court or a higher court in the same case. The 

panel noted, however, that the court sometimes exercises its 

discretion to reconsider issues within the same case and that 

merits panels tend not to extend the doctrine to a prior 

motions panel’s decision in the same case. Further, the panel 

explained that a decision by a motions panel is a probabilistic 

endeavor, doctrinally distinct from the question considered 

by the later merits panel and issued without oral argument 

on limited briefing. Addressing the court’s recent statement, 

in Lair v. Bullock, 798 F.3d 736 (9th Cir. 2015), that “a 

motions panel’s published opinion binds future panels the 

same as does a merits panel’s published opinion,” the panel 

concluded that the language was dicta.

The panel also noted that its holding was consistent with 

the court’s general rules governing law of the circuit, which 

provide that the first panel to consider an issue sets the law 

for all inferior courts and future panels of the court. 

Specifically, the panel explained that tentative conclusions 

that are not law of the case do not bind later panels in the 

same case as law of the circuit, and that any other rule would 

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EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP 5

paradoxically provide that a merits panel would be bound by 

a motions panel’s opinion—because it is law of the circuit—

and not bound by the same opinion—because it is not law of 

the case.

Next, the panel re-evaluated the government’s challenge 

to the court’s jurisdiction. First, the panel held that the 

Organizations had established organizational standing by 

showing that their ability to perform services had been 

impaired by the Rule. Second, the panel rejected the 

government’s argument that the court should avoid 

interfering with the Rule on the ground that the power to 

expel or exclude aliens is a fundamental sovereign attribute 

exercised by the government’s political departments largely 

immune from judicial control. The panel explained it was 

responsible for reviewing whether the government has 

overstepped its delegated authority under the INA and 

encroached upon Congress’s legislative prerogative. Third, 

the panel rejected the government’s argument that three 

statutory provisions, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1252(e)(3), 1252(a)(5), and 

1252(b)(9), divested this court of jurisdiction. The panel 

explained that none of these provisions have any bearing on 

the Rule because they govern judicial review of removal 

orders or challenges inextricably linked with actions taken 

to remove migrants from the country. The panel also 

concluded that the Organizations continued to fall within the 

zones of interests of the INA.

The panel next addressed the Organizations’ likelihood 

of success on the merits of their claims, under the 

Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). Applying the 

framework established in Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat. Res. 

Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), the panel held that 

the Rule conflicts with the INA’s section on asylum, which 

begins by stating that an undocumented migrant may apply 

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6 EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP

for asylum when she is “physically present in the United 

States” or “arrives in the United States (whether or not at a 

designated port of arrival . . . )[.]” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(1). 

The panel explained that, because the Rule requires migrants 

to enter the United States at ports of entry to preserve their 

eligibility for asylum, it is effectively a categorical ban on 

migrants who use a method of entry explicitly authorized by 

Congress in § 1158(a).

The panel further concluded that, even if the text of 

section 1158(a) were ambiguous, the Rule fails at the second 

step of Chevron because it is an arbitrary and capricious 

interpretation of that statutory provision. The panel 

explained that the BIA and this court have long recognized 

that a refugee’s method of entering the country is a 

discretionary factor in determining whether the migrant 

should be granted humanitarian relief, but that the method of 

entry should be carefully evaluated in light of the harsh 

consequences that may befall an alien. Thus, the panel 

concluded that, given the Rule’s effect of conditioning 

asylum eligibility on a factor that has long been understood 

as worth little if any weight in adjudicating whether a 

migrant should be granted asylum, it is an arbitrary and 

capricious interpretation of § 1158(a).

The panel also concluded that the Rule is unreasonable 

in light of the United States’s treaty obligations under the 

1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of 

Refugees (“1951 Convention”) and the 1967 United Nations 

Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Specifically, the 

panel concluded that the Rule runs afoul of three codified 

rules: 1) the right to seek asylum; 2) the prohibition against 

penalties for irregular entry; and 3) principles of nonrefoulement, which prohibit signatories to the 1951 

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EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP 7

Convention from returning a refugee to the frontiers of 

territories where his life or freedom would be threatened.

The panel briefly addressed the procedural arguments 

raised by the parties regarding whether the Rule was invalid 

because it was issued without public notice and comment or 

complying with the thirty-day grace period required by the 

APA. The panel concluded that the Rule likely does not 

properly fall under the good-cause exception or the foreignaffairs exception to these procedural requirements.

Next, the panel concluded that the Organizations had 

demonstrated a sufficient likelihood of irreparable injury to 

warrant injunctive relief, explaining that the Organizations 

had shown that they will suffer a significant change in their 

programs and a concomitant loss of funding absent a 

preliminary injunction.

The panel next concluded that the public interest weights 

sharply in the Organizations’ favor, noting that: 1) the public 

interest is served by compliance with the APA; 2) the public 

has an interest in ensuring that this country does not deliver 

aliens into the hands of their persecutors; 3) the public has 

an interest in ensuring that the statutes enacted by their 

representatives are not imperiled by executive fiat; and 4) 

while the government and the public have an interest in the 

efficient administration of the immigration laws at the 

border, this factor was not entitled to much weight because 

the Organizations had established that the Rule is invalid.

Finally, addressing the scope of the remedy, the panel 

concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion 

in issuing an injunction preventing any action to implement 

the Rule. The panel noted that the Organizations do not limit 

their potential clients to refugees who enter only at the 

Mexican border with California and Arizona, and that the 

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8 EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP

government had not proposed an alternative form of the 

injunction that accounts for the scope of the Organizations’ 

harms, but applies only within the Ninth Circuit. The panel 

also noted that two other factors supported the scope of the 

district court’s injunction: 1) when a regulation is found 

unlawful, the typical result is to vacate and remand, not to 

attempt to fashion a valid regulation from the remnants of 

the old rule; and 2) there is an important need for uniformity 

in immigration policy—which supports the authority of 

district courts to enjoin unlawful policies on a universal 

basis.

Concurring, Judge Fernandez wrote that he concurred in 

the majority opinion because, and for the most part only 

because, he believes that this panel is bound by the motions 

panel’s published decision in this case. Judge Fernandez 

wrote that the panel is bound by the law of the circuit, which 

binds all courts within a particular circuit, including the court 

of appeals itself, and remains binding unless overruled by 

the court sitting en banc, or by the Supreme Court. Further, 

Judge Fernandez wrote that, insofar as factual differences 

might allow precedent to be distinguished on a principled 

basis, in this case, the situation before this panel was in every 

material way the same as that before the motions panel. 

Judge Fernandez also stated that, in Lair v. Bullock, this 

court held that a motions panel’s published opinion binds 

future panels the same as does a merits panel’s published 

opinion, disagreeing with the majority’s characterization of 

this language as dicta. Judge Fernandez also concluded that 

the law of the case doctrine binds this panel, noting that he 

did not perceive any of the exceptions to the doctrine to be 

involved here.

Applying those doctrines, Judge Fernandez concluded 

that: 1) the Organizations have standing; 2) the 

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EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP 9

Organizations are likely to succeed on the substantive 

merits; 3) the motions panel’s decisions on harm and balance 

of hardship are also binding; and 4) the scope of the 

injunction is not overly broad.

COUNSEL

Scott Grant Stewart (argued), Deputy Assistant Attorney 

General; Francesca Genova and T. Benton York, Trial 

Attorneys; Erez Reuveni, Assistant Director; William C. 

Peachey, Director; August E. Flentje, Special Counsel; 

Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General; Office of 

Immigration Litigation, United States Department of Justice,

Washington, D.C.; for Defendants-Appellants.

Lee P. Gelernt (argued), Judy Rabinovitz, Omar C. Jadwat, 

Anand Balakrishnan, Daniel Galindo, and Celso Perez,

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Immigrants’ 

Rights Project, New York, New York; Jennifer Chang 

Newell, Cody Wofsy, Spencer Amdur, and Julie Veroff, 

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Immigrants’ 

Rights Project, San Francisco, California; Melissa Crow, 

Southern Poverty Law Center, Washington, D.C.; Mary 

Bauer, Southern Poverty Law Center, Charlottesville, 

Virginia; Gracie Willis, Southern Poverty Law Center, 

Decatur, Georgia; Baher Azmy, Angelo Guisado, and Ghita 

Schwarz, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, New 

York; Christine P. Sun and Vasudha Talla, American Civil 

Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California Inc., San 

Francisco, California; for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Lawrence J. Joseph, Washington, D.C.; Christopher J. 

Hajec, Director of Litigation, Immigration Reform Law 

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10 EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP

Institute, Washington, D.C.; for Amicus Curiae Immigration 

Reform Law Institute.

Patrick W. Pearsall, Karthik P. Reddy, and Vaishalee V. 

Yeldandi, Jenner & Block LLP, Washington, D.C.; Alice 

Farmer, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner 

for Refugees, Washington, D.C.; for Amicus Curiae Office 

of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Richard D. Bernstein, Washington, D.C.; Richard Mancino, 

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New York, New York; for 

Amici Curiae Peter Keisler, Stuart Gerson, Carter Phillips, 

John Bellinger III, Samuel Witten, Ray Lahood, Brackett 

Denniston, Stanley Twardy, and Richard Bernstein.

Alan E. Schoenfeld, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr 

LLP, New York, New York; Alex Gazikas, Wilmer Cutler 

Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington, D.C.; Peter S. 

Margulies, Bristol, Rhode Island; Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, 

University Park, Pennsylvania; for Amici Curiae Professors 

of Immigration Law.

Margaret L. Carter, Dmitiri D. Portnoi, and Daniel R. Suvor, 

O’Melveny & Myers LLP, Los Angeles, California; Barbara 

J. Parker, City Attorney; Maria Bee, Erin Bernstein, Malia 

McPherson, Zarah Rahman, and Suzanne Dershowitz;

Office of the City Attorney Oakland, California; Edward N. 

Siskel, Corporation Counsel, City of Chicago Department of 

Law, Chicago, Illinois; Zachary W. Carter, Corporation 

Counsel, New York City Law Department, New York, New 

York; for Amici Curiae 21 Counties, Cities, and Local 

Officials.

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General; Michael L. Newman, 

Senior Assistant Attorney General; Christine Chuang, 

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EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP 11

Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Shubhra Shivpuri 

and James F. Zahradka II, Deputy Attorneys General; Office 

of the Attorney General, Oakland, California; Philip J. 

Weiser, Attorney General, Denver, Colorado; William 

Tong, Attorney General, Hartford, Connecticut; Kathleen 

Jennings, Attorney General, Wilmington, Delaware; Karl A. 

Racine, Attorney General, Washington, D.C.; Clare E. 

Connors, Attorney General, Honolulu, Hawaii; Kwame 

Raoul, Attorney General, Chicago, Illinois; Tom Miller, 

Attorney General, Des Moines, Iowa; Brian E. Frosh, 

Attorney General, Baltimore, Maryland; Maura Healey, 

Attorney General, Boston, Massachusetts; Dana Nessel, 

Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan; Keith Ellison, 

Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; Aaron D. Ford, 

Attorney General, Carson City, Nevada; Gurbir S. Grewal, 

Attorney General, Trenton, New Jersey; Hector Balderas, 

Attorney General, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Letitia James, 

Attorney General, New York, New York; Ellen F. 

Rosenblum, Attorney General, Salem, Oregon; Josh 

Shapiro, Attorney General, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; 

Peter F. Neronha, Attorney General, Providence, Rhode 

Island; Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., Attorney General, 

Montpelier, Vermont; Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, 

Richmond, Virginia; Robert W. Ferguson, Attorney 

General, Olympia, Washington; for Amici Curiae 

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of 

Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts,

Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico,

New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont,

Virginia, and Washington.

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OPINION

PAEZ, Circuit Judge:

Forty years ago, Congress recognized that refugees 

fleeing imminent persecution do not have the luxury of 

choosing their escape route into the United States. It 

mandated equity in its treatment of all refugees, however 

they arrived.1

This principle is embedded in the Refugee Act of 1980, 

which established an asylum procedure available to any 

migrant, “irrespective of such alien’s status,” and 

irrespective of whether the migrant arrived “at a land border 

or port of entry.” Pub. L. No. 96-212, § 208(a), 94 Stat. 102, 

105 (1980). Today’s Immigration and Nationality Act 

(“INA”) preserves that principle. It states that a migrant who 

arrives in the United States—“whether or not at a designated 

port of arrival”—may apply for asylum. See 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1158(a).

In November 2018, the Departments of Justice and 

Homeland Security jointly adopted an interim final rule (“the 

Rule”) which, coupled with a presidential proclamation 

issued the same day (“the Proclamation”), strips asylum 

eligibility from every migrant who crosses into the United 

States between designated ports of entry. In this appeal, we 

consider whether, among other matters, the Rule unlawfully 

conflicts with the text and congressional purpose of the INA. 

We conclude that it does.

