Opinion ID: 708223
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Selective Enforcement Justifies a Preliminary Injunction

Text: 57 The district court determined that the Six were likely to succeed on their selective enforcement claims. We reiterate here the prima facie elements of the claim: (1) others similarly situated have not been prosecuted (disparate impact) and (2) the prosecution is based on an impermissible motive (discriminatory motive). United States v. Aguilar, 883 F.2d 662, 705 (9th Cir.1989) (quoting United States v. Lee, 786 F.2d 951, 957 (9th Cir.1986)), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1046, 111 S.Ct. 751, 112 L.Ed.2d 771 (1991); see also Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 608, 105 S.Ct. 1524, 1531, 84 L.Ed.2d 547 (1985). 58
59 Crucial to the analysis is the establishment of the appropriate control group--a group that is similarly situated in all respects to those who claim selective enforcement, except for the attribute on which the selective enforcement claim rests. Aguilar, 883 F.2d at 706-07; United States v. Steele, 461 F.2d 1148, 1150 (9th Cir.1972) (finding an inference of discrimination where the defendant, who was a vocal advocate of non-compliance with census laws, was prosecuted while six others, who were not vocal though equally against compliance, were not prosecuted). 60 The district court selected as a control group those aliens who have either violated non-ideological provisions or are associated with terrorist organizations whose views the government tolerates. The factor thus isolated is association with governmentally disfavored political views, the ground on which the six aliens claim they are being prosecuted. The court found that the government's proffered evidence of prosecution of similarly situated individuals was insufficient to defeat the disparate impact claim, because the cases involved individuals who had actually committed terrorist acts, rather than persons who merely associated with terrorist organizations. The court's conclusion that the aliens presented prima facie evidence of disparate impact is not clearly erroneous. 61
62 The court also found that the statements of Webster and Odencrantz, which reveal that the aliens have been targeted because of their membership in terrorist organizations, established the prima facie element of impermissible motive, because the Government acknowledges that United States citizens cannot be arrested for the same behavior. Thus, the gravamen of this case is the legal question whether aliens may be deported because of their associational activities with particular disfavored groups, or whether aliens who reside within the jurisdiction of the United States are entitled to the full panoply of First Amendment rights of expression and association. We review de novo issues of law underlying the district court's preliminary injunction. Miller, 19 F.3d at 455. 63
64 The Government does not dispute that the First Amendment protects a citizen's right to associate with a political organization; even if that association includes ties with groups that advocate illegal conduct or engage in illegal acts, the power of the Government to penalize association is narrowly circumscribed. [T]he right of association is a 'basic constitutional freedom' ... [that] lies at the foundation of a free society. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 25, 96 S.Ct. 612, 637, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976) (citations omitted). Government cannot deny[ ] rights and privileges solely because of a citizen's association with an unpopular organization. Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 185-86, 92 S.Ct. 2338, 2348, 33 L.Ed.2d 266 (1972). 65 Under the standard enunciated by the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969), advocacy may be punished only if it is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. Id. at 447, 89 S.Ct. at 1829. The Government must establish a knowing affiliation and a specific intent to further those illegal aims. Healy, 408 U.S. at 186, 92 S.Ct. at 2348. Guilt by association alone violates the First Amendment. Robel, 389 U.S. at 265-66, 88 S.Ct. at 424-25. 66 Here, the Government has not attempted to show that the aliens' association with the PFLP satisfies the currently applicable Brandenburg standard; instead, it argues that aliens are not entitled to the same First Amendment protections that citizens enjoy. 67
