Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-19-15716/USCOURTS-ca9-19-15716-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

INNOVATION LAW LAB; CENTRAL

AMERICAN RESOURCE CENTER OF

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA; CENTRO

LEGAL DE LA RAZA; UNIVERSITY OF

SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOL OF LAW

IMMIGRATION AND DEPORTATION

DEFENSE CLINIC; AL OTRO LADO;

TAHIRIH JUSTICE CENTER,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

CHAD F. WOLF, Acting Secretary of

Homeland Security, in his official

capacity; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

HOMELAND SECURITY; KENNETH T.

CUCCINELLI, Acting Director, U.S.

Citizenship and Immigration

Services, in his official capacity;

ANDREW DAVIDSON, Acting Chief

of Asylum Division, U.S.

Citizenship and Immigration

Services, in his official capacity;

UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND

IMMIGRATION SERVICES; TODD C.

OWEN, Executive Assistant

Commissioner, Office of Field

Operations, U.S. Customs and

Border Protection, in his official

No. 19-15716

D.C. No.

3:19-cv-00807-

RS

ORDER

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2 INNOVATION LAW LAB V. WOLF

capacity; U.S. CUSTOMS AND

BORDER PROTECTION; MATTHEW T.

ALBENCE, Acting Director, U.S.

Immigration and Customs

Enforcement, in his official capacity;

U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS

ENFORCEMENT,

Defendants-Appellants.

Filed March 4, 2020

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

and Richard A. Paez, Circuit Judges.

Order;

Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by

Judge Fernandez

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INNOVATION LAW LAB V. WOLF 3

SUMMARY*

Immigration /Preliminary Injunctions

In a case in which the panel issued an opinion on Friday,

February 28, 2020, affirming the district court’s injunction

against implementation and expansion of the Migrant

Protection Protocols (“MPP”), and also granted an immediate

administrative stay pending decision on the Government’s

request for a stay pending disposition of a petition for

certiorari, the panel granted in part and denied in part the

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

injunction pending certiorari proceedings.

With respect to the merits of the panel’s holding that the

MPP violates federal law, the panel denied the requested stay. 

The panel explained that the MPP clearly violates 8 U.S.C.

§ 1225(b) (dividing aliens applying for asylum into two

categories and providing which aliens may be required to

wait in Mexico while their asylum applications are

adjudicated) and § 1231(b) (implementing treaty-based

obligation to avoid “refoulement,” the act of sending refugees

back to the dangerous countries from which they have come). 

However, the panel stayed the injunction insofar as it

operates outside the geographical boundaries of the Ninth

Circuit, noting that the proper scope of injunctions against

agency action is a matter of intense and active controversy. 

Further, the panel explained that, while it regarded the merits

of its decision under §§ 1225(b) and 1231(b) as clearly

* 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 INNOVATION LAW LAB V. WOLF

correct, it lacked the same level of confidence with respect to

the scope of the injunction entered by the district court.

Finally, at the Government’s request, the panel extended

the administrative stay entered on February 28, 2020, until

March 11, 2020, and directed that, if the Supreme Court has

not in the meantime acted to reverse or modify the panel’s

decision, the panel’s partial grant and partial denial of the

stay will take effect on March 12, 2020.

Concurring in part and dissenting in part, Judge

Fernandez wrote that he would grant in full the motion for a

stay of the district court’s injunction pending disposition of

a petition for certiorari.

COUNSEL

Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General; Scott G.

Stewart, Deputy Assistant Attorney General; William C.

Peachey, Director; and Erez Reuveni, Assistant Director;

Office of Immigration Litigation, United States Department

of Justice, Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C.; for

Defendants-Appellants.

Judy Rabinovitz, Michael Tan, Omar Jadwat, Lee Gelernt,

Anand Balakrishnan, Daniel Galindo, and Celso Javier Perez,

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Immigrants’

Rights Project, New York, New York; Katrina Eiland, Cody

Wofsy, and Julie Veroff, American Civil Liberties Union

Foundation, Immigrants’ Rights Project, San Francisco,

California; Melissa Crow, Southern Poverty Law Center,

Washington, D.C.; Gracie Willis, Southern Poverty Law

Center, Decatur, Georgia; Sean Riordan, American Civil

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INNOVATION LAW LAB V. WOLF 5

Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California Inc., San

Francisco, California; Blaine Bookey, Karen Musalo,

Kathryn Jastram, Sayoni Maitra, and Anne Peterson, Center

for Gender and Refugee Studies, San Francisco, California;

Steven Watt, ACLU Foundation Human Rights Program,

New York, New York; for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

ORDER

This court issued its opinion in Innovation Law Lab v.