1 See 125 Cong. Rec. 35,813–14 (1979) (statement of Rep. 

Holtzman).

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EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP 13

I.

The Rule announces a new bar to asylum eligibility. It 

makes migrants who enter the United States in violation of 

“a presidential proclamation or other presidential order 

suspending or limiting the entry of aliens along the southern 

border with Mexico” categorically ineligible for asylum. 

See Aliens Subject to a Bar on Entry Under Certain 

Presidential Proclamations; Procedures for Protection 

Claims, 83 Fed. Reg. 55,934, 55,952 (Nov. 9, 2018) 

(codified at 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.13, 208.30). Migrants who are 

ineligible for asylum under the Rule will also automatically 

receive negative credible-fear determinations in expeditedremoval proceedings. See id. at 55,935, 55,952. Typically, 

a migrant in expedited-removal proceedings who 

demonstrates a “credible fear” of persecution must be 

allowed to present her asylum claim before an immigration 

judge. See 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(A)(ii), (B)(v). A migrant 

who enters the United States in contravention of a 

proclamation will instead need to demonstrate a “reasonable 

fear” of persecution or torture—which is more difficult than 

establishing a credible fear of persecution—to obtain other 

forms of relief. See 83 Fed. Reg. at 55,936, 55,952; see also 

8 C.F.R. § 208.31(c); 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(B)(v).

The same day the Departments of Justice (“DHS”) and 

Homeland Security (“DHS”) adopted the Rule, President 

Trump issued the Proclamation. The Proclamation suspends 

the entry of all migrants along the southern border of the 

United States for ninety days, except for any migrant who 

“enters the United States at a port of entry and properly 

presents for inspection.” See Presidential Proclamation No. 

9,822, Addressing Mass Migration Through the Southern 

Border of the United States, 83 Fed. Reg. 57,661, 57,663 

(Nov. 9, 2018).

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14 EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP

Individually, the Rule and Proclamation have little 

effect. The Proclamation does not have the force of law, and 

the Rule only effectuates proclamations. But together, the 

Rule and Proclamation make asylum entirely unavailable to 

migrants who enter the country between ports of entry. The 

magnitude of the Rule’s effect is staggering: its most direct 

consequence falls on “the more than approximately 70,000 

aliens a year (as of FY 2018) estimated to enter between the 

ports of entry [who] then assert a credible fear in expeditedremoval proceedings.” 83 Fed. Reg. at 55,948. These 

migrants would typically proceed to an asylum hearing 

before an immigration judge but will now be unable to do so 

because they have entered the country at a place other than a 

port of entry.

The day the Proclamation and Rule issued, four legal 

services organizations that represent current and future 

asylum-seekers sued to prevent enforcement of the Rule. 

East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Al Otro Lado, Innovation 

Law Lab, and Central American Resource Center of Los 

Angeles (collectively, “the Organizations”) argued that the 

Rule was likely unlawful because it was issued without 

public notice and comment or complying with the thirty-day 

grace period required by the Administrative Procedure Act 

(“APA”), see 5 U.S.C. § 553(b)–(d). The Organizations also 

argued that the Rule conflicts with the plain text of the INA 

and is arbitrary and capricious because it constitutes a severe 

departure from the Board of Immigration Appeals’s and the 

Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of asylum practices in the 

United States.

The district court agreed that the Rule “irreconcilably 

conflicts with the INA and the expressed intent of Congress” 

and entered a temporary restraining order enjoining the 

Rule’s enforcement and ordering the government “to return 

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EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP 15

to the pre-Rule practices for processing asylum 

applications.” See E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump 

(EBSC I), 349 F. Supp. 3d 838, 844, 868–69 (N.D. Cal. 

2018). Eight days after the court’s order, the government 

filed an appeal and an emergency motion in the district court 

to stay the temporary restraining order pending appeal. The 

court denied the stay motion three days later.

The following day, the government sought an immediate 

stay in our court of the district court’s order pending appeal. 

In a lengthy published order, a motions panel of this court 

denied the government’s request to stay enforcement of the 

court’s order. See E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump

(EBSC II), 932 F.3d 742, 755, 762 (9th Cir. 2018). Although 

temporary restraining orders are typically not appealable, the 

panel concluded that appellate jurisdiction existed under 

28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) because the temporary restraining 

order was effective for thirty days, well beyond the fourteenday limit imposed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b). 

Id. at 762–63. The government’s application for a stay from 

the Supreme Court was also denied. See Trump v. E. Bay 

Sanctuary Covenant, 139 S. Ct. 782 (2018).

While the government’s stay application was pending 

before the Supreme Court, the Organizations filed a motion 

for a preliminary injunction in the district court. The 

arguments presented during the second round of litigation 

were “nearly identical” to those made during the first. See 

E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump (EBSC III), 354 F. 

Supp. 3d 1094, 1102 (N.D. Cal. 2018). Relying heavily on 

the motions panel’s published order, the district court again 

issued an injunction barring enforcement of the Rule. See 

id. at 1121.

The government again appeals, arguing that the district 

court erred when it entered the injunction or that the 

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16 EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP

injunction should at least be narrowed. We consolidated the 

government’s appeal from the temporary restraining order 

with the appeal from the preliminary injunction.2 For the 

reasons explained below, we agree with the district court that 

the Rule is inconsistent with the INA, and we affirm the 

district court’s orders granting preliminary injunctive relief.

II.

We first consider the effect of the motions panel’s order 

on the present panel’s decision. How strictly the order binds 

this court depends on whether it is law of the case, law of the 

circuit, or both.

Law of the circuit is stare decisis, by another name. The 

doctrine requires that we “stand by yesterday’s decisions”—

even when doing so “means sticking to some wrong 

decisions.” Kimble v. Marvel Entm’t, LLC, 135 S. Ct. 2401, 

2409 (2015). Published decisions of this court become law 

of the circuit, which is binding authority that we and district 

courts must follow until overruled. Gonzalez v. Arizona, 

677 F.3d 383, 389 n.4 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc). 

Controlling, overruling authority includes only intervening 

statutes or Supreme Court opinions that create “clearly 

2 Although the Proclamation expired by its terms in February 2019,

the President issued a new Proclamation, which did not substantially 

change the terms of the original Proclamation and extended its effect for 

an additional ninety days. When that Proclamation expired in May, the 

President again re-issued it and extended the effect of the initial 

Proclamation “for an additional 90 days beyond the date when the United 

States obtains relief from the preliminary injunction of the interim final 

rule[.]” See Presidential Proclamation No. 9,880, Addressing Mass 

Migration Through the Southern Border of the United States, 84 Fed. 

Reg. 21,229, 21,229 (May 8, 2019).

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EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP 17

irreconcilable” conflicts with our caselaw. Miller v. 

Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 893, 900 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc).

Under the law-of-the-case doctrine, instead, courts—at 

their own discretion—“will generally refuse to reconsider an 

issue that has already been decided by the same court or a 

higher court in the same case.” Gonzalez, 677 F.3d at 389 

n.4; see also United States v. Houser, 804 F.2d 565, 567 (9th 

Cir. 1986). The doctrine encourages the conservation of 

limited judicial resources and promotes consistency by 

allowing court decisions to govern the same issues in 

subsequent stages of the same case. See Am. Civil Liberties 

Union v. F.C.C., 523 F.2d 1344, 1346 (9th Cir. 1975).

We do sometimes exercise our discretion to reconsider 

issues within the same case. Most often, we recognize 

exceptions to the law-of-the-case doctrine where the prior 

decision is “clearly erroneous” and enforcing it would create 

“manifest injustice”; intervening, controlling authority 

encourages reconsideration; or substantially different 

evidence is produced at a later merits trial. See In Re 

Rainbow Magazine, Inc., 77 F.3d 278, 281 (9th Cir. 1996). 

This list is narrow but nonexhaustive. The legal context of 

the prior decision also affects whether and to what extent it 

may be treated as law of the case. We generally do not, for 

example, apply the doctrine to administrative proceedings 

because agencies are sometimes vested with explicit 

authority to reconsider their own decisions. See, e.g., SilvaPereira v. Lynch, 827 F.3d 1176, 1190 (9th Cir. 2016). Our 

review of district court orders denying or granting 

preliminary-injunction requests also does not typically 

become law of the case; the record before a later panel may 

materially differ from the record before the first panel, such 

that the first panel’s decision eventually provides “little 

guidance as to the appropriate disposition on the merits.” 

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18 EAST BAY SANCTUARY COVENANT V. TRUMP

Sports Form, Inc. v. United Press Intern., Inc., 686 F.2d 750, 

753 (9th Cir. 1982).

Merits panels also tend not to extend the doctrine to a 

prior motions panel’s decision in the same case. See, e.g., 

United States v. Lopez-Armenta, 400 F.3d 1173, 1175 (9th 

Cir. 2005) (explaining that a prior motions panel’s denial of 

a motion to dismiss did not “preclude [the panel] from 

reaching a contrary decision”); In re Castro, 919 F.2d 107, 

108 (9th Cir. 1990) (per curiam) (holding that a motions 

panel’s denial of a dispositive motion without an opinion 

was not binding on a later merits panel); Stifel, Nicolaus & 

Co., Inc. v. Woolsey & Co., Inc., 81 F.3d 1540, 1543–44 

(10th Cir. 1996) (concluding that the law-of-the-case 

doctrine did not prevent the panel from reconsidering a 

motions panel’s application of res judicata to a relevant 

state-court decision). A later merits panel should not “lightly 

overturn a decision made by a motions panel,” but “we do 

not apply the law of the case doctrine as strictly in that 

instance as we do when a second merits panel is asked to 

reconsider a decision reached by the first merits panel on an 

earlier appeal.” Houser, 804 F.2d at 568.

Our caselaw interpreting the relationship between 

motions and merits panels’ opinions has not always been 

clear. Citing to Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889 (9th Cir. 

2003), we recently stated that “a motions panel’s published 

opinion binds future panels the same as does a merits panel’s 

published opinion.” Lair v. Bullock, 798 F.3d 736, 747 (9th

Cir. 2015). But this observation was not germane to the 

eventual resolution of Lair; the panel noted that the effect of 

the motions panel’s decision was not necessary to its 

holding, see id., and it was not reached after “reasoned 

consideration,” so its law-of-the-case discussion is dicta and 

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not binding on subsequent cases. See United States v. 

McAdory, 935 F.3d 838, 843 (9th Cir. 2019).

Gammie encouraged a “pragmatic” approach to “an 

evolving body of common law.” 335 F.3d at 899–900. Our 

own practice has frequently indicated that we have not, and 

do not, follow the summary language in Lair: merits panels 

of this court frequently depart from published decisions 

issued by motions panels in the same case. See, e.g., Nat. 

Res. Def. Council, Inc. v. Winter, 508 F.3d 885, 886–87 (9th 

Cir. 2007) (vacating a stay of a preliminary injunction issued 

in an opinion by a motions panel); Golden Gate Rest. Ass’n 

v. City and Cty. of San Francisco, 546 F.3d 639, 643–61 (9th 

Cir. 2008) (reaching the merits of an appeal without reliance 

on a previous motions panel’s order entering a stay of a 

district court judgment pending appeal); see also Nelson v. 

Nat’l Aeronautics & Space Admin., 530 F.3d 865, 873 (9th 

Cir. 2008), rev’d on other grounds by 562 U.S. 134 (rereviewing the merits of the case and generally treating a 

motions panel’s opinion as nonbinding); Innovation Law 

Lab v. McAleenan, 924 F.3d 503, 518 (9th Cir. 2019) 

(Fletcher, J., concurring in the judgment) (stating that a later 

merits panel may, “with the benefit of full briefing and 

regularly scheduled oral argument,” depart from the legal 

conclusions reached by the motions panel). At least four 

other circuits have agreed that later panels may review the 

merits of a case “uninhibited” by a motions panel’s earlier 

decision in the same case. Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., 

81 F.3d at 1544 (10th Cir. 1996); see also Rezzonico v. H&R 

Block, Inc., 182 F.3d 144, 149 (2d Cir. 1999); Cimino v. 

Raymark Indus., Inc., 151 F.3d 297, 311 n.26 (5th Cir. 

1998); Vann v. Citicorp Sav. of Illinois, 891 F.2d 1507, 1509 

n.2 (11th Cir. 1990). Two others have held that 

jurisdictional determinations by motions panels do not bind 

later merits panels. See Council Tree Commc’ns, Inc. v. 

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F.C.C., 503 F.3d 284, 291–92 (3d Cir. 2007); United States 

v. Henderson, 536 F.3d 776, 778 (7th Cir. 2008).

