Opinion ID: 708223
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fitness: Concrete Effect and Adequacy of Agency Record

Text: 44 The Supreme Court recognized that an agency action may result in immediate adverse consequences or pose a realistic threat of such harm. CSS, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2495. Challenges to the promulgation of a regulation, as in CSS, raise ripeness concerns that the courts will become involved in abstract disagreements over administrative policies. Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 148, 87 S.Ct. at 1515. Here, however, the INS' determination to adjudicate nondiscretionary statutory entitlements on the basis of undisclosed information represents a concrete controversy: by applying for legalization, each alien has already taken whatever affirmative steps ... he could take before the INS blocked his path. CSS, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2496. 45 Furthermore, agency actions that pre-determine the future action of the agency generate a sufficiently concrete effect to be cognizable by the courts. See, e.g., Portland Audubon Society v. Babbitt, 998 F.2d 705, 707 (9th Cir.1993) (reviewing the Secretary of Interior's decision not to supplement an environmental impact statement with new information relating to the effects of logging on the northern spotted owl). In Portland Audubon, we held that the decision was ripe for review prior to the initiation of individual sales because, to the extent these [agency actions] pre-determine the future, the Secretary's failure to comply with [the] NEPA [statute] represents a concrete injury which would undermine any future challenges by plaintiffs. Id. at 708. The Notices of Intent to Deny similarly pre-determined the future and concretely affected Barakat and Sharif by subjecting them to a legalization determination based on secret information. 46 Moreover, these claims are ripe because the factfinding necessary for determination of the claim can only occur at the district court. See, e.g., CSS, --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2499-2500 (recognizing the importance of an administrative record that would permit review on appeal from a deportation order); Tooloee v. INS, 722 F.2d 1434, 1437-38 (9th Cir.1983) (same). In the present case, the district court appropriately applied the Mathews balancing test, in order to determine whether the administrative procedure satisfies due process. Under the test, the court must weigh: 47 First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail. 48 Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 903, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). After ordering discovery, the district court granted the permanent injunction based on factual development in the following areas: 49 1) the importance to the plaintiffs of their immigration applications, 2) the risk that the plaintiffs will be erroneously deprived of temporary resident or other legalized status, 3) the likelihood that allowing access to the classified information would reduce the risk of an erroneous deprivation, and 4) the Government's interest in keeping certain information confidential because of national security concerns, together with the Government's interest in denying legalization to people who are members of groups such as the PFLP. 50 Because these issues do not come within the scope of the IRCA review process, the legalization and deportation proceedings cannot generate a record for review. See HRC, 498 U.S. at 493, 111 S.Ct. at 896 (noting that the administrative review process would not generate an adequate record for review of due process claims such as lack of translators). No facts relevant to the due process determination can be adduced at the agency hearing because that hearing proceeds under the premise that use of undisclosed information against the alien is legal. See, e.g., Rafeedie, 880 F.2d at 516-17 (stating that any 'factual record' that [a hearing] would generate is unlikely to be more than a catalogue of the Government's untested allegations and [the alien's] not directly responsive denials). 51