68 The Supreme Court has consistently distinguished between aliens in the United States and those seeking to enter from outside the country, and has accorded to aliens living in the United States those protections of the Bill of Rights that are not, by the text of the Constitution, restricted to citizens. Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U.S. 590, 596 n. 5, 73 S.Ct. 472, 477 n. 5, 97 L.Ed. 576 (1953). Accordingly, the Court has explicitly stated that [f]reedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country. Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 148, 65 S.Ct. 1443, 1449, 89 L.Ed. 2103 (1945); see also United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 271, 110 S.Ct. 1056, 1064, 108 L.Ed.2d 222 (1990); Kwong Hai Chew, 344 U.S. at 596-97 n. 5, 73 S.Ct. at 477-78 n. 5. None of these provisions acknowledges any distinction between citizens and resident aliens. They extend their inalienable privileges to all 'persons' and guard against any encroachment on those rights by federal or state authority. Bridges, 326 U.S. at 161, 65 S.Ct. at 1455 (Murphy, J., concurring), quoted in Kwong Hai Chew, 344 U.S. at 596-97 n. 5, 73 S.Ct. at 477-78 n. 5. 69 Furthermore, the values underlying the First Amendment require the full applicability of First Amendment rights to the deportation setting. Thus, read properly, Harisiades establishes that deportation grounds are to be judged by the same standard applied to other burdens on First Amendment rights. T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Federal Regulation of Aliens and the Constitution, 83 Am.J.Int'l L. 862, 869 (1989). 70 Because we are a nation founded by immigrants, this underlying principle is especially relevant to our attitude toward current immigrants who are a part of our community. See, e.g., Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. at 265, 110 S.Ct. at 1060 (recognizing that aliens with substantial ties through family and work form part of our national community). Aliens, who often have different cultures and languages, have been subjected to intolerant and harassing conduct in our past, particularly in times of crises. See, e.g., Alien Enemies Act of 1798, Act of June 25, 1798, ch. 58, 1 Stat. 570, 571 (authorizing the President to expel all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism 1860-1925, 229-31 (2d ed. 1963) (describing the Palmer Raids of 1919-20). It is thus especially appropriate that the First Amendment principle of tolerance for different voices restrain our decisions to expel a participant in that community from our midst. See Bridges, 326 U.S. at 149, 65 S.Ct. at 1450 ([W]here the fate of a human being is at stake the presence of the evil purpose may not be left to conjecture.). 71
72
73 The Government's reliance on Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 92 S.Ct. 2576, 33 L.Ed.2d 683 (1972), is misplaced. Nor do we find dispositive our earlier decision to apply the Kleindienst standard to review the Attorney General's decision to require listing of all organizations of which an applicant for naturalization is a member: we noted that aliens at naturalization are not necessarily entitled to the full protection of the First Amendment arguably afforded in deportation hearings. Price, 962 F.2d at 843 n. 7. 74 In Kleindienst, the Court merely upheld the Attorney General's discretion to deny a waiver to allow an entry visa to a Marxist professor from Belgium who had violated the restrictions on his visa during an earlier visit. 408 U.S. at 756-60, 92 S.Ct. at 2578-80. 75 The Kleindienst analysis expressly rests upon the Attorney General's discretionary power to determine who may enter the country from abroad, a power exercised by the political branches as a derivative of the sovereign power to defend[ ] the country against foreign encroachment and dangers. Kleindienst, 408 U.S. at 765, 92 S.Ct. at 2582-83; see also Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 28, 103 S.Ct. 321, 326, 74 L.Ed.2d 21 (1982). The essential distinction between exclusion and deportation rests on this territorial concept of a diverse national community within which citizens and resident aliens interact. See Kwong Hai Chew, 344 U.S. at 597 n. 5, 73 S.Ct. at 477-78 n. 5 (noting that constitutional protection of aliens stems from the alien's presence within [the] territorial jurisdiction) (quoting Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 771, 70 S.Ct. 936, 940, 94 L.Ed. 1255 (1950)). The Framers explicitly recognized that aliens within this country participate in a reciprocal relationship of societal obligations and correlative protection. As [aliens] owe, on one hand, a temporary obedience, they are entitled, in return, to their protection and advantage. James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions, reprinted in Jonathan Elliot, 4 Debates on the Federal Constitution 546, 556 (1907). The Supreme Court has also acknowledged a longstanding distinction between exclusion proceedings, involving the determination of admissibility, and deportation proceedings that corresponds to the basic difference between protected status within the national community and unprotected status at the threshold of admission. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 212-13 n. 12, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 2392 n. 12, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982). Accordingly, we decline to extend Kleindienst to apply to the deportation context. 76