There are good policy and practical reasons for departing 

from Lair’s dicta. Motions panels’ orders are generally 

issued without oral argument, on limited timelines, and in 

reliance on limited briefing. See Fed. R. App. P. 27(e) 

(motions are decided without oral argument unless the court 

orders otherwise); compare also Rule 27(a)(3)–(4) 

(responses to motions and replies to responses must be filed 

within ten days of service of the motion) and 27(d)(2) 

(motions or responses to motions are limited to 5,200 words; 

replies are limited to 2,600 words) with Ninth Circuit Rule 3-

3 (in preliminary injunction appeal, opening brief must be 

filed within 28 days of notice of appeal; response must be 

filed 28 days thereafter; reply may be filed 21 days 

thereafter) and Ninth Circuit Rule 32-1 (opening and 

response briefs limited to 14,000 words). The record before 

a motions panel, much like the record before a district court 

deciding a preliminary injunction, is often incomplete. Cf.

Univ. of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U.S. 390, 395 (1981) (“In 

light of these considerations, it is generally inappropriate for 

a federal court at the preliminary-injunction stage to give a 

final judgment on the merits.”). Constrained by timing 

demands, motions panels’ decisions are often issued without 

opinions and explanations. See, e.g., Haggard v. Curry, 

631 F.3d 931, 933 n.1 (9th Cir. 2010) (per curiam). A panel 

operating with the benefit of a complete record and 

additional time to consider the merits of the case may 

“conclude that the motions decision was improvident and 

should be reconsidered.” Houser, 804 F.2d at 568 (citing 

E.E.O.C. v. Neches Butane Prod. Co., 704 F.2d 144, 147 (5th 

Cir. 1983)).

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Reconsideration of a motions panel’s decision by a 

merits panel also “differs in a significant way” from 

reconsideration of a merits panel’s decision. Id. A party that 

receives an unfavorable decision by a merits panel will have 

the opportunity to file a petition for panel rehearing, 

rehearing en banc, or petition for certiorari. Motions for 

reconsideration or modification of a motions panel’s order 

are “discouraged,” “disfavored by the court[,] and rarely 

granted.” Ninth Circuit Rule 27-1 advisory committee note. 

For this reason, motions panel decisions are “rarely 

subjected” to a thorough reconsideration process; “[f]ull 

review of a motions panel decision will more likely occur 

only after the merits panel has acted.” Houser, 804 F.2d at 

568. Unilaterally binding later merits panels to the 

preliminary decisions made by motions panels prevents 

litigants from fully vindicating their appellate rights.3

These concerns are particularly heightened here, where 

the motions panel considered whether to grant the 

government’s request for a stay of the district court’s 

preliminary injunction. The decision whether to grant a 

3 Our holding is consistent with our general rules governing law of 

the circuit. “[T]he first panel to consider an issue sets the law . . . for all 

the inferior courts in the circuit” and “future panels of the court of 

appeals,” Hart v. Massanari, 266 F.3d 1155, 1171 (9th Cir. 2001), but 

motions panels’ conclusions do not “set the law” for later merits panels 

in the same case, see, e.g., Askins v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 

899 F.3d 1035, 1042 (9th Cir. 2018) (“The law of the case doctrine does 

not preclude a court from reassessing its own legal rulings in the same 

case.”). Tentative conclusions that are not law of the case do not bind 

later panels in the same case as law of the circuit. Any other rule would 

paradoxically require that a merits panel treat a motions panel’s 

published decision that does not constitute law of the case as binding. A 

merits panel cannot be simultaneously bound by the motions panel’s 

opinion—because it is law of the circuit—and not bound by the 

opinion—because it is not law of the case.

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stay—much like the decision whether to grant a preliminary 

injunction—is a “probabilistic” endeavor. Sierra Club v. 

Trump, 929 F.3d 670, 688 (9th Cir. 2019). We discuss the 

merits of a stay request in “likelihood terms,” and exercise a 

“restrained approach to assessing the merits.” Id.

(quotations omitted). Such a predictive analysis should not, 

and does not, forever bind the merits of the parties’ claims. 

This sort of “pre-adjudication adjudication would defeat the 

purpose of a stay, which is to give the reviewing court the 

time to ‘act responsibly,’ rather than doling out ‘justice on 

the fly.’” Leiva-Perez v. Holder, 640 F.3d 962, 967 (9th Cir. 

2011) (quoting Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 427 (2009)).

Notably, when acting on the government’s stay motion 

in this case, the motions panel acknowledged the preliminary 

nature of the stay proceedings. The panel issued a lengthy 

opinion with detailed analysis, but repeatedly “stress[ed]” 

that the case was still “at a very preliminary stage of the 

proceedings,” and expected that “[f]urther development of 

the record as the case progresses may alter [their] 

conclusions.” EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 780. The panel also left 

open various mixed questions of law and fact for a later 

court—pointing out, for example, that if “facts develop in 

the district court that cast doubt on the Organizations’ 

standing, the district court is, of course, free to revisit this 

question,” id. at 763 n.6, and reiterating that its conclusions 

were reached “at [the current] stage of the proceedings,” see 

id. at 763, 767, 778, 779.

The question before us now is also doctrinally distinct 

from the question considered by the motions panel. A stay 

does have “some functional overlap with an injunction, 

particularly a preliminary one”; both “can have the practical 

effect of preventing some action before the legality of that 

action has been conclusively determined.” Nken, 556 U.S. 

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at 428. But, as we have noted, “there are important 

differences between a preliminary injunction and a stay 

pending review.” Leiva-Perez, 640 F.3d at 966 (citing Nken, 

556 U.S. at 425–30). A stay “operates upon the judicial 

proceeding itself,” while a preliminary injunction “direct[s] 

an actor’s conduct.” Nken, 556 U.S. at 428, 429. In the 

government’s appeal, we are charged with determining 

whether the district court abused its discretion in granting the 

preliminary injunction, see All. for the Wild Rockies v. 

Cottrell, 632 F.3d 1127, 1131 (9th Cir. 2011); the motions 

panel, instead, considered whether the government raised 

serious questions relating to the propriety of the district 

court’s preliminary injunction and whether the government 

would likely prevail on appeal, see Leiva-Perez, 640 F.3d 

at 965–66. The question presented to the motions panel is 

an additional step removed from the underlying merits of the 

district court’s preliminary injunction. We exercise restraint 

in assessing the merits of either question, see Sierra Club, 

929 F.3d at 688, but particularly so when considering the 

“extraordinary request” to stay a preliminary injunction 

granted by a district court. Barr v. E. Bay Sanctuary 

Covenant, No. 19A230, 2019 WL 4292781, at *1 (Sept. 11, 

2019) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting from grant of a stay).

Given the preliminary stage of the appellate process at 

which the motions panel issued the order denying the 

government’s stay motion and the panel’s stated 

reservations, we treat the motions panel’s decision as 

persuasive, but not binding.

III.

We next re-evaluate the government’s challenge to our 

jurisdiction. The government argues, as it did previously 

before the district court and before the motions panel, that 

the Organizations lack Article III standing because they have 

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not suffered a cognizable injury and are outside the zone of 

interests protected by the INA. The government also renews 

three arguments before this court: (1) the Organizations lack 

a “legally protected interest in maintaining their current 

organizational structure or in the [R]ule’s application to third 

parties,” Op. Br. of Gov’t at 29,4 (2) the “immigration 

context” of the Rule counsels against judicial intrusion, and 

(3) various portions of the INA divest this court of 

jurisdiction to entertain this appeal. We address each 

argument in turn.

A.

The Article III standing inquiry serves a single purpose: 

to maintain the limited role of courts by ensuring they protect 

against only concrete, non-speculative injuries. See Lujan v. 

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 583 (1992). Parties 

must have a “personal stake in the outcome” sufficient to 

ensure the court that, absent judicial review, they will suffer 

or have suffered some direct injury. See id.

Organizations can assert standing on behalf of their own 

members, see Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. 

Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 181 (2000), or in their own 

right, Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 378–

79 (1982). To determine whether organizational standing 

requirements have been satisfied, we “conduct the same 

inquiry as in the case of an individual: Has the plaintiff 

‘alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the 

controversy as to warrant his invocation of federal-court 

jurisdiction?’” Havens, 455 U.S. at 378–79. The 

Organizations therefore have the burden of demonstrating 

4 We refer to the government’s opening brief as “Op. Br. of Gov’t,” 

and to the government’s reply brief as “Reply Br. of Gov’t.”

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that (1) they have suffered an injury-in-fact, meaning an 

injury that is “concrete and particularized” and “actual and 

imminent,” (2) the alleged injury is “fairly traceable” to the 

defendants’ conduct, and (3) it is “more than speculative” 

that the injury is judicially redressable. Lujan, 504 U.S. 

at 560–61.

In Havens, the Supreme Court held that a fair housing 

organization had standing under the Fair Housing Act where 

the defendants’ allegedly racial steering practices had 

frustrated the organization’s ability to assist equal access to 

housing, and it had to devote “significant resources” to 

identify and counteract those practices. 455 U.S. at 379. 

Because the defendants’ practices had “perceptibly 

impaired” the organization’s ability to provide its services, 

the Court explained, “there can be no question that the 

organization has suffered injury in fact.” Id.

We have read Havens to hold that an organization has 

direct standing to sue where it establishes that the 

defendant’s behavior has frustrated its mission and caused it 

to divert resources in response to that frustration of purpose. 

See Fair Hous. of Marin v. Combs, 285 F.3d 899, 905 (9th 

Cir. 2002). Of course, organizations cannot “manufacture 

the injury by incurring litigation costs or simply choosing to 

spend money fixing a problem that otherwise would not 

affect the organization at all,” but they can show they “would 

have suffered some other injury” had they “not diverted 

resources to counteracting the problem.” La Asociacion de 

Trabajadores de Lake Forest v. Lake Forest, 624 F.3d 1083, 

1088 (9th Cir. 2010); see also, e.g., El Rescate Legal Servs., 

Inc. v. Exec. Office of Immigration Review, 959 F.2d 742, 

745, 748 (9th Cir. 1991).

We agree with the motions panel and the district court 

that the Organizations have established that the Rule has 

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“perceptibly impaired” their ability to perform the services 

they were formed to provide. EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 765. This 

is sufficient for organizational standing. See Combs,

285 F.3d at 904–05.

The Organizations share the same mission of assisting 

migrants seeking asylum. “[B]ecause the Rule significantly 

discourages a large number of [asylum-seekers] from 

seeking asylum given their ineligibility,” the Rule frustrates 

their mission. EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 766. The Rule has also 

caused the Organizations to divert their already limited 

resources in response to the collateral obstacles it introduces 

for asylum-seekers. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant 

(“EBSC”) and Innovation Law Lab (“ILL”), for example, 

are located near Berkeley, California, and in Oregon, 

respectively, and because most asylum-seekers who enter at 

a designated port of entry will “remain detained in detention 

facilities near the border hundreds of miles away,” EBSC III, 

354 F. Supp. 3d at 1109 (internal quotation marks omitted), 

those organizations “cannot represent asylum seekers.” 

Decl. of Michael Smith at ¶ 6. Unaccompanied minors are 

now often unable to seek asylum alone, and “[s]ince the new 

rule was announced, Al Otro Lado [(“AOL”)] has been 

overwhelmed with children who traveled to the southern 

border of the United States to apply for asylum but now 

cannot do so.” Supp. Decl. of Erika Pinheiro at ¶¶ 4, 15. 

Caring for the often nonlegal needs of these unaccompanied 

children is not part of AOL’s core mission and is “causing a 

near complete diversion of [AOL’s] resources.” Id. ¶ 16. It 

has “expended significant resources to send staff to the 

border as it attempts to shift its programs.” EBSC III, 354 F. 

Supp. 3d at 1109.

The funding on which the Organizations critically 

depend is also jeopardized by the Rule. EBSC only “rarely” 

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represents people in removal proceedings. Decl. of Michael 

Smith at ¶ 8. Because 80 percent of its clients have entered 

without stopping at a port of entry in the past, EBSC stands 

to “lose a significant amount of business and suffer a 

concomitant loss of funding” if these individuals are deemed 

categorically ineligible for asylum. EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 

3d at 1109 (citing EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 767). AOL and 

CARECEN explain that the Rule decreases the funding they 

stand to receive from the California Department of Social 

Services. AOL often represents detained immigrants in their 

bond proceedings, and “[s]ince the [R]ule went into effect,” 

AOL has “not received a single referral for a bond case, as 

persons who enter without inspection are ostensibly being 

put into ‘Withholding-only’ proceedings and no longer 

initially eligible for bond.” Supp. Decl. of Erika Pinheiro 

at ¶ 22. CARECEN receives from the Department a flat 

amount of funding per client it assists, and because more of 

its clients are being put into more time- and resourceintensive withholding proceedings, it will assist less clients 

and receive less funding. Decl. of Daniel Sharp at ¶ 7.

