Opinion ID: 2791770
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Threat of Employment Sanctions

Text: Finally, the Agents allege that they have suffered an injury in fact by virtue of being threatened with employment sanctions if they do not comply with the terms of the Directive. Specifically, the Agents argue that they are threatened with employment sanctions if they detain a DACA-eligible alien for a removal proceeding. The district court found that the facts alleged in the Agents’ complaint were sufficient to demonstrate that they are threatened with employment sanctions; and these allegations were sufficient to support the Agents’ claims of injury in fact to establish standing in this suit. For the following reasons, we disagree. As we stated above, Plaintiffs must allege an injury that is “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” 37 The threat of a future injury can suffice as a sufficient injury in fact, but only if it is “certainly impending.” 38 “[W]e have repeatedly reiterated that . . . ‘[a]llegations of possible future injury’ [is] not sufficient.” 39 We begin with the observation that Plaintiffs have provided no evidence that any agent has been sanctioned or is threatened with employment sanctions for detaining an alien and refusing to grant deferred action under 37 Susan B. Anthony List, 134 S. Ct. at 2341 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560). 38Clapper, 133 S. Ct. at 1147 (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 565 n.2 (internal quotation marks omitted)). 39 Id. (quoting Whitmore, 495 U.S. at 158 (internal quotation marks omitted)) (emphasis in original); See also Lujan, 504 U.S. at 565 n. 2. 14 Case: 14-10049 Document: 00512995490 Page: 15 Date Filed: 04/07/2015 No. 14-10049 DACA. 40 The complaint alleges that on one occasion an agent’s supervisor instructed the agent to defer action under the Directive to an alien, and the agent refused to follow the supervisor’s instruction. The agent received a nondisciplinary letter admonishing him for refusing to follow his supervisor’s instruction. This admonishment for refusing to follow a supervisor’s instruction does not support Plaintiffs’ claim that they are threatened with employment sanctions for failing to exercise their discretion to grant deferred action to an alien who appears to satisfy DACA’s criteria. This brings us to a fundamental flaw in the Agents’ argument. The Agents’ reading of the Directive — that they are always required to grant deferred action and cannot detain an alien who may meet the Directive’s criteria — is erroneous. The Napolitano Directive makes it clear that the Agents shall exercise their discretion in deciding to grant deferred action, and this judgment should be exercised on a case-by-case basis: [Our Nation’s immigration laws] are not designed to be blindly enforced without consideration given to the individual circumstances of each case.