Opinion ID: 786761
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Applicability of Entry Fiction to Wong's Constitutional Claims

Text: 88 The INS officials do not contest that Wong was entitled to constitutional protections on her return despite her brief departure. They argue only that the extent of Wong's constitutional rights was not clearly established, because she was an alien lacking entry papers upon her return. As a result, the INS officials maintain, a reasonable official would not have known that Wong was entitled to the full panoply of protections offered by the Constitution. 89 Despite the limited scope of the officials' argument, we must address to some degree the extent of Wong's entitlement to constitutional rights. Saucier counsels that we must first determine whether a constitutional right has adequately been alleged by the plaintiff before turning to the clearly established prong. See 533 U.S. at 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151 ([T]he requisites of a qualified immunity defense must be considered in proper sequence.); Doe v. Lebbos, 348 F.3d 820, 828 (9th Cir.2003) (noting that although the parties did not brief the issue of whether the plaintiff had adequately alleged the violation of a constitutional right, [w]e are obligated under Saucier ... to address this issue at the outset of our qualified immunity analysis). In light of our preceding discussion concluding that only Wong's discrimination claims continue to be viable, see supra at 969, we limit our substantive constitutional analysis to her entitlement to the rights implicated by those claims. 23 90 The Supreme Court has long recognized a distinction between the constitutional rights afforded those who have effected an entry into the U.S., whether legally or otherwise, and those considered never to have entered. See Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 693, 121 S.Ct. 2491, 150 L.Ed.2d 653 (2001); Xi v. U.S. INS, 298 F.3d 832, 837 (9th Cir.2002). Aliens inside the U.S., regardless of whether their presence here is temporary or unlawful, are entitled to certain constitutional protections unavailable to those outside our borders. See Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 693-94, 121 S.Ct. 2491; see also Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982) (Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a `person' in any ordinary sense of that term. Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as `persons' guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886) ([The Fourteenth Amendment's] provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality.). 91 At the same time, under the entry fiction recognized in Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 73 S.Ct. 625, 97 L.Ed. 956 (1953), an alien seeking admission has not entered the United States, even if the alien is in fact physically present. 24 See id. at 213, 215, 73 S.Ct. 625; see also Kaplan v. Tod, 267 U.S. 228, 230, 45 S.Ct. 257, 69 L.Ed. 585 (1925) (though present in the United States, excluded alien was still in theory of law at the boundary line and had gained no foothold in the United States). Applying this legal fiction, Mezei held that the procedural due process rights of an alien detained on Ellis Island were not violated when he was excluded without a hearing. See Mezei, 345 U.S. at 214, 73 S.Ct. 625. Mezei explained: 92 It is true that aliens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law. But an alien on the threshold of initial entry stands on a different footing: Whatever the procedure authorized by Congress is, it is due process as far as an alien denied entry is concerned. 93 Id. at 212, 73 S.Ct. 625 (internal citations omitted). 94 The entry fiction thus appears determinative of the procedural rights of aliens with respect to their applications for admission. The entry doctrine has not, however, been applied, by the Supreme Court or by this court, to deny all constitutional rights to non-admitted aliens. 25 As Barrera-Echavarria v. Rison, 44 F.3d 1441 (9th Cir.1995) (en banc), 26 explained, [w]hile it is ... clear that excludable aliens have no procedural due process rights in the admission process, the law is not settled with regard to nonprocedural rights. Id. at 1449; see also Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 693, 121 S.Ct. 2491 (It is well established that certain constitutional protections available to persons inside the United States are unavailable to aliens outside of our geographic borders.) (emphasis added); id. at 703-04, 121 S.Ct. 2491 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (noting that the entry fiction only makes perfect sense ... with regard to the question of what procedures are necessary to prevent entry, as opposed to what procedures are necessary to eject a person already in the United States). Barrera-Echavarria then went on to consider specifically whether such aliens have a constitutional right to be free from extended detention, concluding that they do not. 27 See 44 F.3d at 1449. 95 Our sister circuits have likewise posited that the entry fiction is pertinent mostly with respect to the narrow question of the scope of procedural rights available in the admissions process, and is not necessarily applicable with regard to other constitutional rights. In Lynch v. Cannatella, 810 F.2d 1363 (5th Cir.1987), for example, the Fifth Circuit held that the entry fiction determines the aliens' rights with regard to immigration and deportation proceedings[,] but does not limit the right of excludable aliens detained within United States territory to humane treatment. Id. at 1373. 96 Similarly, the Third Circuit has recognized that [e]ven an excludable alien is a `person' for purposes of the Fifth Amendment and is thus entitled to substantive due process. Ngo v. INS, 192 F.3d 390, 396 (3d Cir.1999); see also Rosales-Garcia v. Holland, 322 F.3d 386, 410 (6th Cir.) (en banc) (The fact that excludable aliens are entitled to less process ... does not mean that they are not at all protected by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.), cert. denied, 539 U.S. 941, 123 S.Ct. 2607, 156 L.Ed.2d 627 (2003); 28 Sierra v. INS, 258 F.3d 1213, 1218 n. 3 (10th Cir.2001) (noting that the entry fiction applies to procedural due process challenges such as Sierra's. This case does not involve, and we do not address, a substantive due process challenge). 97 The decisions of courts confronted with the everyday reality of the great number of non-admitted aliens living and working in the American community reflect an understanding that such aliens are undeniably persons entitled to constitutional protection, especially with respect to areas not implicating the government's plenary power to regulate immigration. Several courts have held, for example, that non-admitted aliens in the criminal justice system may not be punished prior to an adjudication of guilt in conformance with due process of law, a Fifth and Sixth Amendment safeguard available to citizens and aliens alike. See Alvarez-Mendez v. Stock, 941 F.2d 956, 962 & n. 6 (9th Cir.1991) (considering whether detention of excluded Cuban refugee violated his substantive due process rights, and noting that Fifth and Sixth Amendments apply to aliens as well as citizens); Lynch, 810 F.2d at 1374 ([W]hatever due process rights excludable aliens may be denied by virtue of their status, they are entitled under the due process clauses of the fifth and fourteenth amendments to be free of gross physical abuse at the hands of state or federal officials.). Courts have held that non-admitted aliens are entitled to Miranda warnings prior to custodial interrogations. See, e.g., United States v. Moya, 74 F.3d 1117, 1119 (11th Cir.1996); United States v. Henry, 604 F.2d 908, 914 (5th Cir.1979). 98 The Supreme Court has also indicated that the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause extends to non-admitted aliens. In Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 96 S.Ct. 1883, 48 L.Ed.2d 478 (1976), the Court considered whether a statute conditioning eligibility for medicare benefits on five years of continuous residence and admission for permanent residence violated the equal protection rights of Cuban refugees granted temporary parole under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5). See 426 U.S. at 75 n. 7, 77-83, 96 S.Ct. 1883. Mathews explained that 99 [t]here are literally millions of aliens within the jurisdiction of the United States. The Fifth Amendment, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, protects every one of these persons from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Even one whose presence in this country is unlawful, involuntary, or transitory is entitled to that constitutional protection. 100 Id. at 77, 96 S.Ct. 1883 (citations omitted). The Court's sweeping language clearly applied to aliens temporarily paroled into the United States, as two of the plaintiffs were so paroled. See id. at 75 n. 7, 96 S.Ct. 1883. Mathews' significance for present purposes is that the entry fiction does not preclude substantive constitutional protection, including protection under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, for aliens paroled into the country after having been stopped at the border. 101 The cases discussed above indicate that the entry doctrine does not categorically exclude non-admitted aliens from all constitutional coverage, including coverage by equal protection guarantees. Recognizing such a logical endpoint to the entry fiction prevents its application from becoming an exercise inconsistent with our basic constitutional values. It also vitiates the perverse incentive that would otherwise exist for aliens to evade immigration checkpoints altogether and thereby acquire constitutional protections. The entry fiction is best seen, instead, as a fairly narrow doctrine that primarily determines the procedures that the executive branch must follow before turning an immigrant away. Otherwise, the doctrine would allow any number of abuses to be deemed constitutionally permissible merely by labelling certain persons as non-persons. As Justice Marshall forcefully articulated in his dissenting opinion in Jean v. Nelson, 472 U.S. 846, 105 S.Ct. 2992, 86 L.Ed.2d 664 (1985), addressing a question the majority declined to reach: 102 [T]he principle that unadmitted aliens have no constitutionally protected rights defies rationality. Under this view, the Attorney General, for example, could invoke legitimate immigration goals to justify a decision to stop feeding all detained aliens. He might argue that scarce immigration resources could be better spent by hiring additional agents to patrol our borders than by providing food for detainees. Surely we would not condone mass starvation. 103 Id. at 874, 105 S.Ct. 2992 (Marshall, J., dissenting); see also Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 704, 121 S.Ct. 2491 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (I am sure[deportable aliens] cannot be tortured, as well....). 104 In light of these considerations, Justice Marshall concluded in Jean that Mezei's determination with respect to procedural due process rights is not applicable to the separate constitutional question whether the Government may establish a policy of making parole decisions on the basis of race or national origin without articulating any justification for its discriminatory conduct. Jean, 472 U.S. at 879, 105 S.Ct. 2992 (Marshall, J., dissenting). In his view, in the absence of any reasons closely related to immigration concerns, the government may not discriminate against unadmitted aliens on the basis of race or national origin. Id. at 881-82, 105 S.Ct. 2992. 105 We are persuaded by the considerations outlined above, and by Justice Marshall's opinion addressing essentially the same question presented here, that the entry fiction does not preclude non-admitted aliens such as Wong from coming within the ambit of the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause. We cannot countenance that the Constitution would permit immigration officials to engage in such behavior as rounding up all immigration parolees of a particular race solely because of a consideration such as skin color. 29 Although Congress has `plenary power' to create immigration law, and ... the judicial branch must defer to executive and legislative branch decisionmaking in that area, .... that power is subject to important constitutional limitations. Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 695, 121 S.Ct. 2491; cf. Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 793 n. 5, 97 S.Ct. 1473, 52 L.Ed.2d 50 (1977) (Our cases reflect acceptance of a limited judicial responsibility under the Constitution even with respect to the power of Congress to regulate the admission and exclusion of aliens....). We can imagine no proper governmental interest furthered by the purely invidious discrimination alleged to have been carried out by individual INS officers in this case. 106 Were there any doubt regarding this general proposition, our decision in this case that the allegations of racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination with regard to decisions concerning temporary parole and adjustment of status are sufficient to state a claim of constitutional violation might still be compelled by both the procedural posture of this case and several considerations particular to Wong. Again, Wong's equal protection claim cannot be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations. Swierkiewicz, 534 U.S. at 514, 122 S.Ct. 992 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Conley, 355 U.S. at 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99 ([A] complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.). Wong alleges that she resided in the United States continuously for seven years, before her brief departure undertaken under exigent circumstances. She left the country for only eighteen days — a period far briefer than Mezei's protracted stay abroad of nineteen months. See Mezei, 345 U.S. at 214, 73 S.Ct. 625; Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 693, 121 S.Ct. 2491 (discussing Mezei's extended departure). More importantly, Wong alleges that her failure to obtain advance parole or a waiver of the requirement was due to invidious discrimination by immigration officials prior to her departure, at which time she undisputedly had a right to be free from such discrimination. 30 See Plyler, 457 U.S. at 215, 102 S.Ct. 2382. Had Wong been granted such a waiver, she would have returned to the United States with the same immigration status she held prior to her departure, and her entitlement to equal protection would have been unquestioned. Under these circumstances, Wong would more properly be viewed as an alien to whom the entry fiction does not apply, as she would have been allowed to enter on her return, and therefore as an alien who is for constitutional purposes within the United States ... whether [her] presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent. Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 693, 121 S.Ct. 2491. We are for that reason as well unable to conclude that it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations. Swierkiewicz, 534 U.S. at 514, 122 S.Ct. 992 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 107 We therefore conclude that Wong's allegations of invidious discrimination are sufficient at this pleading stage to make out a Fifth Amendment discrimination claim arising out of the INS officials' actions with respect to revocation of Wong's temporary parole status and post-return rejection of her adjustment of status applications.