Each organization would have lost clients seeking refuge 

in the United States had it not diverted resources toward 

counteracting the effect of the Rule. La Asociacion de 

Trabajadores de Lake Forest, 624 F.3d at 1088. The 

Organizations are not required to demonstrate some 

threshold magnitude of their injuries;5 one less client that 

5 The government notes that “East Bay Sanctuary Covenant has only 

‘around 35 clients who have entered without inspection and [who] expect 

to file for affirmative asylum in the upcoming months,’” while, “[b]y 

comparison, the ‘current backlog of asylum cases exceeds 200,000’ and 

more than 200,000 inadmissible aliens present themselves for inspection 

at ports of entry annually (even without the additional incentive to do so 

that the Rule will create).” Op. Br. of Gov’t at 27 n.4.

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they may have had but-for the Rule’s issuance is enough. In 

other words, plaintiffs who suffer concrete, redressable 

harms that amount to pennies are still entitled to relief.

The government advances three additional justiciability 

arguments. First, the government argues that the 

Organizations have “no legally protected interest in 

maintaining their current organizational structure or in the

Rule’s application to third parties, which the motions panel 

did not consider in its analysis.” Op. Br. of Gov’t at 28. This 

position misunderstands the injury-in-fact inquiry and 

conflates organizational standing with third-party standing, 

which the Organizations have conceded is not at issue.6 An 

injury-in-fact is “an invasion of a legally protected interest,” 

see Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, but this means an interest that is 

only concrete and particularized and actual or imminent—

The comparative magnitude of the harms alleged by the parties, 

however, is not relevant for standing purposes; “a loss of even a small 

amount of money is ordinarily an ‘injury.’” Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding 

Corp., 137 S. Ct. 973, 983 (2017); see also Wallace v. ConAgra Foods, 

Inc., 747 F.3d 1025, 1029 (8th Cir. 2014) (“The consumers’ alleged 

economic harm—even if only a few pennies each—is a concrete, nonspeculative injury.”); Carpenters Indus. Council v. Zinke, 854 F.3d 1, 5 

(D.C. Cir. 2017) (“A dollar of economic harm is still an injury-in-fact for 

standing purposes.”).

6 Many of the cases cited by the government in support of this 

proposition do not concern organizational standing under Article III. In 

O’Bannon v. Town Court Nursing Center, 447 U.S. 773 (1980), the

Court addressed whether nursing home residents have a right to an

administrative hearing before a state or federal agency hearing before the 

agency revokes the home’s authority to provide them with nursing care 

at government expense. Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614 (1973), 

DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332 (2006), Arpaio v. Obama, 

797 F.3d 11 (D.C. Cir. 2015), and Sure-Tan, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., 467 U.S. 

883 (1984) all describe limitations on third-party, not organizational, 

standing.

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not an interest protected by statute. This distinction prevents 

Article III standing requirements from collapsing into the 

merits of a plaintiff’s claim; “a petitioner’s ‘legally protected 

interest’ need not be a statutorily created interest,” Ass’n of 

Pub. Agency Customers v. Bonneville Power Admin., 

733 F.3d 939, 950 (9th Cir. 2013), and a plaintiff can have 

standing despite losing on the merits. See also In re Special 

Grand Jury 89-2, 450 F.3d 1159, 1172 (10th Cir. 2006) 

(citing Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 500 (1975) 

(“[S]tanding in no way depends on the merits of the 

plaintiff’s contention that particular conduct is illegal 

. . . .”)).

More recent Supreme Court opinions have described 

injury-in-fact as “a judicially cognizable interest”—

implying that “an interest can support standing even if it is 

not protected by law . . . so long as it is the sort of interest 

that courts think to be of sufficient moment to justify judicial 

intervention.” In re Special Grand Jury 89-2, 450 F.3d 

at 1172 (citing Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 167 (1997)); 

see also, e.g., Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U.S. 693, 707 

(2013). Whether the Organizations have a sufficient 

statutory or otherwise legal basis for their claims is irrelevant 

at this threshold stage.

The government next argues that we should avoid 

interfering with DOJ’s and DHS’s decision to adopt the Rule 

because “[t]he Supreme Court has ‘long recognized the 

power to expel or exclude aliens as a fundamental sovereign 

attribute exercised by the Government’s political 

departments largely immune from judicial control.’” See

Op. Br. of Gov’t at 30 (quoting Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 

792 (1977)).

We do not conduct independent policy analyses of 

executive decisions. But we do “police the separation of 

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powers in litigation involving the executive[.]” In re 

Cheney, 334 F.3d 1096, 1106 (D.C. Cir. 2003), vacated and 

remanded on other grounds, 542 U.S. 367 (2004). For this 

reason, there is a strong presumption favoring judicial 

review of administrative action, see Bowen v. Mich. Acad. of 

Family Phys., 476 U.S. 667, 670 (1986); non-reviewability 

is an exception that must be clearly evidenced in the statute, 

see Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159, 166–67 (1970). 

Without such review, “statutes would in effect be blank 

checks drawn to the credit of some administrative officer or 

board.” Bowen, 476 U.S. at 671 (citing S. Rep. No. 752, 

79th Cong., 1st Sess., 26 (1945)). Efficient agency 

administration always requires some authority and 

responsibility to resolve questions left unanswered by 

Congress. It does not include the “power to revise clear 

statutory terms.”7

 Utility Air Reg. Grp. v. E.P.A., 573 U.S. 

302, 327 (2014).

We are therefore responsible for reviewing whether the 

government has overstepped its delegated authority under 

the INA and encroached upon Congress’s legislative 

prerogative. See 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).

Finally, the government argues that three provisions of 

the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration 

Responsibility Act (“IIRIRA”), 8 U.S.C. §§ 1252(e)(3),

7 The irony of the government’s position is that 

section 1158(b)(2)(C)—the INA rule-making delegation upon which it 

relies—is based on a congressional mandate that was intended, at least 

in part, to curtail “unfettered executive discretion” and assure Congress’s

“proper and substantial role in refugee admissions, given [its] plenary 

power over immigration.” 125 Cong. Rec. 35,814–15 (1979) (statement 

of Rep. Holtzman) (emphasis added). “[I]f there is a separation-ofpowers concern here, it is between the President and Congress.” 

EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 774.

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1252(a)(5), and 1252(b)(9), divest this court of jurisdiction 

to entertain this appeal. These statutes, in the government’s 

view, require the Organizations to bring their claims in 

individual-removal proceedings or in the District Court for 

the District of Columbia.

Section 1252(e)(3) authorizes a limited court review of 

expedited-removal proceedings. The statute requires that 

judicial review of such administrative decisions be initiated 

in the District Court for the District of Columbia, and limits 

review to “determinations of (i) whether such section, or any 

regulation issued to implement such section, is 

constitutional; or (ii) whether such a regulation . . . is not 

consistent with applicable provisions of this subchapter or is 

otherwise in violation of law.”8

 Section 1252(e)(3), in short, 

limits jurisdiction over challenges to regulations 

implementing expedited-removal orders. See BarajasAlvarado, 655 F.3d at 1086 n.10.

Section 1252(a)(5) operates in conjunction with section 

1252(e). It limits review of expedited-removal orders to 

habeas review under 1252(e) and further restricts any 

appellate habeas review to considering only whether the 

migrant is lawfully in the country. See id. at 1082; 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1252(e)(2). Section 1252(b)(9) also applies only to 

removal orders, but instead channels “[j]udicial review of all 

questions of law and fact . . . arising from any action taken 

or proceeding brought to remove an alien from the United 

8 Migrants can be placed in expedited removal proceedings when 

they arrive at ports of entry without documents, misrepresent their 

identities, or present fraudulent documents. See United States v. 

Barajas-Alvarado, 655 F.3d 1077, 1081 (9th Cir. 2011). Undocumented 

migrants who receive removal orders but indicate an intention to apply 

for asylum or a fear of persecution may still be considered for asylum. 

See id. (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(A)(i)).

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States[,]” to the courts of appeals. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(9); 

see also I.N.S. v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 313 (2001).

In the APA context, these provisions prohibit “a claim 

by an alien, however it is framed, [that] challenges the 

procedure and substance of an agency determination that is 

‘inextricably linked’ to the order of removal[.]” Martinez v. 

Napolitano, 704 F.3d 620, 623 (9th Cir. 2012). “[C]laims 

that are independent of or collateral to the removal process” 

are not actions taken to “remove an alien from the United 

States.” J.E.F.M. v. Lynch, 837 F.3d 1026, 1032 (9th Cir. 

2016); 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(9). The purpose of these claimchanneling provisions is to “limit all aliens to one bite of the 

apple with regard to challenging an order of removal.” 

Martinez, 704 F.3d at 622.

None of these provisions have any bearing on the Rule. 

Sections 1252(a)(5), (b)(9), and (e)(3) govern judicial 

review of removal orders or challenges inextricably linked 

with actions taken to remove migrants from the country. The 

Rule “governs eligibility for asylum and screening 

procedures for aliens subject to a presidential proclamation 

or order restricting entry[.]” 83 Fed. Reg. at 55,934 

(emphasis added). Bars to asylum eligibility may eventually 

be relevant to removal proceedings, but they are not

“regulation[s] . . . to implement [removal orders]” or 

otherwise entirely linked with removal orders.9 8 U.S.C. 

9 In another, strikingly similar context, the government appears to 

agree with this interpretation of section 1252(e)(3). Before the District 

Court for the District of Columbia, the government argued that section 

1252(e)(3) divested the court of jurisdiction to hear an APA challenge to 

an immigration decision issued by the Attorney General. See Grace v. 

Whitaker, 344 F. Supp. 3d 96, 105 (D.D.C. 2018). The Attorney 

General’s decision, and a policy memorandum that adopted the standards 

in the decision, invoked the expedited-removal statute and required that 

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§ 1252(e)(3); see also Martinez, 704 F.3d at 623; O.A. v. 

Trump, 404 F. Supp. 3d 109, 141 (D.D.C. 2019) 

(“§ 1252(e)(3) is about challenges to expedited removal 

orders and the implementation of the expedited removal 

provisions that Congress enacted in IIRIRA.”). This is 

consistent with the purposes of these jurisdictional 

limitations: allowing collateral APA challenges to an 

asylum-eligibility rule does not undermine Congress’s 

desire to “limit all aliens to one bite of the apple with regard 

to challenging” their removal orders. See Martinez, 704 F.3d 

at 622.

At best, the law governing asylum is collateral to the 

process of removal. Migrants in the country who file 

affirmatively for asylum, or who are otherwise lawfully in 

the country—such as those who have a valid visa, maintain 

Temporary Protected Status, or are given parole, for 

example—can apply and be eligible for asylum and never 

encounter any of the statutory provisions governing 

removal. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.4(a)(5)(iv). Other subsections 

of the INA explicitly grant this court jurisdiction to review 

denials of individual asylum applications, further reinforcing 

that the jurisdiction-stripping provisions cited by the 

government were not intended to apply at all to challenges 

to asylum eligibility rules. See 8 U.S.C. 

§§ 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), (a)(2)(D); see also Morales v. 

Gonzales, 478 F.3d 972, 978–79 (9th Cir. 2007).

“claims based on membership in a putative particular social group 

defined by the members’ vulnerability to harm . . . will not establish the 

basis for asylum, refugee status, or a credible or reasonable fear of 

persecution.” Id. at 110. The government there argued that the policy 

memorandum and the Attorney General’s decision did not “implement” 

section 1225(b) because it “was a decision about petitions for asylum

under section 1158.” Id. at 115–16 (emphasis added).

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We again hold that the Organizations’ claims are 

justiciable and they have otherwise satisfied the Article III 

standing requirements.

B.

We generally also require that plaintiffs fall within the 

“zone of interests” protected by the statute in question to 

bring their claims in federal court. Lexmark Int’l, Inc., v. 

Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 129 (2014). 

The breadth of the zone-of-interests test varies, depending 

on the provisions of law at issue. Id. Under the APA, the 

test is not “especially demanding.” Id. at 130 (quotations 

and citations omitted). The zone-of-interests analysis 

forecloses suit “only when a plaintiff’s interests are so 

marginally related to or inconsistent with the purposes 

implicit in the statute that it cannot reasonably be assumed 

that Congress authorized that plaintiff to sue.” Id. 

(quotations and citations omitted).

The Organizations bring their claims under the APA, but 

because the APA provides a cause of action only to those 

“suffering legal wrong because of agency action . . . within 

the meaning of a relevant statute,” 5 U.S.C. § 702, the 

relevant zone of interest is that of the INA. EBSC II, 

932 F.3d at 767–68. And the relevant purpose is not that of 

the entire INA; it is “by reference to the particular provision 

of law upon on which the plaintiff relies.” Bennett, 520 U.S. 

at 175–76.

In our review, we are “not limited to considering the 

[specific] statute under which [plaintiffs] sued, but may 

consider any provision that helps us to understand Congress’ 

overall purposes” in enacting the statute. Clarke v. Sec. 