Wolf, No. 19-15716, on Friday, February 28, 2020, affirming

the district court’s injunction against implementation and

expansion of theMigrant Protection Protocols (“MPP”). That

same day, the Government filed an emergency motion

requesting either a stay pending disposition of a petition for

certiorari to the Supreme Court or an immediate

administrative stay. That evening, we granted an

administrative stay, along with an accelerated schedule for

briefs addressing the request for a longer-lasting stay. We

received a brief from Plaintiffs-Appellants on Monday,

March 2; we received a reply brief from the Government on

Tuesday, March 3. For the reasons that follow, we grant in

part and deny in part the requested stay.

With respect to the merits of our holding that the MPP

violates federal law, we deny the requested stay. With

respect to the scope of injunctive relief, we grant in part and

deny in part the requested stay.

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I. Merits

The MPP requires that all asylum seekers arriving at our

southern border wait in Mexico while their asylum

applications are adjudicated. The MPP clearly violates

8 U.S.C. §§ 1225(b) and 1231(b).

A. 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)

Section 1225(b) divides aliens applying for asylum into

two categories: “[A]pplicants for admission fall into one of

two categories, those covered by § 1225(b)(1) and those

covered by § 1225(b)(2).” Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct.

830, 837 (2018).

Section (b)(1) applicants are those who have no

documents or fraudulent documents. In fleeing persecution

in their home countries, typical bona fide asylum seekers

have either fraudulent documents or no documents at all.

Section (b)(2) applicants are “all other” applicants. 

Section (b)(2) applicants include spies, terrorists, alien

smugglers, and drug traffickers.

Section 1225 specifies different procedures for the two

categories of applicants. Section (b)(1) applicants who have

expressed a “credible fear” of persecution have a right to

remain in the United States while their applications are

adjudicated. Section (b)(2) applicants do not have that right. 

Subsection (b)(2)(C) specifically authorizes the Attorney

General to require § (b)(2) applicants to wait in Mexico while

their asylum applications are adjudicated. There is no

subsection in § (b)(1) comparable to subsection (b)(2)(C).

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INNOVATION LAW LAB V. WOLF 7

It is easy to understand why § (b)(1) and § (b)(2)

applicants are treated differently. Section (b)(1) applicants

pose little threat to the security of the United States. By

contrast, § (b)(2) applicants potentially pose a severe threat.

The MPP applies subsection (b)(2)(C) to § (b)(1)

applicants. There is no legal basis for doing so.

B. 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)

Section 1231(b), previously codified as § 1253(h), was

enacted in 1980 to implement our treaty-based obligation to

avoid “refoulement” of refugees. Refoulement is the act of

sending refugees back to the dangerous countries from which

they have come. Section 1231(b) provides, “[T]he Attorney

General may not remove an alien to a country if the Attorney

General decides that the alien’s life or freedom would be

threatened in that country because of the alien’s race,

religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group,

or political opinion.”

Under the MPP, an asylum officer screening asylum

seekers is not allowed to ask whether they fear that their “life

or freedom would be threatened” upon being returned to

Mexico. The MPP requires asylum seekers—untutored in

asylum law—to volunteer that they fear being returned to

Mexico, even though they are not told that the existence of

such fear could protect them from being returned.

Uncontradicted evidence in the record shows not onlythat

asylum officers implementing the MPP do not ask whether

asylum seekers fear returning to Mexico. It also shows that

officers actively prevent or discourage applicants from

expressing such a fear, and that they ignore applicants who

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succeed in doing so. For example, Alex Doe, a plaintiff in

this case, wrote in a sworn declaration, “When I tried to

respond and explain [why I had left Honduras] the officer told

me something like, ‘you are only going to respond to the

questions I ask you, nothing more.’” Frank Doe, another

plaintiff, wrote in a sworn declaration, “He never asked me if

I was afraid of returning to Mexico. At one point, I had to

interrupt him to explain that I didn’t feel safe in Mexico. He

told me that it was too bad. He said that Honduras wasn’t

safe, Mexico wasn’t safe, and the U.S. isn’t safe either.”

