Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05264/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05264-0/pdf.json

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

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 28, 1997 Decided June 3, 1997 

No. 96-5264

STATE OF CALIFORNIA AND 

PETE WILSON, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA,

APPELLANTS

v.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND 

JANET RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 96cv00411)

Evelyn M. Matteucci, Deputy Attorney General, argued 

the cause for appellants, with whom Linda A. Cabatic, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, was on the briefs.

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Mark B. Stern, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellees, with whom Frank W. Hunger,

Assistant Attorney General, and Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. 

Attorney, were on the brief.

Before: GINSBURG, HENDERSON and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge: The State of California and Governor Pete Wilson appeal the dismissal of their complaint 

alleging that Attorney General Janet Reno failed to satisfy 

her statutory duty under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(j) either to incarcerate undocumented criminal aliens in federal prisons or to 

reimburse California for the costs that it incurs to incarcerate 

such aliens. The appellants seek a declaratory judgment that 

the Attorney General's inaction under § 1252(j) was arbitrary 

and capricious, in violation of the Administrative Procedure 

Act, and a writ of mandamus and injunctive relief compelling 

the Attorney General either to enter into a contractual arrangement to reimburse the State for its costs of incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens or to take federal custody 

of those aliens for whom no reimbursement is provided. The 

district court denied the appellants' motion for summary 

judgment and granted the appellees' motion to dismiss this 

case pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a 

claim upon which relief could be granted. For the reasons 

that follow we affirm the district court's decision to dismiss 

the appellants' APA claim as unripe and to dismiss on the 

merits their claims for declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus 

relief.

I. BACKGROUND

In 1994 Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and 

Law Enforcement Act, which amended § 242 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, in order to address the problem of 

States having to pay the costs of incarcerating undocumented 

criminal aliens. Among other things, the 1994 Act provides:

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(a) INCARCERATION.Section 242 of the Immigration and 

Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. § 1252) is amended by adding 

at the end the following new subsection:

"(j) INCARCERATION.

"(1) If the chief executive officer of a State ... exercising authority with respect to the incarceration of an 

undocumented criminal alien submits a written request 

to the Attorney General, the Attorney General shall, as 

determined by the Attorney General

"(A) enter into a contractual arrangement which provides for compensation to the State ... with respect to 

the incarceration of the undocumented criminal alien; 

or

"(B) take the undocumented criminal alien into the 

custody of the Federal Government and incarcerate 

the alien."

...

"(5) There are authorized to be appropriated such 

sums as may be necessary to carry out this subsection, 

of which the following amounts may be appropriated 

from the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund:

...

(B) $300,000 for fiscal year 1996."

Pub. L. No. 103-222, 108 Stat. 1823, § 20301(a) (codified at 8 

U.S.C. § 1252(j)). In addition, the Act provides:

(c) TERMINATION OF LIMITATION.Notwithstanding section 

242(j)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act [8 

U.S.C. § 1252(j)(5)], as added by subsection (a), the 

requirements of section 242(j) of the Immigration and 

Nationality Act, as added by subsection (a), shall not be 

subject to the availability of appropriations on and after 

October 1, 2004.

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*

Subsection 20301(c), although codified only as a note to 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1252(j), is an integral part of the Act as it appears in the Statutes 

at Large. 

Pub. L. No. 103-322, 108 Stat. 1824, § 20301(c).*

In December 1995 Governor Wilson sent a letter to General 

Reno requesting that she either enter into a contractual 

arrangement to compensate California for the costs it has 

incurred in incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens or 

take custody of those individuals. In January 1996 the 

Attorney General replied that she could not do so because the 

Congress had not appropriated any funds for that purpose. 

The California Department of Corrections then attempted to 

transfer an incarcerated criminal alien to the Immigration 

and Naturalization Service Processing Center in El Centro, 

California, but the INS refused to take custody of the prisoner. In March 1996 Governor Wilson reiterated his demand 

that General Reno proceed under § 242(j), and on the same 

day filed this action.

In April 1996 the Congress appropriated $500 million to 

implement the requirements of § 242(j) during Fiscal Year 

1996. See 42 U.S.C. § 13710. In July of that year the 

Department of Justice announced a grant procedure by which 

it would distribute this $500 million pro rata to the States 

incurring costs for the incarceration of undocumented criminal aliens, but it would not incarcerate any of those aliens in 

federal prisons. 61 Fed. Reg. 38218 (July 23, 1996).

In their complaint the appellants ask that the court declare 

arbitrary and capricious the Attorney General's decision not 

to take custody of or provide compensation for the incarceration of every undocumented criminal alien incarcerated by the 

State of California, and that we order the Attorney General to 

do so. California alleges that it spends at least $400 million 

each year incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens.

In a ruling from the bench on August 8, 1996 the district 

court denied California's motion for summary judgment and 

granted the Attorney General's motion to dismiss this case 

pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The court rejected 

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California's reading of § 242(j), under which the Attorney 

General's obligation is not limited by the amount of money 

appropriated specifically to implement the statute:

If the language of Section 20301(c), that the Attorney 

General's authority under Section [242(j)] should not be 

subject to the availability of appropriations on or after 

October 1st, 2004, is to have any meaning at all, it must 

mean that prior to that date the Attorney General's 

authority under the statute is subject to the availability 

of appropriations.

The court then held that § 20301(c) limits not only the 

Attorney General's authority to compensate the States but 

also her authority to incur costs by taking incarcerated aliens 

into federal custody. Accordingly, the court concluded, because the Congress had not appropriated any funds for these 

purposes when California requested that the Attorney General act, the court could not require the Attorney General to 

comply with the State's request. Finally, the court dismissed 

California's APA claim as unripe because the Attorney General had not yet distributed any funds pursuant to its July 1996 

regulation.

