Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/556/418/dissent.html
Timestamp: 2017-05-28 14:35:27
Document Index: 63325165

Matched Legal Cases: ['§1105', '§1252', '§1252', '§1252', '§1252', '§1252', '§1252', '§2349', '§1252', '§1252', '§1105']

Nken v. Holder (Dissent by Justice Alito) :: 556 U.S. 418 (2009) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
[April 22, 2009] Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins, dissenting.
IIRIRA was designed to expedite removal and restrict the ability of aliens to remain in this country pending judicial review. Before IIRIRA, the filing of a petition for review automatically stayed removal unless the court of appeals directed otherwise. 8 U. S. C. §1105a(a)(3) (1994 ed.) (repealed 1996). IIRIRA repealed this provision and, to drive home the point, specifically provided that “[s]ervice of the petition [for judicial review] . . . does not stay the removal of an alien pending the court’s decision on the petition, unless the court orders otherwise.” §1252(b)(3)(B) (2006 ed.) (emphasis added). In addition, “many provisions of IIRIRA are aimed at protecting the Executive’s discretion from the courts.” Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U. S. 471, 486 (1999) (emphasis deleted). Indeed, “protecting the Executive’s discretion from the courts . . . can fairly be said to be the theme of the legislation.” Ibid. Section 1252(f)(2), which provides that a court may not block removal during the judicial review process unless a heightened standard is met, fits perfectly within this scheme. The Court’s interpretation, by contrast, produces anomalous results. If §1252(f)(2) does not provide the standard to be used by the courts in determining whether an alien should be permitted to remain in this country pending judicial review, then IIRIRA left the formulation of that standard entirely to the discretion of the courts. A Congress that sought to expedite removal and limit judicial discretion is unlikely to have taken that approach. More important, if §1252(f)(2) does not set the standard for blocking removal pending judicial review, then, as the Court concedes, “the exact role of subsection (f)(2) . . . is not easy to explain.” Ante, at 12. “In construing a statute we are obliged to give effect, if possible, to every word Congress used.” Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 339 (1979). We should not lightly conclude that Congress enacted a provision that serves no function, and the Court’s hyper-technical distinction between an injunction and a stay does not provide a sufficient justification for adopting an interpretation that renders §1252(f)(2) meaningless. That result is particularly anomalous in the context of §1252(f)(2), which Congress said should apply “[n]otwithstanding any other provision of law.”
Third, if stays and injunctions really are two entirely distinct concepts, the order that petitioner sought here is best viewed as an injunction. Insofar as there is a difference between the two concepts, I agree with the Court that it boils down to this: “A stay ‘simply suspend[s] judicial alteration of the status quo,’ ” whereas an injunction “ ‘grants judicial intervention that has been withheld by lower courts.’ ” Ante, at 9 (quoting Ohio Citizens for Responsible Energy, Inc. v. NRC, 479 U. S. 1312, 1313 (1986) (Scalia, J., in chambers)). See also Black’s 1413 (defining a stay as an “act of arresting a judicial proceeding by the order of a court”). Here, petitioner did not seek an order “suspend[ing] judicial alteration of the status quo.” Instead, he sought an order barring Executive branch officials from removing him from the country. Such an order is best viewed as an injunction. See McCarthy v. Briscoe, 429 U. S. 1317, 1317, n. 1 (1976) (Powell, J., in chambers) (although applicants claimed to seek a “stay,” the court granted an “injunction” because “the applicants actually [sought] affirmative relief” against executive officials). Even if petitioner had sought to block his removal pending judicial review of the order of removal, any interim order blocking his removal would best be termed an injunction. When the Board affirmed petitioner’s final removal order in 2006, it gave the Executive Branch all of the legal authority it needed to remove petitioner from the United States immediately. An order preventing an executive officer from exercising that authority does not “simply suspend judicial alteration of the status quo.” Ohio Citizens for Responsible Energy, supra, at 1313. Instead, such an order is most properly termed an injunction because it blocks executive officials from carrying out what they view as proper enforcement of the immigration laws. And in that regard, it is significant that the Hobbs Act—which governs judicial review under IIRIRA, see 8 U. S. C. §1252(a)(1)—refers to an “application for an interlocutory injunction restraining or suspending the enforcement, operation, or execution of, or setting aside” a final administrative order. 28 U. S. C. §2349(b) (emphasis added).
In the present case, however, petitioner did not seek to block his removal pending judicial review of his final order of removal. That review concluded long ago. What petitioner asked for was an order barring the Executive Branch from removing him pending judicial review of an entirely different order, the Board’s order denying his third motion to reopen the proceedings. Petitioner’s current petition for review does not contest the correctness of the removal order. Rather, he argues that the Board should have set aside that order due to alleged changes in conditions in his home country. A motion to reopen an administrative proceeding that is no longer subject to direct judicial review surely seeks “ ‘an order altering the status quo.’ ” Ante, at 9 (quoting Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 507 U. S. 1301, 1302 (1993) (Rehnquist, C. J., in chambers)). Consequently, the relief that petitioner sought here is best categorized as an
Noting that the term “stay” is used in §1252(b)(3)(B) but not in §1252(f)(2), the Court infers that Congress did not intend that the latter provision apply to stays. Ante, at 10–11. But the use of the term “stay” in subsection (b)(3)(B) is easy to explain. As noted above, prior to IIRIRA, the Immigration and Nationality Act provided for an automatic “stay” of deportation upon the filing of a petition for review unless the court of appeals directed otherwise. See 8 U. S. C. §1105a(a)(3) (1994 ed.) (repealed 1996). The statute provided: “The service of the petition for review upon [the Attorney General’s agents] shall stay the deportation of the alien pending determination of the petition by the court … unless the court otherwise directs … .” Ibid. (emphasis added). In IIRIRA, Congress repealed that provision and, to make sure that the pre-IIRIRA practice would not be continued, enacted a new provision that explicitly inverted the prior rule: