Opinion ID: 431115
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Judicial Review of Executive Discretion

Text: 51 Although we hold that the Haitian plaintiffs cannot challenge the refusal of executive officials to parole them on the basis of the fifth amendment's equal protection guarantee, this is not the end of our inquiry. That the authority of the political branches in this area is plenary does not mean that it is wholly immune from judicial review. As two leading commentators have noted, the Executive's discretionary authority concerning parole decisions is broad, but not unlimited. It may be subjected to judicial scrutiny on a charge that discretion was arbitrarily exercised or withheld. 1 C. Gordon & H. Rosenfield, supra, at Sec. 2.54. This principle has been recognized by our colleagues on the second and fourth circuits, who have held that an executive official's decision to deny parole to an unadmitted alien may be subject to judicial review for abuse of discretion. Bertrand v. Sava, 684 F.2d 204, 210 (2d Cir.1982); Palma v. Verdeyen, 676 F.2d 100, 105 (4th Cir.1982); see also Pierre, 547 F.2d at 1289. 52 Bertrand in particular presents a fact situation highly similar to that at issue in this case. The Haitian plaintiffs in Bertrand alleged that the INS district director discriminated against them in the exercise of his parole authority, and contended that his action constituted an abuse of discretion since he did not claim to act pursuant to any national policy adopted by the political branches of the federal government. The second circuit concluded that it did have the authority to review the decisions of the district director, reasoning that: 53 Discretion vested by statute in agents of the federal government is rarely, if ever, entirely free from judicial review for abuse. The principle that discretionary power is not absolute power is fundamental to our constitutional form of government. The discretionary power to parole unadmitted aliens granted by statute to the Attorney General, and delegated by him to INS District Directors, is broad, but it is not without limits. 54 684 F.2d at 210. 55 The district court below reached a similar destination by a different route, suggesting that [p]laintiffs are persons within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and they cannot be denied their liberty without due process of law. Louis III, 544 F.Supp. at 990. We have rejected the argument that the entry doctrine fiction is inapplicable in the context of parole decisions, so we conclude that the district court erred to the extent that it based its jurisdiction to review these determinations on constitutional grounds. The basis for jurisdiction here must be found elsewhere, in the principle that agencies must respect the statutory limits on their discretion, see, e.g., Lloyd Sabaudo, 287 U.S. at 335, 53 S.Ct. at 170; Mahler, 264 U.S. at 44, 44 S.Ct. at 288; Gegiow, 239 U.S. at 9, 36 S.Ct. at 3; see also supra note 11, and in the recognition that agency deviation from its own regulations and procedures may justify judicial relief in a case otherwise properly before the court. Haitian Refugee Center v. Smith [HRC], 676 F.2d 1023, 1041 n. 48 (5th Cir. Unit B 1982); 27 see also United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U.S. 260, 267, 74 S.Ct. 499, 503, 98 L.Ed. 681 (1954). 56 The discretionary decisions of executive officials in the immigration area are therefore subject to judicial review, but the scope of that review is extremely limited. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that the power over aliens is of a political character and therefore subject only to narrow judicial review. Mow Sun Wong, 426 U.S. at 101 n. 21, 96 S.Ct. at 1904 n. 21; see also Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 793 n. 5, 97 S.Ct. 1473, 1478 n. 5, 52 L.Ed.2d 50 (1977) (Our cases reflect acceptance of a limited judicial responsibility under the Constitution ... with respect to the power of Congress to regulate the admission and exclusion of aliens....). Because the political branches share concurrent authority over immigration matters, it follows that both executive and congressional actions are to be regulated by the judiciary according to the same narrow standard of review. See Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. at 81-82, 96 S.Ct. at 1892-1893 (The reasons that preclude judicial review of political questions also dictate a narrow standard of review of decisions made by Congress or the President in the area of immigration....) (emphasis added); Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 589, 72 S.Ct. 512, 519, 96 L.Ed. 586 (1952) (immigration matters are so exclusively entrusted to the political branches of government as to be largely immune from judicial inquiry or interference) (emphasis added). 57 The Supreme Court's ruling in Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 92 S.Ct. 2576, 33 L.Ed.2d 683 (1972) underlines the judiciary's limited role in reviewing the discretionary decisions of executive officials in the immigration field. In that case the Court considered a challenge to the Attorney General's refusal to grant a waiver permitting a foreign Marxist to visit the United States on a lecture tour. Although the first amendment rights of American citizens were implicated by the Attorney General's decision, the Court held that when the Executive exercises this [delegated] power negatively on the basis of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason, the courts will neither look behind the exercise of that discretion, nor test it by balancing its justification against the First Amendment interests of those who seek personal communication with the applicant. 