II. ANALYSIS

The central issue in this case is whether, prior to Fiscal 

Year 2005, the Attorney General's obligations under § 242(j) 

are subject to the availability of appropriations. Each party 

maintains that the meaning of the statute is clear and favorable to its position.

Before choosing between their proffered readings, however, 

we affirm the district court's dismissal of the appellants' APA 

claim as unripe. Under the APA, we review only "final 

agency action." 5 U.S.C. § 704; Franklin v. Massachusetts,

505 U.S. 788, 796 (1992). An agency action is final only if it 

"imposes an obligation, denies a right, or fixes some legal 

relationship." Action on Smoking & Health v. Department 

of Labor, 28 F.3d 162, 165 (D.C. Cir. 1994). The DOJ had 

done nothing of that sort as of the time of the district court's 

decision. The Attorney General had indicated that she would 

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exercise only the reimbursement option under § 242(j) and 

that she would spend $500 million to do so, but she had not 

yet made a final decision about how much money would go to 

California. No final administrative decision, no judicial review.

We affirm on the merits the district court's dismissal of the 

appellants' claims for mandamus, declaratory, and injunctive 

relief. Section 242(j)(1) initially requires the Attorney General either to incarcerate in a federal prison or to pay the cost 

of incarcerating in state prison each and every undocumented 

criminal alien. A legislated note to § 242(j) clearly implies, 

however, that the Attorney General's duty to fulfill this 

statutory mandate is limited by the availability of appropriated funds: "the requirements of section 242 of the Immigration and Nationality Act ... shall not be subject to the 

availability of appropriations on and after October 1, 2004." 

108 Stat. 1824, § 20301(c). The appellants argue that 

§ 20301(c), in providing only that appropriations shall not 

limit the requirements of § 242(j) as of FY 2005, speaks not 

at all to the Attorney General's obligations in prior fiscal 

years, and therefore does nothing to undercut the facial 

mandate of § 242(j).

The appellants' reading of § 20301(c) is not in harmony 

with the statute as a whole. If before FY 2005 the Attorney 

General's duty to act pursuant to § 242(j) were not limited by 

the availability of appropriated funds, then there would have 

been no reason for the Congress specifically to have provided 

that such would continue to be the case in FY 2005 and 

beyond. To blink at that implication would be to reduce the 

role of § 20301(c) to mere surplusage, contrary to a first 

principle of statutory construction. Qu-Zhuo v. Meissner, 70 

F.3d 136, 139 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

As a fallback position the appellants contend that even if 

§ 20301(c) makes the availability of appropriated funds the 

measure of the Attorney General's powers under § 242(j), the 

want of an appropriation limits only her authority to reimburse the States for their costs of incarcerating aliens, not 

her authority to take state-incarcerated aliens into federal 

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custody. The appellants argue that § 20301(c) need not be 

read to limit the Attorney General's obligation to take custody of state-incarcerated criminal aliens because the Attorney 

General could use the funds appropriated for the federal 

prison system generally in order to pay for their incarceration. As we have just seen, however, § 20301(c) makes "the 

requirements of section 242(j) of the Immigration and Nationality Act" subject to the availability of appropriations, and at 

the risk of belaboring the obvious we must point out that 

§ 242(j) encompasses both the federal reimbursement option 

under § 242(j)(1)(A) and the federal incarceration option under § 242(j)(1)(B). In other words, § 20301 does not require 

the Attorney General either to reimburse the States or to use 

funds to incarcerate aliens beyond the amount appropriated 

by the Congress specifically for those purposesuntil October 1, 2004, that is.

The appellants argue next that even if the statute requires 

the Attorney General to act under § 242(j) only to the extent 

of available appropriations, she has still violated the statute 

because she has decided to pay each State a percentage of its 

total costs of incarceration rather than to pay each State in 

full for a specified percentage of its alien inmates, and 

because she has undertaken to reimburse the States through 

grants rather than through "a contractual arrangement." We 

do not understand the practical import of the first objection; 

whether the Attorney General reimburses California so much 

per capita, but less than the State's full cost, or for a specified 

percentage, but less than all, of its total costs of incarceration 

would not affect the amount of money that California would 

receive. California's objection to the Attorney General's use 

of the grant mechanism is also without merit because the 

grant mechanism the Attorney General has established does 

involve a "contractual arrangement," specifically a unilateral 

contract. See 1 Williston on Contracts § 65 (3d ed. 1957) 

("An offer for a unilateral contract generally requires an act 

on part of the offeree to make a binding contract. This act is 

consideration for the promise contained in the offer and doing 

it with intent to accept without more will create a contract."); 

see also United States v. Ideal Election Security Co., 81 F.3d 

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240, 241 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (noting the "well-recognized" principle that "in a unilateral contract, performance constitutes 

acceptance of an offer"). Here the offer is the Attorney 

General's promise to distribute to each qualified State that 

applies a share of the funds appropriated to implement 

§ 242(j); the act requested in return is the fulfillment of the 

requirements set forth in the application kit. See 61 Fed. 

Reg. 38218. When a State fulfills those requirements and 

submits its application to the Attorney General, its performance will constitute both consideration for the Attorney 

General's promise and a manifestation of its assent; a binding 

contract will have been created. Therefore, California has no 

cause to complain about the procedure that the Attorney 

General has adopted to implement § 242(j).

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the order of the district court 

dismissing as unripe the appellants' claim under the APA and 

dismissing on the merits the appellants' claim for mandamus 

and injunctive relief is

Affirmed.

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