Opinion ID: 4564885
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: requests the Service to determine

Text: promptly whether or not to issue a detainer to detain the alien, the officer or employee of the Service shall promptly determine whether or not to issue such a detainer. If such a detainer is issued and the alien is not otherwise detained by Federal, State, or local officials, the Attorney General shall effectively and expeditiously take custody of the alien. § 1357(d). Although it uses the term “detainer” in its title and three more times in its text, § 1357(d) never defines the term. The statute seems to assume that there are standards to guide an officer in “determin[ing] whether or not to issue such a detainer,” but it does not provide or point to any standards itself. Id. In fact, § 1357(d) never explicitly authorizes the issuance of detainers at all—even though the same statute enumerates, in three other places, actions that “[a]ny officer of employee of the Service . . . shall have the power” to take. § 1357(a)–(c) (emphasis added); see Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23 (1983) (“[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” (alteration in original) (citation omitted)). Nothing in the text of § 1357(d) suggests that it is the source of congressional authorization for ICE to issue detainers; rather, it simply mandates ICE’s prompt response to detainer requests under certain, very specific circumstances involving controlled substances offenses. 74 GONZALEZ V. USICE To conclude otherwise by disregarding the plain language of § 1357(d) and interpreting it as the sole source of ICE’s detainer authority—rather than as a requirement for ICE to respond promptly to detainer requests in cases involving controlled substances offenses—carries troubling implications. If § 1357(d) is the sole source of authorization for immigration detainers, future plaintiffs could argue that ICE acts ultra vires whenever it issues a detainer for a suspect who was not arrested for a controlled substance offense. See, e.g., Comm. for Immigrant Rts. of Sonoma Cnty. v. County of Sonoma, 644 F. Supp. 2d 1177, 1198 (N.D. Cal. 2009) (rejecting plaintiffs’ argument “that [8 C.F.R.] § 287.7 is facially invalid because its authorizing statute, § 1357, limits ICE’s authority to issue detainers for aliens in custody for violating laws relating to controlled substances”). 4 Such an argument would have far-reaching consequences, and although unsupported by the plain language of INA provisions at issue, it would seem to garner support from the majority’s conclusion that § 1357(d) is the sole source of ICE’s detainer authority. In contrast to what the text of § 1357(d) actually provides, the majority’s citation to McLean v. Crabtree, 173 F.3d 1176, 1185 n.12 (9th Cir. 1999), bears little weight. There, the court noted in dicta that “[t]he INS has authority to lodge a detainer against a prisoner under 8 U.S.C. § 1357(d).” Id. Thus, the court in McLean suggested that § 1357(d) is a source of detainer authority, but it certainly did not hold that it is the only source. 4 Perhaps recognizing these implications, the majority cites Commission for Immigrant Rights, 644 F. Supp. 2d at 1199, but concludes that it need not decide whether the regulation authorizing detainers, 8 C.F.R. § 287.7, is valid. Maj. Op. 42 n.16. GONZALEZ V. USICE 75 The majority also notes that 8 U.S.C. § 1103 authorizes DHS “to promulgat[e] regulations to carry out the provisions of the INA,” but asserts that “[w]hat matters here is that that general grant of authority is not located in ‘Part IV.’” Maj. Op. 42 n.16. Thus, the majority seems to suggest that, even if we consider § 1103 an additional or alternative source of ICE’s detainer power, § 1252(f)(1) does not bar the classwide relief Plaintiffs request because § 1103 is not in part IV of the INA. 5 But grounding ICE’s detainer power in § 1103—a “general grant of power to administer and enforce all immigration laws,” Castaneda-Gonzalez v. INS, 564 F.2d 417, 423 (D.C. Cir. 1977)—does not answer whether § 1252(f)(1) bars the relief Plaintiffs request. Section 1103 is ultimately the statutory source of all of ICE’s authority, including ICE’s detainer authority, but that does not mean that ICE does not also derive its detainer authority from other provisions of the INA, including part IV, which authorizes the “Inspection, Apprehension, Examination, Exclusion, and Removal” of aliens. Although we need not determine the sources of ICE’s detainer authority to determine whether enjoining that authority “enjoin[s] or restrain[s] the operation of the provisions of part IV,” § 1252(f)(1), we can nonetheless avoid all these problems of the majority’s approach by acknowledging that the power to issue detainers—that is, to request that another law enforcement officer detain a suspect—arises impliedly from the INA statutes authorizing 5 This argument also fails for the same reason the majority’s arguments based on § 1357(d) fail: even if the source of ICE’s detainer authority is outside part IV, a restriction on ICE’s ability to use detainers “enjoin[s] or restrain[s] the operation of the provisions of part IV,” § 1252(f)(1), because it restrains ICE’s ability to arrest and detain suspected removable aliens. 76 GONZALEZ V. USICE officers to arrest and detain suspects themselves. See, e.g., Santoyo v. United States, No. 5:16-CV-855-OLG, 2017 WL 6033861, at  & n.3 (W.D. Tex. Oct. 18, 2017) (collecting cases and concluding that “[a]lthough no other provision of the INA specifically authorizes the issuance of detainer requests, that authority predates the INA and has long been viewed as implied by federal immigration enforcers’ authority to arrest those suspected of being removable.”). Indeed, this is the Department of Homeland Security’s interpretation of the statutes it administers.6 The Department has stated that it issues detainers “pursuant to sections 236 [8 U.S.C. § 1226] and 287 [8 U.S.C. § 1357] of the Act.” 8 C.F.R. § 287.7(a). Section 1357 is not in part IV, but § 1226 is, and its broad authorization to arrest and detain aliens accords with the conclusion that the detainer power stems from ICE’s arrest and detention powers under part IV. Compare 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) (“On a warrant issued by the Attorney General, an alien may be arrested and detained pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States.”), with 8 C.F.R. § 287.7(a) (stating that detainers serve “the purpose of arresting and removing the alien”). 7 Thus, even under the majority’s flawed approach 6 The government has not argued for Chevron deference, and the majority appropriately declines to reach this issue. See, e.g., Neustar, Inc. v. FCC, 857 F.3d 886, 893–94 (D.C. Cir. 2017). Nonetheless, the Department’s interpretation of its detainer authority in the INA presents, by far, the most reasonable approach. 7 The majority suggests that § 1226 is inapplicable because it only explicitly authorizes DHS to arrest aliens, and “critically, neither DHS, nor ICE arrests or detains any individual by issuing an immigration detainer.” Maj. Op. 45. But this misses the point that what the statute authorizes DHS to do directly, it impliedly authorizes DHS to do through GONZALEZ V. USICE 77 of applying § 1252(f)(1)’s bar only to law enforcement tools that part IV itself authorizes, it should have concluded that classwide relief was barred here because part IV does authorize detainers, albeit impliedly, when it authorizes ICE to arrest and detain suspected removable aliens.