Opinion ID: 110985
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: Both Houses of Congress [4] contend that we are without jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1252 to entertain the INS appeal in No. 80-1832. Section 1252 provides: Any party may appeal to the Supreme Court from an interlocutory or final judgment, decree or order of any court of the United States, the United States District Court for the District of the Canal Zone, the District Court of Guam and the District Court of the Virgin Islands and any court of record of Puerto Rico, holding an Act of Congress unconstitutional in any civil action, suit, or proceeding to which the United States or any of its agencies, or any officer or employee thereof, as such officer or employee, is a party. Parker v. Levy, 417 U. S. 733, 742, n. 10 (1974), makes clear that a court of appeals is a court of the United States for purposes of § 1252. It is likewise clear that the proceeding below was a civil action, suit, or proceeding, that the INS is an agency of the United States and was a party to the proceeding below, and that that proceeding held an Act of Congress  namely, the one-House veto provision in § 244(c)(2)  unconstitutional. The express requisites for an appeal under § 1252, therefore, have been met. In motions to dismiss the INS appeal, the congressional parties [5] direct attention, however, to our statement that [a] party who receives all that he has sought generally is not aggrieved by the judgment affording the relief and cannot appeal from it. Deposit Guaranty National Bank v. Roper, 445 U. S. 326, 333 (1980). Here, the INS sought the invalidation of § 244(c)(2), and the Court of Appeals granted that relief. Both Houses contend that the INS has already received what it sought from the Court of Appeals, is not an aggrieved party, and therefore cannot appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeals. We cannot agree. The INS was ordered by one House of Congress to deport Chadha. As we have set out more fully, supra, at 928, the INS concluded that it had no power to rule on the constitutionality of that order and accordingly proceeded to implement it. Chadha's appeal challenged that decision and the INS presented the Executive's views on the constitutionality of the House action to the Court of Appeals. But the INS brief to the Court of Appeals did not alter the agency's decision to comply with the House action ordering deportation of Chadha. The Court of Appeals set aside the deportation proceedings and ordered the Attorney General to cease and desist from taking any steps to deport Chadha; steps that the Attorney General would have taken were it not for that decision. At least for purposes of deciding whether the INS is any party within the grant of appellate jurisdiction in § 1252, we hold that the INS was sufficiently aggrieved by the Court of Appeals decision prohibiting it from taking action it would otherwise take. It is apparent that Congress intended that this Court take notice of cases that meet the technical prerequisites of § 1252; in other cases where an Act of Congress is held unconstitutional by a federal court, review in this Court is available only by writ of certiorari. When an agency of the United States is a party to a case in which the Act of Congress it administers is held unconstitutional, it is an aggrieved party for purposes of taking an appeal under § 1252. The agency's status as an aggrieved party under § 1252 is not altered by the fact that the Executive may agree with the holding that the statute in question is unconstitutional. The appeal in No. 80-1832 is therefore properly before us. [6]