Indus. Ass’n, 479 U.S. 388, 401 (1987); see also EBSC II, 

932 F.3d at 768. This inquiry is intended only to help clarify 

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the act’s scope—not determine whether Congress intended a 

cause of action to arise for the plaintiff in question. See 

Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians 

v. Patchak, 567 U.S. 209, 225 (2012) (“We do not require 

any indication of congressional purpose to benefit the 

would-be plaintiff.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Organizations’ claims continue to fall within the 

zone of interests of the INA and of the regulatory 

amendments implemented by the Rule. The Rule, much like 

the scope of section 1158(b) of the INA, shapes asylum 

eligibility requirements for migrants. The Organizations’ 

purpose is to help individuals apply for and obtain asylum, 

provide low-cost immigration services, and carry out 

community education programs with respect to those 

services. EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d at 1108–10. This is 

sufficient for the Court’s lenient APA test: at the very least, 

the Organizations’ interests are “marginally related to” and 

“arguably within” the scope of the statute. See Patchak, 

567 U.S. at 224, 225.

IV.

We turn to the merits of the preliminary injunction10

entered by the district court. A plaintiff seeking a 

preliminary injunction must establish that (1) he is likely to 

succeed on the merits, (2) he is likely to suffer irreparable 

harm in the absence of preliminary relief, (3) the balance of 

equities tips in his favor, and (4) an injunction is in the public 

interest. All. for the Wild Rockies, 632 F.3d at 1131 (citing 

10 The terms of the temporary restraining order entered by the district 

court in EBSC I technically differ from the terms of the preliminary 

injunction entered by the court in EBSC III, but the difference has no 

practical effect: both injunctions prevent enforcement of the Rule and are 

identical in scope. Therefore, we review them together.

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Winter v. National Res. Def. Council, 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008)). 

When the government is a party, the last two factors (equities 

and public interest) merge. Nken, 556 U.S. at 435. These 

factors are evaluated on a sliding scale. All. for the Wild 

Rockies, 632 F.3d. at 1131–34.

We review for abuse of discretion the district court’s 

grant of a preliminary injunction. Arc of Cal. v. Douglas, 

757 F.3d 975, 983 (9th Cir. 2014). District courts abuse their 

discretion when they rely on an erroneous legal standard or 

clearly erroneous finding of fact. Id. (internal quotations 

omitted).

A.

The likelihood of the Organizations’ success on the 

merits depends on the substantive and procedural validity of 

the Rule. See EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d at 1111–12. They 

must establish a likelihood that the Rule is either 

substantively or procedurally invalid. See EBSC II, 932 F.3d 

at 770. Because the record on appeal is now “fully 

developed,” and the substantive validity of the Rule “rest[s] 

primarily on interpretations of law, not the resolution of 

factual issues, we may consider the merits of the case and 

enter a final judgment to the extent appropriate.” Beno v. 

Shalala, 30 F.3d 1057, 1063 (9th Cir. 1994) (internal 

quotation marks omitted).

1.

The APA requires that we “hold unlawful and set aside 

agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be . . . an 

abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with 

law.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). Presidential action is not 

ordinarily “agency action,” and is typically unreviewable 

under the APA. Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 

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796 (1992). But the Proclamation and Rule together create 

an “operative rule of decision” for asylum eligibility that is 

reviewable by this court. EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 770; see also 

City of Carmel-by-the-Sea v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., 123 F.3d 

1142, 1166 (9th Cir. 1997) (holding that executive orders 

with “specific statutory foundation[s]” that do not expressly 

preclude judicial review are treated as agency action and 

reviewed under the APA); Public Citizen v. U.S. Trade Rep., 

5 F.3d 549, 552 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (“Franklin is limited to 

those cases in which the President has final constitutional or 

statutory responsibility for the final step necessary for the 

agency action directly to affect the parties.”).

To determine whether the Rule is “not in accordance 

with law,” we apply the framework established in Chevron, 

U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842 

(1984). Under Chevron, we first consider “whether 

Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. 

If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the 

matter.” Campos-Hernandez v. Sessions, 889 F.3d 564, 568 

(9th Cir. 2018) (quoting Chevron, 467 U.S. at 842). Federal 

courts are “the final authority on issues of statutory 

construction and must reject administrative constructions 

which are contrary to clear congressional intent.” Chevron, 

467 U.S. at 843 n.9.

a.

We consider, then, whether the Rule conflicts with 

Congress’s intent. The only section of the INA implicated 

by the Rule is section 1158 (“Asylum”). That section begins 

by stating that an undocumented migrant may apply for 

asylum when she is “physically present in the United States” 

or “arrives in the United States (whether or not at a 

designated port of arrival . . . )[.]” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(1). 

DOJ and DHS adopted the Rule under section 

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1158(b)(2)(C)’s grant of authority to the Attorney General 

to “establish additional limitations and conditions, consistent 

with this section, under which an alien shall be ineligible for 

asylum[.]”11

We agree with the district court that the Rule is “not in 

accordance with law.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). Section 

1158(a) provides that migrants arriving anywhere along the 

United States’s borders may apply for asylum. The Rule 

requires migrants to enter the United States at ports of entry 

to preserve their eligibility for asylum. It is effectively a 

categorical ban on migrants who use a method of entry 

explicitly authorized by Congress in section 1158(a). As the 

district court stated, “[i]t would be hard to imagine a more 

direct conflict” than the one presented here. EBSC III, 

354 F. Supp. 3d at 1112.

The government argues that the structure of section 1158 

mandates a different result. Critical to the government’s 

argument is that section 1158 splits asylum applications 

(§ 1158(a)) and eligibility (§ 1158(b)) into two different 

subsections; therefore, the government explains, Congress 

intended to allow DOJ to promulgate limitations on asylum 

eligibility without regard to the procedures and 

authorizations governing asylum applications. The text in 

section 1158(a) requires only that migrants arriving between 

11 A separate subsection of section 1158, 1158(d)(5)(B), grants the 

Attorney General authority to impose “conditions or limitations on the 

consideration of an application for asylum not inconsistent with this 

chapter.” As the motions panel observed, had the Rule explicitly 

conditioned applications for asylum (instead of eligibility for asylum) on 

arriving at a designated point of entry, the Rule would be “quite 

obviously, ‘not in accordance with law,’” EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 770

(quoting 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A)), because 1158(a) directs migrants to 

“apply for asylum” in accordance with section 1158.

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ports of entry be permitted to “apply for asylum,” and the 

Rule does not prevent migrants from submitting futile 

asylum applications. (emphasis added).

This argument is unconvincing. We avoid absurd results 

when interpreting statutes. Rowland v. Cal. Men’s Colony, 

Unit II Men’s Adv. Council, 506 U.S. 194, 200–01 (1993). 

Explicitly authorizing a refugee to file an asylum application 

because he arrived between ports of entry and then 

summarily denying the application for the same reason 

borders on absurdity. The consequences of denial at the 

application or eligibility stage are, to a refugee, the same. 

See EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 771. Had Congress intended to 

allow DOJ and DHS to override this provision, it could have 

said so in its delegation of authority to the Attorney General 

or in the statutory provisions governing asylum applications. 

And Congress signaled its desire that any eligibility 

limitations be consistent with application requirements; 

limitations promulgated under the eligibility subsection of 

the statute must be “consistent with this section”—meaning 

the entirety of section 1158—not just consistent with this 

subsection.

The other categorical bars to asylum in section 1158(b) 

of the INA do not meaningfully inform our reading of the 

statute and the Rule. See EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 771 n.12. The 

INA contains various provisions making ineligible asylum 

applicants who committed a serious, nonpolitical crime 

outside the United States prior to arrival (8 U.S.C. 

§ 1158(b)(2)(A)(iii)), assisted or otherwise participated in 

the persecution of another person (8 U.S.C. 

§ 1158(b)(2)(A(i)), or were firmly resettled in another 

country prior to arriving in the United States (8 U.S.C. 

§ 1158(b)(2)(A)(vi)), among other things. The government 

again suggests that the existence of these eligibility bars in 

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the INA demonstrates that Congress intended certain 

categories of migrants to be permitted to apply for asylum 

even though they are categorically ineligible. A migrant 

who was firmly resettled in another country, for example, is 

still free to complete an asylum application, even though she 

will be barred from seeking asylum under section 

1158(b)(2)(A)(vi).

But—unlike the eligibility bar effected by the Rule—the 

statutory asylum bars in the INA do not separately conflict 

with explicit text in section 1158(a). There is no provision 

in section 1158(a), for example, that affirmatively requires 

that migrants who were firmly resettled in another country 

be permitted to apply for asylum. The Rule creates the only 

bar to eligibility under section 1158(b) that directly conflicts 

with language in section 1158(a). The statutory eligibility 

bars noted above do not suggest Congress intended that 

migrants who are subject to them be permitted to apply for 

asylum. See also EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 772 (“‘[t]o say that 

one may apply for something that one has no right to receive

is to render the right to apply a dead letter.’”) (quoting EBSC 

I, 349 F. Supp. 3d at 857). The district court correctly 

concluded that the Rule is substantively invalid because it 

conflicts with the plain congressional intent instilled in 

8 U.S.C. § 1158(a), and is therefore “not in accordance with 

law,” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).

b.

But even if the text of section 1158(a) were ambiguous, 

the Rule fails at the second step of Chevron because it is an 

arbitrary and capricious interpretation of that statutory 

provision. If the statute is “silent or ambiguous with respect 

to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the 

agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction of 

the statute.” Campos-Hernandez, 889 F.3d at 568 (quoting 

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Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843). Under this standard, we must 

give effect to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of a 

statute, unless the interpretation is inconsistent with clearly 

expressed congressional intent. See United States v. Fulton,

475 U.S. 657, 666–67 (1986).

The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) and this 

court have long recognized that a refugee’s method of 

entering the country is a discretionary factor in determining 

whether the migrant should be granted humanitarian relief. 

EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 772. More than thirty years ago, the 

BIA stated that “an alien’s manner of entry or attempted 

entry is a proper and relevant discretionary factor” to 

adjudicating asylum applications under section 1158(a), but 

“it should not be considered in such a way that the practical 

effect is to deny relief in virtually all cases.”12 Matter of 

Pula, 19 I. & N. Dec. 467, 473 (B.I.A. 1987), superseded in 

part by statute on other grounds as stated in Andriasian v. 

I.N.S., 180 F.3d 1033, 1043–44 (9th Cir. 1999); see also 

EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 772. The court explained that it would 

instead evaluate “the totality of the circumstances and 

actions of an alien in his flight from the country where he 

fears persecution,” rather than deny asylum outright because 

of a single procedural flaw in the migrant’s application. 

Matter of Pula, 19 I. & N. Dec. at 473–74.

Especially where a migrant may be eligible only for 

asylum and cannot establish the more stringent criteria for 

12 The BIA in Pula interpreted section 1158(a) before it was 

amended to include the particular phrase at issue (“whether or not at a 

designated port of arrival”). At the time, the relevant sentence stated 

“The Attorney General shall establish a procedure for an alien physically 

present in the United States or at a land border or port of entry, 

irrespective of such alien’s status, to apply for asylum[.]” 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1158(a) (1980).

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withholding-of-removal, the discretionary factors—

including method of entry—should be “carefully evaluated 

in light of the unusually harsh consequences which may 

befall an alien[.]” Id. at 474. Indeed, “the danger of 

persecution should generally outweigh all but the most 

egregious of adverse factors.” Id.

We have supported the BIA’s understanding of section 

1158(a). The most vulnerable refugees are perhaps those 

fleeing across the border through the point physically closest 

to them. That a refugee crosses a land border instead of a 

port-of-entry says little about the ultimate merits of her 

asylum application; “if illegal manner of flight and entry 

were enough independently to support a denial of asylum, 

. . . virtually no persecuted refugee would obtain asylum.” 

EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 773 (quoting Huang v. I.N.S., 436 F.3d 

89, 100 (2d Cir. 2006)). Given the Rule’s effect of 

conditioning asylum eligibility on a factor that has long been 

understood as “worth little if any weight,” see Mamouzian v. 

Ashcroft, 390 F.3d 1129, 1138 (9th Cir. 2004), in 

adjudicating whether a migrant should be granted asylum, it 

is an arbitrary and capricious interpretation of section 

1158(a).

The Attorney General’s interpretation of section 1158(a) 

is also unreasonable, as the motions panel and district court 

discussed, in light of the United States’s treaty obligations. 

See EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 772–73; EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d 

at 1112–13. The United States agreed to comply with 

Articles 2 through 34 of the 1951 United Nations 

Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (“1951 

Convention”) and the 1967 United Nations Protocol 

Relating to the Status of Refugees (“1967 Protocol”) in 

1968. H.R. Rep. 96-781 (Conf. Rep.), at 19–20 (1980), as 

reprinted in 1980 U.S.C.C.A.N. 160, 160–62; see also I.N.S. 

