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Page Number: 25.0

20 

TRUMP v. HAWAII 

Opinion of the Court 

nationals themselves engaged in harmful acts but instead 
to retaliate for conduct by their governments that conflicted 
with  U. S.  foreign  policy  interests.    See,  e.g.,  Exec.  Order 
No. 13662, 3 CFR 233 (2014) (President Obama) (suspend-
ing  entry  of  Russian  nationals  working  in  the  financial 
services,  energy,  mining,  engineering,  or  defense  sectors,
in light of the Russian Federation’s “annexation of Crimea
and  its  use  of  force  in  Ukraine”);  Presidential  Proclama-
tion No. 6958, 3 CFR 133 (1997) (President Clinton) (sus-
pending  entry  of  Sudanese  governmental  and  military
personnel,  citing  “foreign  policy  interests  of  the  United
States”  based  on  Sudan’s  refusal  to  comply  with  United
Nations  resolution).  And  while  some  of  these  reprisals 
were  directed  at  subsets  of  aliens  from  the  countries  at 
issue,  others  broadly  suspended  entry  on  the  basis  of 
nationality due to ongoing diplomatic disputes.  For exam-
ple,  President  Reagan  invoked  §1182(f )  to  suspend  entry
“as  immigrants”  by  almost  all  Cuban  nationals,  to  apply 
pressure on the Cuban Government.  Presidential Procla-
mation  No.  5517,  3  CFR  102  (1986).    Plaintiffs  try  to  fit 
this  latter  order  within  their  carve-out  for  emergency
action,  but  the  proclamation  was  based  in  part  on  Cuba’s
decision  to  breach  an  immigration  agreement  some  15 
months earlier. 

More  significantly,  plaintiffs’  argument  about  historical 
practice  is  a  double-edged  sword.    The  more  ad  hoc  their 
account  of  executive  action—to  fit  the  history  into  their 
theory—the  harder  it  becomes  to  see  such  a  refined  dele-
gation  in  a  statute  that  grants  the  President  sweeping 
authority to decide whether to suspend entry, whose entry 
to suspend, and for how long. 

C 
Plaintiffs’  final  statutory  argument  is  that  the  Presi-
dent’s  entry  suspension  violates  §1152(a)(1)(A),  which
provides that “no person shall . . . be discriminated against