Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf
Page Number: 22.0

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

17 

Opinion of the Court 

involves  “broad  and  consequential  assessments  of  [the 
country’s]  foreign  security  standards  and  operations.” 
Ibid.    A  foreign  government  must  (among  other  things) 
undergo a comprehensive evaluation of its “counterterror-
ism,  law  enforcement,  immigration  enforcement,  passport
security,  and  border  management  capabilities,”  often 
including  “operational  site  inspections  of  airports,  sea-
ports, land borders, and passport production and issuance
facilities.”  Ibid.
  Congress’s  decision  to  authorize  a  benefit  for  “many  of 
America’s  closest  allies,”  ibid.,  did  not  implicitly  foreclose
the  Executive  from  imposing  tighter  restrictions  on 
nationals of certain high-risk countries.  The Visa Waiver 
Program  creates  a  special  exemption  for  citizens  of  coun-
tries  that  maintain  exemplary  security  standards  and
offer  “reciprocal  [travel]  privileges”  to  United  States  citi-
zens.  8  U. S. C.  §1187(a)(2)(A).  But  in  establishing  a
select partnership covering less than 20% of the countries
in the world, Congress did not address what requirements
should govern the entry of nationals from the vast majority
of  countries  that  fall  short  of  that  gold  standard—
particularly  those  nations  presenting  heightened  terror-
ism concerns.  Nor did Congress attempt to determine—as 
the multi-agency review process did—whether those high-
risk countries provide a minimum baseline of information 
to adequately vet their nationals.  Once again, this is not a 
situation where “Congress has stepped into the space and 
solved the exact problem.”  Tr. of Oral Arg. 53. 

Although  plaintiffs  claim  that  their  reading  preserves
for  the  President  a  flexible  power  to  “supplement”  the 
INA,  their  understanding  of  the  President’s  authority  is 
remarkably cramped: He may suspend entry by classes of 
aliens  “similar  in  nature”  to  the  existing  categories  of
inadmissibility—but  not  too  similar—or  only  in  response
to  “some  exigent  circumstance”  that  Congress  did  not
already touch on in the INA.  Brief for Respondents 31, 36,