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v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 429, 436–37 (1987). To 

streamline the United States’s refugee procedures and 

implement the country’s new treaty commitments, Congress 

passed the Refugee Act of 1980, which amended the INA 

and created the country’s first codified rules governing 

asylum. S. Rep. No. 96-256, at 1 (1979), as reprinted in

1980 U.S.C.C.A.N. 141, 141–42, 144; H.R. Doc. No. 96-

608, at 17–18 (1979); see also Negusie v. Holder, 555 U.S. 

511, 535–36 (2009).

As the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees 

(“UNHCR”) explains,13 the Rule runs afoul of three of these 

codified rules: the right to seek asylum, the prohibition 

against penalties for irregular entry, and the principle of nonrefoulement embodied in Article 31(1) of the 1951 

Convention. Neither the 1967 Protocol nor the 1951 

Convention require countries to accept refugees, but they do 

ensure that refugees at each signatory’s borders have legal 

and political rights and protections. See Cong. Research 

Serv. S522-10, Review of U.S. Refugee Resettlement 

Programs and Policies 15–16 (1980).

The definition of “refugee” used in the 1951 Convention 

is “virtually identical” to the one adopted by Congress in the 

INA. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. at 437. Under both the 

13 The arguments presented by the United Nations in its amicus brief 

on how the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol should be construed are 

not binding on this court. See Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. at 439 n.22. 

But they do “provide[] significant guidance in construing the [1967]

Protocol, to which Congress sought to conform[,]” and are “useful in 

giving content to the obligations that the Protocol establishes.” Id; see 

also Miguel-Miguel v. Gonzales, 500 F.3d 941, 949 (9th Cir. 2007) (“We 

view the UNHCR Handbook as persuasive authority in interpreting the 

scope of refugee status under domestic asylum law.”) (internal quotation 

marks and citation omitted).

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INA and the 1951 Convention, refugees are all individuals 

who—because of a “well-founded fear of being persecuted 

for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a 

particular social group or political opinion”—are “unable,” 

or, because of such fear, “unwilling to return” to their home 

countries. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42); 1951 Convention, 

Art. 1(A)(2). Once individuals meet the statutory definition 

of a “refugee,” they may be granted asylum under the INA. 

See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A).

Both the INA and the 1951 Convention acknowledge 

that individuals may be stripped of their refugee status even 

when they meet the other eligibility criteria for asylum. The 

refugee provisions of the 1951 Convention “shall not apply” 

to “any person with respect to whom there are serious 

reasons for considering” that such a person has committed a 

crime against peace, a war crime, a crime against humanity, 

a non-political crime outside of the country of refuge, prior 

to their admission as a refugee, or has been “guilty of acts 

contrary to the purposes and principles of the United 

Nations.” 1951 Convention, Art. 1(F)(a)–(c). The statutory 

bars for eligibility in the INA are similarly severe. 

Individuals who are otherwise refugees may not apply for 

asylum if the Attorney General determines that they 

“ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated” in the 

persecution of another, based on a trait protected by the INA; 

“constitute[] a danger to the community of the United 

States”; committed a “serious nonpolitical crime” outside 

the country; are a “danger to the security” of the country; 

have engaged in terrorist activities; or were “firmly resettled 

in another country prior to arriving in the United States.” 

8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(2)(A)(i)–(vi).

The exceptions listed in the 1951 Convention “require 

individualized assessments and ‘must be [interpreted] 

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restrictive[ly].” Br. for UNHCR as Amicus Curiae at 14 n.6 

(quoting Office of the United Nations High Commissioner 

for Refugees, Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for 

Determining Refugee Status ¶ 149 (Geneva, 1979)). So too 

the categorical bars on eligibility in the INA are interpreted 

with lenience toward migrants to avoid infringing on the 

commitments set forth in the 1951 Convention and 1967 

Protocol. See, e.g., Ali v. Ashcroft, 394 F.3d 780, 790 (9th 

Cir. 2005) (A “narrow interpretation of the firm resettlement 

bar would limit asylum to refugees from nations contiguous 

to the United States or to those wealthy enough to afford to 

fly here in search of refuge. The international obligation our 

nation agreed to share when we enacted the Refugee 

Convention into law knows no such limits.”); CardozaFonseca, 480 U.S. at 449.

The asylum bars in the INA and in the 1951 Convention 

appear to serve either the safety of those already in the 

United States or, in the case of the firm-resettlement bar, the 

safety of refugees. The Rule ensures neither. Even a broad 

interpretation of these eligibility bars does not naturally 

encompass a refugee’s method of entry. Illegal entry is not 

ordinarily considered a “serious crime.” See PenaCabanillas v. United States, 394 F.2d 785, 788 (9th Cir. 

1968) (stating that the statute criminalizing entry into the 

United States “is not based on any common law crime, but 

is a regulatory statute enacted to assist in the control of 

unlawful immigration by aliens” and “is a typical mala 

prohibita offense”). Nor does a migrant’s method of entry 

per se create a danger to the United States, serve as a useful 

proxy for terrorist activity, or suggest the persecution of 

another.

And the Rule surely does not suggest that the migrant has 

received protection in a third country. Many migrants enter 

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between ports of entry out of necessity: they “cannot satisfy 

regular exit and entry requirements and have no choice but 

to cross into a safe country irregularly prior to making an

asylum claim.” Br. for UNHCR as Amicus Curiae at 15 

(citing Memorandum by the Secretary-General, Ad Hoc 

Comm. on Statelessness, Status of Refugees & Stateless 

Persons, at Annex Art. 24, cmt. ¶ 2, U.N. Doc. E/AC.32/2 

(Jan. 3, 1950); UNHCR Executive Committee Conclusion 

No. 58 (XL) ¶ (i) (Oct. 13, 1989)). This was well recognized 

when the Refugee Act of 1980 was drafted. See Pub. L. No. 

96-212, § 208(a), 94 Stat. 102, 105 (1980). Prior to the 

passage of the Act, migrants who arrived at a port of entry 

were “given an opportunity to have their [asylum] 

applications heard in a hearing before an immigration 

judge,” but refugees arriving “at a land border of the United 

States [we]re not given this right.” Refugee Act of 1979: 

Hearing on H.R. 2816 before the Subcomm. on Immigration, 

Refugees, and Int’l Law of the Comm. on the Judiciary, 96th 

Cong. 190 (1979) (testimony of David Carliner, American 

Civil Liberties Union). In its attempt to streamline the 

country’s refugee and asylum laws, Congress was urged to 

consider that “persons who seek any benefits under [the 

INA] should be entitled to a uniform procedure.” Id. 

Congress heeded this consideration during the drafting of the 

Refugee Act, eventually describing it as “establish[ing] a 

more uniform basis for the provision of assistance to 

refugees, and [] other purposes.” Refugee Act of 1980, Pub. 

L. No. 96-212, 94 Stat. 102 (1980). The Rule defies this 

desire for uniformity and denies refuge to those crossing a 

land border. The effects of the Rule contravene the United 

States’s commitments in the 1951 Convention.

Article 31(1) of the 1951 Convention also explains that 

signatories “shall not impose penalties” on account of 

refugees’ “illegal entry or presence,” 1951 Convention 

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Art 31(1). Notwithstanding the government’s 

interpretations otherwise, “deportation is an integral part—

indeed, sometimes the most important part—of the penalty 

that may be imposed” on migrants who are found guilty of 

specified crimes, or for other reasons are barred from 

seeking asylum.14 See Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 

364 (2010) (footnote omitted). The Rule imposes an 

additional penalty on refugees because of their “illegal 

entry” by risking the deportation of migrants who enter the 

country at a land border. 1951 Convention Art. 31(1).

And by categorically denying refugees an opportunity to 

seek asylum only because of their method of entry, the Rule 

is also in tension with the United States’s commitment to 

avoid refouling individuals to countries where their lives are 

threatened. Article 31(1) of the 1951 Convention prohibits 

signatories from “expel[ling] or return[ing] (‘refouler’) a 

refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of 

territories where his life or freedom would be threatened[.]” 

The INA’s withholding-of-removal, 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(1), 

and Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) protections, 

8 C.F.R. § 1208.16–18, are not as great as those conferred 

by the INA’s asylum provisions. The evidentiary standard 

that applicants must meet for either withholding-of-removal 

or CAT relief is higher than the evidentiary standard for 

asylum. See, e.g., Ling Huang v. Holder, 744 F.3d 1149, 

1152 (9th Cir. 2014). Applicants for withholding-ofremoval and CAT relief must establish a “clear probability” 

that they would be persecuted or tortured, respectively, if 

they were removed to their home countries. See Korablina 

v. I.N.S., 158 F.3d 1038, 1045–46 (9th Cir. 1998); Wakkary 

14 The UNHCR’s view is that “penalties” in Article 31(1) 

“encompasses civil or administrative penalties as well as criminal ones.” 

Br. for UNHCR as Amicus Curiae at 20.

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v. Holder, 558 F.3d 1049, 1053 (9th Cir. 2009). A “clear 

probability” of persecution or torture means that it is “more 

likely than not” that applicants will be persecuted upon their 

removal. I.N.S. v. Stevic, 467 U.S. 407, 424, 429–30 (1984).

Applicants for asylum instead must demonstrate only 

that they are “unable or unwilling” to return to their home 

countries “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of 

persecution[.]” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). “One can 

certainly have a well-founded fear of an event happening 

when there is less than a 50% chance of the occurrence 

taking place”; it would only be “too apparent,” for example, 

for a refugee to have a “well-founded fear of being 

persecuted” where “every tenth adult male person is either 

put to death or sent to some remote labor camp” in the 

applicant’s home country. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 

at 431 (citing 1 A. Grahl-Madsen, The Status of Refugees in 

International Law 180 (1966)). The Rule, then, risks the 

removal of individuals with meritorious asylum claims who 

cannot petition for withholding of removal or CAT relief. 

By doing so, it is inconsistent with our treaty commitment to 

non-refoulement.

The Rule is “arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary 

to the statute,” Chevron, 467 U.S. at 844, both because it is 

contrary to plain congressional intent, and because it is an 

arbitrary and capricious interpretation of section 1158(a). 

Even if we agreed that the text of section 1158(a) is 

ambiguous, the Rule flouts this court’s and the BIA’s 

discretionary, individualized treatment of refugees’ methods 

of entry, and infringes upon treaty commitments we have 

stood by for over fifty years.

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2.

Because we conclude that the Rule is substantively 

invalid, we only briefly address the procedural arguments 

raised by the parties. The APA requires public notice and 

comment and a thirty-day grace period before a proposed 

rule takes effect. 5 U.S.C. § 553(b)–(d). The notice-andcomment requirements are exempted when “there is 

involved a military or foreign affairs function of the United 

States[,]” id. § 553(a), or when “the agency for good cause 

finds . . . that notice and public procedure thereon are 

impracticable, unnecessary or contrary to the public 

interest.” Id. § 553(b)(B). The thirty-day lag in publication 

can be waived where “good cause [is] found.”15 Id. 

§ 553(d)(3).

The Rule was issued without notice and comment or the 

grace period. The government argues that the Rule was 

properly issued because it falls under either the good-cause 

or the foreign-affairs exceptions to these procedural 

requirements.

a.

Proper invocation of the good-cause exception is 

“sensitive to the totality of the factors at play.” United States 

v. Valverde, 628 F.3d 1159, 1164 (9th Cir. 2010). The 

15 “Different policies” underlie the good-cause exception for the 

thirty-day grace period and the good-cause exception for the notice-andcomment requirement, and “they can be invoked for different reasons.”

Riverbend Farms, Inc. v. Madigan, 958 F.2d 1479, 1485 (9th Cir. 1992). 

Notice-and-comment requirements are intended to ensure public 

participation in rulemaking, and the thirty-day waiting period is 

“intended to give affected parties time to adjust their behavior before the 

final rule takes effect.” Id.

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exception is a “high bar” because it is “essentially an 

emergency procedure.” Id. at 1164, 1165. The government 

must make a sufficient showing that “‘delay would do real 

harm’ to life, property, or public safety,” EBSC II, 932 F.3d 

at 777 (quoting Valverde, 628 F.3d at 1164–65), or that 

“some exigency” interferes with its ability to carry out its 

mission. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc. v. Evans, 316 F.3d 904, 

911 (9th Cir. 2003).

In support of its reliance on the exception, the 

government now cites a Washington Post article indicating 

that when the United States stopped its policy of separating 

migrant parents from their children, smugglers told asylumseekers that “the Americans do not jail parents who bring 

children—and to hurry up before they might start doing so 

again.” See Nick Miroff and Carolyn Van Houten, The 

Border is Tougher to Cross Than Ever. But There’s Still One 

Way into America, Wash. Post (Oct. 24, 2018). The district 

court concluded that the article “at least supports the 

inference” that the Rule might result in similar changes in 

immigration policy, and held that the government had 

“identified a ‘rational connection between the facts found 

and the choice made’ to promulgate the interim Rule on an 

emergency basis.” EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d at 1115 

(quoting Valverde, 628 F.3d at 1168).