Uncontradicted evidence also shows that there is extreme

danger to asylum seekers who are returned to Mexico. For

example, Howard Doe, a plaintiff, wrote in a sworn

declaration: “While I was in Tijuana, two young Honduran

men were abducted, tortured and killed. . . . On Wednesday,

January 30, 2019, I was attacked and robbed by two young

Mexican men. . . . They . . . told me that they knew I was

Honduran and that if they saw me again, they would kill me.” 

Ian Doe, another plaintiff, wrote in a sworn declaration, “I am

not safe in Mexico. I am afraid that the people who want to

harm me in Honduras will find me here.” Dennis Doe,

another plaintiff, had fled the gang “MS-13” in Honduras. He

wrote in a sworn declaration, “In Tijuana, I have seen people

who I believe are MS-13 gang members on the street and on

the beach. . . . I know that MS-13 were searching for people

who tried to escape them . . . . This makes me afraid that the

people who were trying to kill me in Honduras will find me

here.” Kevin Doe, another plaintiff, had fled MS-13 in

Honduras because of his work as an Evangelical Christian

minister. He wrote in a sworn declaration, “[When I was

returned to Mexico from the United States], I was met by a

large group of reporters with cameras. . . . I was afraid that

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INNOVATION LAW LAB V. WOLF 9

the MS-13 might see my face in the news. . . . They are a

powerful, ruthless gang and have members in Tijuana too.”

It is clear from the text of the MPP, as well as from

extensive and uncontradicted evidence in the record, that the

MPP violates the anti-refoulement obligation embodied in

§ 1231(b).

C. Stay with Respect to the Merits

Two of the three judges on our panel, Judges W. Fletcher

and Paez, held that the MPP clearly violates both §§ 1225(b)

and 1231(b). The third judge, Judge Fernandez, did not

independently reach the question whether the MPP violates

those sections. Judge Fernandez dissented from the panel’s

decision based on a point of appellate procedure.

Because the MPP so clearly violates §§ 1225(b) and

1231(b), and because the harm the MPP causes to plaintiffs

is so severe, we decline to stay our opinion pending certiorari

proceedings in the Supreme Court, except as noted below

with respect to the scope of the injunction.

II. Scope of the Injunction

The district court enjoined the Government from

continuing to implement or expand the MPP, and required the

Government to allow the named individual plaintiffs to enter

the United States to pursue their applications for asylum. The

injunction provides as follows:

Defendants are hereby enjoined and

restrained from continuing to implement or

expand the “Migrant Protection Protocols” as

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announced in the January 25, 2018 DHS

policy memorandum and as explicated in

further agency memoranda. Within 2 days of

the effective date of this order, defendants

shall permit the named individual plaintiffs to

enter the United States. At defendants’

option, any named plaintiff appearing at the

border for admission pursuant to this order

may be detained or paroled, pending

adjudication of his or her admission

application.

Innovation Law Lab v. Nielsen, 366 F. Supp. 3d 1110,

1130–31 (N.D. Cal. 2019). When suit was filed in the district

court, the MPP had been applied only at the designated port

of entry at San Ysidro, California. There are eleven named

individual plaintiffs.

Because the district court’s order was stayed pending

appeal, the Government expanded the scope of the MPP. The

MPP is now in effect in the four states along our southern

border with Mexico. Two of those states, California and

Arizona, are in the Ninth Circuit. New Mexico is in the

Tenth Circuit. Texas is in the Fifth Circuit.

For the reasons explained in our opinion, Ninth Circuit

case law requires that we affirm the scope of the district

court’s injunction. Plaintiffs challenge the MPP as

inconsistent with § 706(2) of the Administrative Procedure

Act, which directs a reviewing court that has found an agency

action “unlawful” to “set aside” that action. 5 U.S.C.

§ 706(2). Section 706(2) does not tell a reviewing circuit

court to “set aside” the unlawful agency action only within

the geographic boundaries of that circuit. Further, there is a

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special need for uniformity in immigration cases, as

recognized both by our court and by the Fifth Circuit. See

Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec.,

908 F. 3d 476, 511 (9th Cir. 2018); Texas v. United States,

809 F.3d 134, 187–88 (5th Cir. 2015), aff’d by an equally

divided Court, 136 S. Ct. 2271 (2016)

However, we recognize that the proper scope of

injunctions against agency action is a matter of intense and

active controversy. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. v. New York,

140 S. Ct. 599, 600–01 (2020) (Gorsuch, J., concurring);

Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2424–29 (2018) (Thomas,

J., concurring); see also Wolf v. Cook Cty., Ill., 140 S. Ct.