408 U.S. at 770, 92 S.Ct. at 2585 (emphasis added). Similarly, the second circuit stressed in Bertrand that 58 as long as the Attorney General exercises his broad discretion under 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1182(d)(5) to determine whether unadmitted aliens may be paroled pending final determination of their applications for admission to the United States, his decision may not be challenged on the grounds that the discretion was not exercised fairly in the view of a reviewing court or that it gave too much weight to certain factors relevant to the risk of abscondence and too little to others. 684 F.2d at 212. 28 59 Thus, under the approach taken by the Supreme Court in Kleindienst v. Mandel and adopted by the second circuit in Bertrand, the critical question a court must answer when reviewing an alien's challenge to the denial of his request for parole is whether the immigration officials involved were acting within the scope of their delegated powers. As we noted in section II.A. above, Congress has delegated remarkably broad discretion to executive officials under the INA, and these grants of statutory authority are particularly sweeping in the context of parole. In exercising his parole discretion, the Attorney General is simply instructed that he may ... in his discretion parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe for emergent reasons or for reasons deemed strictly in the public interest any alien applying for admission.... 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1182(d)(5)(A). Logically, of course, the obverse of the grant of discretionary authority in Sec. 1182(d)(5) to parole an excluded alien is a grant of authority to deny parole. Palma, 676 F.2d at 104. This grant can certainly be inferred from 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1225(b), which provides that immigration officials shall detain [e]very alien ... who may not appear ... to be clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to land, and 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1227(a), which permits the Attorney General to continue to detain an excluded alien if he concludes that immediate deportation is not practicable or proper. 29 In view of these provisions, immigration officials clearly have the authority to deny parole to unadmitted aliens if they can advance a facially legitimate and bona fide reason for doing so. 60 The Haitian plaintiffs contend that such a reason was lacking in this case, submitting that they were the victims of national origin discrimination. Plaintiffs and the district court both stressed that the challenged actions here were those of executive officials rather than Congress, apparently believing that the Executive is clearly prohibited from adopting policies on its own motion that discriminate on the basis of national origin in the immigration field while Congress is just as clearly permitted to do so. Because the government has contended throughout this case that its new detention policy does not discriminate on the basis of national origin, resolution of this question is not essential to our holding; however, we believe that responsible executive officials such as the President or Attorney General possess this authority under the INA. 30 Nevertheless, since the discretion of lower-level immigration officials is circumscribed not only by legislative enactments but also by the instructions of their superiors in the executive branch, our conclusion that the Executive's policy is consistent with the power delegated by Congress does not end the process of judicial inquiry here. The district court must still determine whether the actions of lower-level officials in the field conform to the policy statements of their superiors in Washington. For as the second circuit correctly noted in Bertrand: 61 [T]he constitutional authority of the political branches of the federal government to adopt immigration policies based on criteria that are not acceptable elsewhere in our public life would not permit an immigration official, in the absence of such policies, to apply neutral regulations to discriminate on [the basis of race and national origin]. 62 684 F.2d at 212 n. 12 (quoting Vigile v. Sava, 535 F.Supp. 1002, 1016 (S.D.N.Y.1982)). 63 The district court on remand should conduct such proceedings as are necessary to determine whether there exists a facially legitimate and bona fide reason for the government's decision to deny parole to the class members presently in detention, remembering that it is not the court's proper role to disregard the [stated criteria employed] or to substitute its own policy preferences for those of the official vested by law with discretionary authority to act on requests for parole. Id. at 217. The district court should consider (1) whether local immigration officials in fact exercised their discretion under Sec. 1182(d)(5)(A) to make individualized determinations and (2) whether the criteria employed in making those determinations were consistent with the statutory grant of discretion by Congress, the regulations promulgated by the agencies involved, and the policies which had been established by the President and the Attorney General. If the court should find that low-level immigration officials have discriminated on the basis of national origin despite the adoption of a contrary policy by their superiors in the executive branch, such conduct would constitute an abuse of discretion that would justify appropriate relief. Without expressing any opinion on this score, we note that the district court may wish to reconsider whether class treatment is still an appropriate vehicle for making the determinations set forth above. We therefore remand for further proceedings in light of this opinion.