A citation to this single article is not sufficient to 

demonstrate that the delay caused by notice-and-comment or 

the grace period might do harm to life, property, or public 

safety. See EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 777. The government’s 

reasoning continues to be largely speculative, see id. at 778; 

no evidence has been offered to suggest that any of its 

predictions are rationally likely to be true. The article does 

not directly relate to the Rule, the consequences of the Rule, 

or anything related to asylum eligibility.

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Even if it did, that “the very announcement of [the] 

proposed rule itself can be expected to precipitate activity by 

affected parties that would harm the public welfare,” Reply 

Br. of Gov’t at 21, is likely often, or even always true. The 

lag period before any regulation, statute, or proposed piece 

of legislation allows parties to change their behavior in 

response. If we were to agree with the government’s 

assertion that notice-and-comment procedures increase the 

potential harm the Rule is intended to regulate, these 

procedures would often cede to the good-cause exception. 

Because the government has failed to demonstrate the 

existence of an exigency justifying good cause, we hold that 

the Rule likely does not properly fall under the good cause 

exception.

b.

For the foreign affairs exception to apply, “the public 

rulemaking provisions should provoke definitely 

undesirable international consequences.” Yassini v. 

Crosland, 618 F.2d 1356, 1360 n.4 (9th Cir. 1980). 

Otherwise, the exception “would become distended if 

applied to INS actions generally, even though immigration 

matters typically implicate foreign affairs.” Id. Use of the 

exception is generally permissible where the international 

consequences of the rule-making requirements are obvious 

or thoroughly explained. We have rejected its use where the 

government has failed to substantiate its reliance on the 

exception or explain the detrimental effects of compliance 

with the APA’s requirements. See EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 776–

77.

The government cites to four documents in support of its 

renewed argument that the foreign-affairs exception is 

justified: a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) 

between DHS and the Mexican government, the Washington 

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Post article, credible-fear origin data published by the 

Executive Office of Immigration Review (“EOIR”), and a 

speech by President Trump. The four documents appear to 

demonstrate that the Rule and Proclamation are related to 

ongoing changes in the national immigration landscape, but 

still fail to establish that adhering to notice and comment and 

a thirty-day grace period will “provoke definitely 

undesirable international consequences.” Yassini, 618 F.3d 

at 1360 n.4.

We agree with the government that the cited MOU does 

broadly “show[] that [immigration] negotiations have 

happened in the past,” Op. Br. of Gov’t at 49, but this is 

insufficient to demonstrate that notice and comment will 

provoke undesirable international consequences. Indeed, 

the MOU’s substance seems to undermine the “broader 

diplomatic program involving sensitive and ongoing 

negotiations with Mexico.” Op. Br. of Gov’t at 47 (internal 

quotations omitted). Article 3 of the MOU states that 

“[l]ocal repatriation agreements should conform to mutually 

established criteria and principles for the repatriation of 

Mexican nationals being repatriated from the United States 

to Mexico.” The unilateral repatriation of Mexican nationals 

set forth by the Rule—without requesting public 

participation—undermines these terms.

The cited Washington Post page discusses an increase in 

the proportion of families that seek asylum and the EOIR 

data lists the country of origin of credible-fear cases and 

summarizes the number of people that attempt to enter the 

United States with an asylum application, the number of 

cases completed in 2018, and the outcome of credible fear 

cases. It is unclear how these data “reflect[] motivations for 

crossing the border illegally,” Op. Br. of Gov’t at 49, and 

even less clear how they demonstrate the consequences of 

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requesting public notice-and-comment on foreign policy. 

And the speech by President Trump, as the district court 

noted, discusses the domestic consequences of foreign 

immigration, not the foreign policy consequences of 

immigration into the United States. See EBSC III, 354 F. 

Supp. 3d at 1114. The speech—like the MOU, the article, 

and the EOIR data—does not suggest that the APA’s 

rulemaking provisions might trigger or even shape 

immediate consequences in foreign affairs.

The evidence relied on by the government here is largely 

the same as the evidence previously before the motions panel 

and the district court. While we remain “sensitive to the fact 

that the President has access to information not available to 

the public, and . . . [are] cautious about demanding 

confidential information,” the connection between 

negotiations with Mexico and the immediate 

implementation of the Rule is still “not apparent.” EBSC II,

932 F.3d at 776. Broadly citing to the Rule’s immigration 

context is insufficient to invoke the foreign-affairs 

exception. See Yassini, 618 F.2d at 1360 n.4. The 

government has not made a “sufficient showing” that “the 

public rulemaking provisions should provoke definitely 

undesirable international consequences.” Id.; see also 

Evans, 316 F.3d at 912.

In sum, we agree with the motions panel that the 

government has not established that DOJ and DHS properly 

invoked the foreign-affairs exception to the notice-andcomment requirement and thirty-day grace period.

B.

We next consider whether the Organizations have 

established that, in the absence of a preliminary injunction, 

they are likely to suffer irreparable harm. See Arizona 

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Dream Act Coalition v. Brewer, 757 F.3d 1053, 1068 (9th 

Cir. 2014). Irreparable harm is “harm for which there is no 

adequate legal remedy, such as an award for damages.” Id. 

For this reason, economic harm is not generally considered 

irreparable. But where parties cannot typically recover 

monetary damages flowing from their injury—as is often the 

case in APA cases—economic harm can be considered 

irreparable. See California v. Azar, 911 F.3d 558, 581 (9th 

Cir. 2018). Intangible injuries may also qualify as 

irreparable harm, because such injuries “generally lack an 

adequate legal remedy.” Brewer, 757 F.3d at 1068.

We agree with the district court that the Organizations 

have established that they will suffer a significant change in 

their programs and a concomitant loss of funding absent a 

preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the Rule. 

EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 767. Both constitute irreparable 

injuries: the first is an intangible injury, and the second is 

economic harm for which the Organizations have no vehicle 

for recovery.

The Rule has already prompted the Organizations to 

change their core missions. Since the Rule issued, ILL has 

placed programmatic expansions on hold and has “had to 

lessen its caseload[.]” Supp. Decl. of Stephen W. Manning 

at ¶ 14. CARECEN notes that it will “divert significant 

resources,” including “staff time and organizational 

resources” to respond to the Rule. Decl. of Daniel Sharp at 

¶¶ 11–13. EBSC has had to “divert resources away from its 

core programs to address the new policy.” Decl. of Michael 

Smith at ¶ 15. And, as discussed in Part III, supra, the 

Organizations each stand to lose funding because of their 

core changes in mission.

Importantly, the Organizations also filed suit the same 

day that the Rule and the first proclamation issued; while not 

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dispositive, this suggests urgency and impending irreparable 

harm. See Oakland Tribune, Inc. v. Chronicle Pub. Co., Inc., 

762 F.2d 1374, 1377 (9th Cir. 1985). We agree with the 

district court that the Organizations have demonstrated a 

sufficient likelihood of irreparable injury to warrant 

injunctive relief. EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d at 1116.

C.

The government next argues that the harms it will suffer 

because of the preliminary injunction—namely, the harm 

caused by the injunction “undermin[ing] the Executive 

Branch’s constitutional and statutory authority to secure the 

Nation’s borders,” and the “entry of illegal aliens”—

outweigh the benefit to the public and the Organizations 

conferred by the injunction. Op. Br. of Gov’t at 51–52. 

Relevant equitable factors include the value of complying 

with the APA, the public interest in preventing the deaths 

and wrongful removal of asylum-seekers, preserving 

congressional intent, and promoting the efficient 

administration of our immigration laws at the border.

First, “[t]he public interest is served by compliance with 

the APA.” Azar, 911 F.3d at 581. Indeed, it “does not matter 

that notice and comment could have changed the substantive 

result; the public interest is served from the proper process 

itself.” Id. at 581–82. The Organizations and various Amici 

informed the district court that they would have submitted 

comments explaining why the Rule disrupts their 

organizational missions and fails to meet its intended 

purpose, had they had the opportunity. The APA’s 

requirements reflect “a judgment by Congress that the public 

interest is served by a careful and open review of proposed 

administrative rules and regulations.” Alcaraz v. Block, 

746 F.2d 593, 610 (9th Cir. 1984) (citing Phil. Citizens in 

Action v. Schweiker, 669 F.2d 877, 881 (9th Cir. 1982)). The 

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government’s failure to comply with the APA—particularly 

given the strength of the Organizations’ procedural attack on 

the Rule—weighs in favor of granting injunctive relief.

Second, the public has an interest in “ensuring that we 

do not deliver aliens into the hands of their persecutors,” 

Leiva-Perez, 640 F.3d at 971, and “preventing aliens from 

being wrongfully removed, particularly to countries where 

they are likely to face substantial harm,” Nken, 556 U.S. at 

436. The Rule will likely result in some migrants being 

wrongfully denied refugee status in this country. For 

migrants affected by the Rule, withholding of removal and 

CAT protection are the only forms of relief available. As 

discussed, these forms of relief demand a higher burden of 

proof than an asylum claim. At the initial screening 

interview with an asylum officer, an applicant seeking 

asylum need only present a “credible fear” of persecution, 

while an applicant seeking withholding of removal of CAT 

protection must demonstrate the higher “reasonable fear” of 

persecution or torture.

The government’s opening brief notes that 17 percent of 

the 34,158 migrants whose cases were completed in 2018 

received asylum. See Op. Br. of Gov’t at 52. Assuming the 

number of migrants remains constant, if even just 25 percent 

of asylum-seekers with meritorious claims are denied 

asylum because of their method of entry, over 1,000 people 

will either be returned to home countries where they face 

“persecution based on ‘race, religion, nationality, 

membership in a political social group, or political 

opinion,’” EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d at 1117 n.15 (quoting 

8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42), 1158(b)(1)), or forced to proceed 

on limited-relief claims that demand more stringent 

showings. If the rate of migration and the rate of migrants 

claiming fear during the expedited removal process 

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continues to increase, see 84 Fed. Reg. at 21,229, the scale 

of this wrongful removal will only worsen.

Third, the public has an interest in ensuring that the 

“statutes enacted by [their] representatives are not imperiled 

by executive fiat.” EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 779 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). The INA, and the United States’s 

signatory status to the 1951 Convention, “reflect the balance 

Congress struck between the public interests in rendering 

aliens who enter illegally inadmissible and subject to 

criminal and civil penalties, and . . . preserving their ability 

to seek asylum.” EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d at 1117–18 

(citations omitted). The Rule and Proclamation disrupt that 

balance by overriding plain congressional intent.

Finally, the government and the public have an interest 

in the “efficient administration of the immigration laws at 

the border.” EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 779 (internal quotation 

marks omitted). This interest is “weighty.” Landon v. 

Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 34 (1982). “[C]ontrol over matters 

of immigration is a sovereign prerogative, largely within the 

control of the executive and the legislature.” Id. The 

government has a compelling interest in ensuring that 

injunctions—such as the one granted here—do not 

undermine separation of powers by blocking the Executive’s 

lawful ability to regulate immigration and rely on its 

rulemaking to aid diplomacy.

The role of the judiciary in reviewing such policies is 

narrow. It is merely to ensure that executive procedures do 

not violate principles of due process or “displace 

congressional choices of policy.” Id. at 35. This executive 

deference, then, is closely linked with our determination on 

the substantive validity of the Rule. Essentially, the weight 

we ascribe to this factor depends on the extent to which we 

agree that the Rule overrides plain congressional intent. 

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Because the Organizations have established that the Rule is 

invalid, we do not place much weight on this factor. As the 

motions panel noted: “[t]here surely are enforcement 

measures that the President and the Attorney General can 

take to ameliorate the [immigration] crisis, but continued 

inaction by Congress is not a sufficient basis under our 

Constitution for the Executive to rewrite our immigration 

laws.” EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 774.

In sum, we agree with the district court that there is a 

significant basis for concluding that the public interest 

weighs “sharply” in the Organizations’ favor. See EBSC III, 

354 F. Supp. 3d at 1111.

V.

Finally, we turn to the remedy entered by the district 

court: an injunction preventing enforcement of the Rule. 

The injunction enjoins the part of the Rule that removes 

asylum eligibility from migrants who fail to follow a 

presidential proclamation. EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d 

at 1121. It does not enjoin the credible-fear amendments, 

but “they have no independent effect,” so they are effectively 

enjoined as well. Id. at 1121 n.22. We conclude that the 

district court did not abuse its discretion in enjoining 

enforcement of the Rule.