681, 681–82 (2020) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting). While we

regard the merits of our decision under §§ 1225(b) and

1231(b) as clearly correct, we do not have the same level of

confidence with respect to the scope of the injunction entered

by the district court. We therefore stay the injunction insofar

as it operates outside the geographical boundaries of the

Ninth Circuit.

III. Declarations Filed in Connection with the

Government’s Motion to Stay Pending Disposition of a

Petition for Certiorari

The Government’s motion for stay and reply brief include

several sworn declarations. The United States Ambassador

to Mexico writes, “The panel’s decision, unless stayed, will

have an immediate and severely prejudicial impact on the

bilateral relationship between the United States and Mexico.” 

The Assistant Secretary for International Affairs for the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security writes, “MPP was a

carefully negotiated solution with the Government of

Mexico.” She writes further, “The suspension of MPP

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undermines almost two years’ worth of diplomatic

engagement with the Government of Mexico through which

a coordinated and cohesive immigration control program has

been developed.” The Deputy Commissioner of U.S.

Customs and Border Protection writes that enforcement of the

district court’s injunction will cause substantial disruption at

our ports of entry and will cost substantial amounts of money. 

He writes further that on Friday, the day our decision was

announced, large groups of aliens sought admission to the

United States at various points along the border. The

Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal

Operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

writes, “[I]f MPP is discontinued, approximately 25,000

individuals enrolled in MPP who remain in Mexico may soon

arrive in the United States seeking admission. . . . [I]f

[Customs and Border Protection] is required to process

approximately 25,000 inadmissible aliens in an extremely

short timeframe and then transfer those aliens to

[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody, it would

overload [Enforcement and Removal Operations’] already

burdened resources and create significant adverse

implications for public safety and the integrity of the United

States immigration system.”

The Plaintiffs-Appellants’ brief responding to the

Government’s motion includes two sworn declarations. 

Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2013

writes, “The government of Mexico has consistently stated

that MPP is a policy unilaterally imposed by the U.S.

government. To the extent Mexico agreed to the policy, it

was upon threat of heavy and unprecedented tariffs.” He

writes, further, “I reject the notion that this Court’s

determination that MPP is likely unlawful will harm our two

nations’ relationship. Rather, it is MPP itself—and the way

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INNOVATION LAW LAB V. WOLF 13

the current administration is conducting policy towards

Mexico—that is particularly detrimental to the bilateral

relationship between the United States and Mexico.” An

expert on border and immigration issues writes that it is the

MPP that has created chaos at our southern border, and that

the MPP has not had a significant effect in reducing the flow

of immigrants into the United States.

We are not in a position to assess the accuracy of these

statements.

Conclusion

If the law were less clear—that is, if there were any

serious possibility that the MPP is consistent with §§ 1225(b)

and 1231(b)—we would stay the district court’s injunction in

its entirety pending disposition of the Government’s petition

for certiorari. However, it is very clear that the MPP violates

§§ 1225(b) and 1231(b), and it is equally clear that the MPP

is causing extreme and irreversible harm to plaintiffs.

We stay, pending disposition of the Government’s

petition for certiorari, the district court’s injunction insofar as

it operates outside the Ninth Circuit. We decline to stay,

pending disposition of the Government’s petition for

certiorari, the district court’s injunction against the MPP

insofar as it operates within the Ninth Circuit.

The Government has requested in its March 3 reply brief,

in the event we deny any part of their request for a stay, that

we “extend the [administrative] stay by at least seven days, to

March 10, to afford the Supreme Court an orderlyopportunity

for review.” We grant the Government’s request and extend

our administrative stay entered on Friday, February 28, until

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Wednesday, March 11. If the Supreme Court has not in the

meantime acted to reverse or otherwise modify our decision,

our partial grant and partial denial of the Government’s

request for a stay of the district court’s injunction, as

described above, will take effect on Thursday, March 12.

So ordered on March 4, 2020.

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and

dissenting in part:

I would grant in full the government’s emergency

motion for a stay of the district court’s injunction pending

disposition of a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court. 

Thus, I concur in the order to the extent that it grants the

requested stay. I also concur in the order’s extension of

our administrative stay until Wednesday, March 11. I

respectfully dissent from the order to the extent that it denies

the stay.

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