Opinion ID: 6337736
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The district court properly denied Hernandez-

Text: Garcia’s suppression motion because the 2016 NDAA authorizes the Marine Corps surveillance. After Reconstruction, Congress enacted the Posse Comitatus Act to “eliminate the direct active use of Federal troops by civil law authorities.” United States v. Banks, 539 F.2d 14, 16 (9th Cir. 1976). Under the current version of the law, military personnel cannot assist in civilian law enforcement unless expressly authorized by Congress: Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. 18 U.S.C. § 1385. Here, the Posse Comitatus Act posed no obstacle to the U.S. Marines assistance because Section 1059 of the 2016 NDAA expressly authorizes surveillance by the military at the southern border. Section 1059(a) directs the Secretary of Defense to “provide assistance to [Border Patrol] for purposes of increasing ongoing efforts to secure the southern land border of the United States.” 2016 NDAA § 1059(a). The military may deploy “ground-based surveillance systems to support continuous surveillance of the southern land border of the United States.” Id. § 1059(c)(2). And that is exactly happened here. UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA 11 Despite § 1059’s directive, Hernandez-Garcia maintains that the Marine Corps surveillance leading to his arrest was unauthorized. He again claims that the 2016 NDAA was a lapsed appropriations act no longer in effect at the time of his arrest. We reject that argument. Section 1059 of the 2016 NDAA remains in force. In last year’s 2021 NDAA, Congress made minor amendments to § 1059’s congressional reporting requirements, confirming that the law remains in effect. See William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, Pub. L. 116-283, 134 Stat. 3388 (2021). Congress would have no reason to amend § 1059 if it was a lapsed appropriations act. The 2021 NDAA thus provides explicit evidence that § 1059 continues in full effect. See McClure v. United States, 95 F.2d 744, 750 (9th Cir. 1938) (“Where an amendment leaves certain portions of the original act unchanged, such portions are continued in force with the same meaning.”); see also United States v. Rios-Montano, 438 F. Supp. 3d 1149, 1153 (S.D. Cal. 2020) (“Congress has also made substantive changes to the law and enacted new, longstanding programs through other NDAAs.”). Further, § 1059—unlike other provisions in the 2016 NDAA—has no termination date, confirming that Congress intended § 1059 to remain operative beyond fiscal year 2016. See Dep’t of Homeland Sec. v. MacLean, 574 U.S. 383, 391 (2015) (“Congress generally acts intentionally when it uses particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another.”). Hernandez-Garcia also argues that an earlier statute, 10 U.S.C. § 274, defines the scope of Congressionally authorized military border surveillance, and that the surveillance here exceeds that prior limit. Section 274 permits Department of Defense personnel to be “made 12 UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA available to a civilian law enforcement agency” to “operate equipment” for the: Detection, monitoring, and communication of the movement of surface traffic outside of the geographic boundary of the United States and within the United States not to exceed 25 miles of the boundary if the initial detection occurred outside of the boundary. 10 U.S.C. § 274(b)(2) (emphasis added). According to Hernandez-Garcia, because the Marines “initially detected” him 10–15 feet inside the United States, they exceeded their authority under § 274’s limitation of detection “outside” of the United States border. Put another way, he argues that the previously enacted § 274 trumps § 1059 of the NDAA, invoking the “generalspecific” canon. See Hellon & Assocs., Inc. v. Phoenix Resort Corp., 958 F.2d 295, 297 (9th Cir. 1992). Under this canon of construction, “the later and more specific statute usually controls” if two statutes conflict. Id. “[L]egislators are often . . . unfamiliar with enactments of their predecessors” and may “unwittingly contradict them.” Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 185 (2012). Thus, if the newer statute “comes closer to addressing the very problem posed by the case at hand,” it is as if the “later-enacted statute . . . effectively repeal[ed]” the conflicting provisions of the earlier one. Id. at 183–85. According to Hernandez-Garcia, § 1059 and § 274 conflict because the former permits surveillance of individuals no matter where the initial detection occurred, while the latter requires the initial detection to occur outside the United States. And § 274 is supposedly more specific UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA 13 because it allows the military to surveil “with respect to . . . a criminal violation,” while § 1059 is silent about criminal violations. Compare 10 U.S.C. § 274(b)(1)(A), with 2016 NDAA § 1059. We agree that the two statutes conflict because of § 274’s “initial detection” limitation. But the general-specific canon cuts against Hernandez-Garcia’s position. The 2016 NDAA’s § 1059 is in fact more specific than § 274 as applied here, so § 1059 takes precedence over § 274. First, while § 274 contains only general language about “detection” and “monitoring,” § 1059 specifically authorizes the Marine Corps to surveil the California-Mexico border from a scoping truck. Second, while § 274 generally permits assistance to any “Federal, State, and local civilian law enforcement officials,” § 1059 authorizes the military to assist only a single federal agency, Customs and Border Patrol. Third, § 274 allows general surveillance of any United States boundary, while § 1059 approves surveillance of only the “southern land border.” Finally, § 274 broadly allows the operation of “equipment,” while § 1059 specifically directs the deployment of “ground-based surveillance systems” such as scoping trucks. Compare 10 U.S.C. § 274(a)–(b), with 2016 NDAA § 1059(a) and (c). 3 Thus, we hold that the 2016 NDAA’s § 1059 is 3 In any event, the specificity in § 274 that Hernandez-Garcia seizes upon—assistance with criminal violations—has little relevance here. See 10 U.S.C. § 274(b)(1)(A). The government’s decision to criminally charge Hernandez-Garcia with illegal reentry is separate from the critical issue here: whether Congress authorized Marine Corps surveillance that enabled Border Patrol to locate him. And even if § 274’s specificity about criminal violations was relevant, Hernandez-Garcia’s reliance on the “general-specific” canon would still be misplaced because then both statutes would be “specific in certain respects and general in others,” so “the general-specific canon [would] not help to clearly discern 14 UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA more specific than—and thus trumps—the general provisions in § 274. We also reject Hernandez-Garcia’s contention that applying § 1059 here would render § 274 superfluous. See D. Ginsberg & Sons, Inc. v. Popkin, 285 U.S. 204, 208 (1932) (“[I]f possible, effect shall be given to every clause and part of a statute.”). Section 274’s “initial detection” limitation would still apply if the military were surveilling other United States boundaries (i.e., the non-Southern border) or aiding other law enforcement agencies (i.e., nonBorder Patrol agencies). See Scalia & Garner, supra at 185 (“The specific provision does not negate the general one entirely, but only in its application to the situation that the specific provision covers.”). Congress passed § 1059 to explicitly address acute security issues amid the surge of migrants at the southern border. In doing do, Congress was not hamstrung by § 274’s constraints. See United States v. Juvenile Male, 670 F.3d 999, 1007–08 (9th Cir. 2012) (holding earlier statute prohibiting identification of juvenile delinquents does not prevent application of a later statute specifically requiring juvenile sex offenders to join a registry). 4 We thus hold that § 1059 of the 2016 NDAA authorized the Marine Corps’ surveillance of Hernandez-Garcia at the Congress’s intent as to which section should take precedence here.” See Perez-Guzman v. Lynch, 835 F.3d 1066, 1075–76 (9th Cir. 2016) (emphasis in original). 4 While the parties have not raised it, 10 U.S.C. § 284(b)(6) allows the Secretary of Defense to provide support for “detection” and monitoring” outside the U.S. border to combat “counterdrug activities” and “transnational organized crime.” It does not apply here because of its limitation to certain criminal activities. UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA 15 southern border, and that the district court rightly denied his suppression motion based on the alleged violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. 5