Injunctive relief should be “no more burdensome to the 

defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the 

plaintiffs before the court.” Univ. of Cal. v. U.S. Dep’t of 

Homeland Sec., 908 F.3d 476, 511 (9th Cir. 2018) (internal 

quotations omitted). “Where relief can be structured on an 

individual basis, it must be narrowly tailored to remedy the 

specific harm shown,” but there is “no general requirement 

that an injunction affect only the parties in the suit.” Bresgal 

v. Brock, 843 F.2d 1163, 1169–1170 (9th Cir. 1987). The 

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equitable relief granted by the district court is acceptable 

where it is “necessary to give prevailing parties the relief to 

which they are entitled.” Id. at 1170–71. District courts 

have “considerable discretion” in crafting suitable equitable 

relief; correspondingly, appellate review is “narrow.” 

Lamb-Weston, Inc. v. McCain Foods, Ltd., 941 F.2d 970, 

974 (9th Cir. 1991).

As discussed, the harms caused to the Organizations as a 

result of the Rule include a (1) loss of funding and 

(2) disruption of organizational purpose. Adequate 

equitable relief must remedy both harms. Bresgal, 843 F.2d 

at 1170–71. Both harms are due, in part, to the Rule’s likely 

consequence of preventing asylum-seekers with meritorious 

claims from entering the country along our southern border 

and successfully obtaining asylum. The stymied flow of 

refugees will result in less funding for the Organizations, and 

a shift (sometimes wholesale) in their organizational 

missions.

The Organizations do not limit their potential clients to 

refugees that enter the United States only at the CaliforniaMexico or Arizona-Mexico border; they represent “asylum 

seekers” broadly. Unlike the plaintiffs in California v. 

Azar—individual states seeking affirmance of an injunction 

that applied past their borders—the Organizations here “do 

not operate in a fashion that permits neat geographic 

boundaries.” EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d at 1120–21; see also 

Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 702 (1979) (The “scope 

of injunctive relief is dictated by the extent of the violation 

established, not by the geographical extent of the plaintiff 

class.”). An injunction that, for example, limits the 

application of the Rule to California, would not address the 

harm that one of the Organizations suffers from losing 

clients entering through the Texas-Mexico border. One 

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fewer asylum client, regardless of where the client entered 

the United States, results in a frustration of purpose (by 

preventing the organization from continuing to aid asylum 

applicants who seek relief), and a loss of funding (by 

decreasing the money it receives for completed cases).

The government suggests that plaintiffs “identify actual 

aliens in the United States who would otherwise be subject 

to the Rule,” Op. Br. of Gov’t at 57, but this suggestion fails 

to redress the scope of the Organizations’ harms. Part of the 

harm the Organizations have alleged is the difficulty posed 

by the Rule in helping them reach migrants who will cross 

the border; their missions are not limited to helping 

individuals currently present in the United States. Even if 

their missions were so limited, asking the Organizations to 

seek and list every person in the country they might help in 

the coming months is infeasible and impracticable. The 

“Government has not proposed a workable alternative form 

of the [injunction] that accounts” for the harm at issue but 

“nevertheless appl[ies] only within the [] borders” of the 

Ninth Circuit. Washington v. Trump, 847 F.3d 1151, 1167 

(9th Cir. 2017); see also EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 779; EBSC III, 

354 F. Supp. 3d at 1121.

Two other factors support the district court’s decision to 

enjoin Defendants from taking any action to implement the 

Rule. First, “[w]hen a reviewing court determines that 

agency regulations are unlawful, the ordinary result is that 

the rules are vacated—not that their application to the 

individual petitioners is proscribed.” Univ. of Cal., 908 F.3d 

at 511 (internal quotation marks omitted). Singular 

equitable relief is “commonplace” in APA cases, and is often 

“necessary to provide the plaintiffs” with “complete 

redress.” Id. at 512. Our “typical response is to vacate the 

rule and remand to the agency”; we “ordinarily do not 

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attempt, even with the assistance of agency counsel, to 

fashion a valid regulation from the remnants of the old rule.” 

Harmon v. Thornburgh, 878 F.2d 484, 494 (D.C. Cir. 1989). 

Because of the broad equitable relief available in APA 

challenges, a successful APA claim by a single individual 

can affect an “entire” regulatory program. Lujan v. Nat’l 

Wildlife Fed’n, 497 U.S. 871, 890 n.2 (1990).

Second, as the district court noted, there is an important 

“need for uniformity in immigration policy.” Id. at 511; see 

also EBSC III, 354 F. Supp. 3d at 1120–21. We previously 

have recognized that the “Constitution requires a uniform

Rule of Naturalization; Congress has instructed that the 

immigration laws of the United States should be enforced 

vigorously and uniformly; and the Supreme Court has 

described immigration policy as a comprehensive and 

unified system.” Univ. of Cal., 908 F.3d at 511 (quoting 

United States v. Texas, 809 F.3d 134, 187–88 (5th Cir. 2014) 

(emphases in original)). The INA itself “was designed to 

implement a uniform federal policy, and the meaning of 

concepts important to its application are not to be determined 

according to the law of the forum, but rather require[] a 

uniform federal definition.” Kahn v. I.N.S., 36 F.3d 1412, 

1414 (9th Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Different interpretations of executive policy across circuit or 

state lines will needlessly complicate agency and individual 

action in response to the United States’s changing 

immigration requirements. For these reasons, in 

immigration cases, we “consistently recognize[] the 

authority of district courts to enjoin unlawful policies on a 

universal basis.” EBSC II, 932 F.3d at 779 (citing Univ. of 

Cal., 908 F.3d at 511).

The government again “raises no grounds on which to 

distinguish this case from our uncontroverted line of 

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precedent.” Id. Given the context of this case and the harm 

the district court sought to address, we find no error or abuse 

of discretion in the terms or scope of the preliminary 

injunction.

VI.

For the reasons discussed, the district court’s orders 

granting preliminary injunctions are AFFIRMED.

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge, concurring in the result:

I concur in the majority opinion because, and for the 

most part only because, I believe that we are bound by the 

published decision in East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. 

Trump (East Bay I), 932 F.3d 742 (9th Cir. 2018).

More specifically, we are bound by both the law of the 

circuit and the law of the case. Of course, the rules that 

animate the former doctrine are not the same as those that 

animate the latter. See Gonzalez v. Arizona, 677 F.3d 383, 

389 n.4 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc).

As we have said: “Circuit law . . . binds all courts within 

a particular circuit, including the court of appeals itself. 

Thus, the first panel to consider an issue sets the law not only 

for all the inferior courts in the circuit, but also future panels 

of the court of appeals.” Hart v. Massanari, 266 F.3d 1155, 

1171 (9th Cir. 2001). Moreover: “Once a panel resolves an 

issue in a precedential opinion, the matter is deemed 

resolved, unless overruled by the court itself sitting en banc, 

or by the Supreme Court.” Id. (footnote omitted). Published 

opinions are precedential. See id. at 1177; see also

Gonzalez, 667 F.3d at 389 n.4. That remains true, even if 

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some later panel is satisfied that “arguments have been 

characterized differently or more persuasively by a new 

litigant,”1 or even if a later panel is convinced that the earlier 

decision was “incorrectly decided” and “needs 

reexamination.”2 And those rules are not mere formalities 

to be nodded to and avoided. Rather, “[i]nsofar as there may 

be factual differences between the current case and the 

earlier one, the court must determine whether those 

differences are material to the application of the rule or allow 

the precedent to be distinguished on a principled basis.” 

Hart, 266 F.3d at 1172. In this case, there are no material

differences—in fact, the situation before this panel is in 

every material way the same as that before the motions 

panel. Furthermore, there is no doubt that motions panels 

can publish their opinions,3 even though they do not 

generally do so.4

 Once published, there is no difference 

between motions panel opinions and other opinions; all are 

entitled to be considered with the same principles of 

deference by ensuing panels. Thus, any hesitation about 

whether they should be precedential must necessarily come 

before the panel decides to publish, not after. As we held in 

Lair v. Bullock, 798 F.3d 736 (9th Cir. 2015):

Lair contended at oral argument that a 

motions panel’s decision cannot bind a merits 

panel, and as a result we are not bound by the 

motions panel’s analysis in this case. Not so. 

1 United States v. Ramos-Medina, 706 F.3d 932, 939 (9th Cir. 2013).

2 Naruto v. Slater, 888 F.3d 418, 425 n.7 (9th Cir. 2018).

3 See 9th Cir. Gen. Order 6.3(g)(3)(ii); see also id. at 6.4(b).

4 See Haggard v. Curry, 631 F.3d 931, 933 n.1 (9th Cir. 2010) (per 

curiam).

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We have held that motions panels can issue 

published decisions. . . . [W]e are bound by 

a prior three-judge panel’s published 

opinions, and a motions panel’s published 

opinion binds future panels the same as does 

a merits panel’s published opinion.

Id. at 747 (citations omitted).5 Therefore, the legal 

determinations in East Bay I are the law of the circuit.

We have explained the law of the case doctrine as “a 

jurisprudential doctrine under which an appellate court does 

not reconsider matters resolved on a prior appeal.” Jeffries 

v. Wood, 114 F.3d 1484, 1488–89 (9th Cir. 1997) (en banc), 

overruled on other grounds by Gonzalez, 677 F.3d at 389 

n.4. While we do have discretion to decline application of 

the doctrine, “[t]he prior decision should be followed unless: 

(1) the decision is clearly erroneous and its enforcement 

would work a manifest injustice, (2) intervening controlling 

authority makes reconsideration appropriate, or 

(3) substantially different evidence was adduced at a 

subsequent trial.” Id. at 1489 (internal quotation marks and 

5 The majority opines that in this respect Lair’s holding is dicta. Not 

so. The court’s first basis for rejecting Lair’s contention was the basis 

just quoted. Its second basis was then set forth. Id. It gave both of those 

alternatives weight and attention. See Woods v. Interstate Realty Co., 

337 U.S. 535, 537, 69 S. Ct. 1235, 1237, 93 L. Ed. 1524 (1949) (holding 

“where a decision rests on two or more grounds, none can be relegated 

to the category of obiter dictum.”); see also United States v. VidalMendoza, 705 F.3d 1012, 1016 n.5 (9th Cir. 2013); Guadalupe-Cruz v. 

INS, 240 F.3d 1209, 1211 & n.5 (9th Cir.), corrected, 250 F.3d 1271 (9th 

Cir. 2001).

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footnote omitted).6 We have also indicated that, in general, 

“our decisions at the preliminary injunction phase do not 

constitute the law of the case,”7 but that is principally 

because the matter is at the preliminary injunction stage and 

a further development of the factual record as the case 

progresses to its conclusion may well require a change in the 

result.8 Even so, decisions “on pure issues of law . . . are 

binding.” Ranchers Cattlemen, 499 F.3d at 1114. Of course, 

the case at hand has not progressed beyond the preliminary 

injunction stage. It is still at that stage, and the factual record 

has not significantly changed between the record at the time 

of the decision regarding the stay motion and the current 

record. Therefore, as I see it, absent one of the listed 

exceptions, which I do not perceive to be involved here, the 

law of the case doctrine would also direct that we are bound 

by much of the motions panel’s decision in East Bay I.

Applying those doctrines:

6 The majority seems to add a fourth exception, that is, motions 

panel decisions never constitute the law of the case. That would be 

strange if those decisions can constitute the law of the circuit, which they 

can. Moreover, the case primarily cited for that proposition did not 

indicate it was dealing with a published motions panel decision or one 

that set forth its reasoning. See United States v. Lopez-Armenta, 

400 F.3d 1173, 1175 (9th Cir. 2005). It also dealt with the unique area 

of jurisdiction. See id.

7 Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of 

Am. v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 499 F.3d 1108, 1114 (9th Cir. 2007); see 

also Stormans, Inc. v. Wiesman, 794 F.3d 1064, 1074, 1076 n.5 (9th Cir. 

2015); Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Salazar, 706 F.3d 1085, 1090 (9th 

Cir. 2013).

8 See Ctr. for Biological Diversity, 706 F.3d at 1090.

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(1) The Organizations have standing. East Bay I, 

932 F.3d at 765–69.

(2) The Organizations are likely to succeed on the 

substantive merits. See id. at 770–74. As to procedural 

validity regarding adoption of the regulation, the motions 

panel decision that the foreign affairs exception to the notice 

and comment procedures does not apply is binding. Id.

at 775–77. In addition, while the motions panel decision 

regarding the good cause exceptions is not fully binding, 

what it did determine was that the information then brought 

to the attention of the panel and the district court did not 

suffice. Id. at 777–78. In light of that, I agree with the 

majority that merely adding the twenty-five-word sentence 

from a Washington Post article was insufficient to justify 

changing the motions panel result.

(3) The decisions made by the motions panel regarding 

harm to the Organizations and balance of hardships are also 

binding decisions regarding the propriety of the preliminary 

injunction. Id. at 767, 778–79.

(4) The scope of the injunction is not overly broad. Id.

at 779–80.

Thus, I respectfully concur in the result of the majority 

opinion.

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