77 We also reject the Government's contention that First Amendment constitutional protections are unnecessary because deportation is not a criminal proceeding. It is true that some constitutional protections, available to citizens and aliens alike in the criminal setting, do not apply in civil proceedings and thus do not apply to the non-criminal deportation proceedings. See, e.g., INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1038, 104 S.Ct. 3479, 3483, 82 L.Ed.2d 778 (1984) (holding that the exclusionary rule is inapplicable to deportation); Galvan v. Press, 347 U.S. 522, 531, 74 S.Ct. 737, 742, 98 L.Ed. 911 (1954) (holding that the Ex Post Facto Clause is inapplicable to deportation). However, because the First Amendment's protections apply equally to non-criminal and criminal proceedings, see, e.g., New York Times Co., 376 U.S. at 277, 84 S.Ct. at 724, constitutionally protected activities that the Government cannot punish by means of a criminal statute are likewise beyond its reach in a deportation proceeding. 78
79 We find no merit in the Government's argument that the broad authority of the political branches over immigration matters justifies limited First Amendment protection for aliens at deportation. This is a variant of its jurisdictional argument that immigration issues that involve foreign policy concerns are non-justiciable political questions. 80 First, although Congress and the President may regulate aliens' admission and residence in the country, that regulation must be consistent with the Constitution. Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 712, 13 S.Ct. 1016, 1021, 37 L.Ed. 905 (1893). Since resident aliens have constitutional rights, it follows that Congress may not ignore them in the exercise of its 'plenary' power of deportation. Bridges, 326 U.S. at 161, 65 S.Ct. at 1455 (Murphy, J., concurring); see also Chadha, 462 U.S. at 940-41, 103 S.Ct. at 2778-79. Thus, Congress' less restrained power to decide which aliens to exclude from entry, using processes and procedures that would be constitutionally suspect for citizens, is not dispositive regarding the constitutional constraints that operate at deportation. Cf. Haitian Centers Council, Inc., --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2560-61 (acknowledging the important distinction between deportation and exclusion in upholding the President's power to establish foreign policy reasons for repatriation of undocumented aliens intercepted on the high seas); Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 97 S.Ct. 1473, 52 L.Ed.2d 50 (1977) (upholding immigration preference categories for aliens at entry); Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 73 S.Ct. 625, 97 L.Ed. 956 (1953) (upholding summary processes for exclusion of aliens at entry). 81 Second, our First Amendment jurisprudence rests on the fundamental principle that limitations on First Amendment rights are themselves damaging to the values underlying First Amendment protections. See, e.g., Dombrowski, 380 U.S. at 486-89, 85 S.Ct. at 1120-22. If aliens do not have First Amendment rights at deportation, then their First Amendment rights in other contexts are a nullity, because the omnipresent threat of deportation would permanently chill their expressive and associational activities. See Part I.A.1.b. (3). 82
83 Nor are the contextual restrictions on speech that the Supreme Court has upheld in certain institutional settings with special needs analogous to the proposed restrictions on aliens subject to deportation. See, e.g., Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 270-73, 108 S.Ct. 562, 569-71, 98 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988) (schools); Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89-93, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 2261-63, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987) (prisons); Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 507, 106 S.Ct. 1310, 1313, 89 L.Ed.2d 478 (1986) (military); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976) (limitations on election campaign contributions); Civil Serv. Comm. v. National Assoc. of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 93 S.Ct. 2880, 37 L.Ed.2d 796 (1973) (restrictions on federal employee political activities). The speech in issue here is not confined to a particular setting. 84
85 We reject the government's contention that we apply gradations of First Amendment protection parallel to the rational distinctions that are permissible pursuant to the Equal Protection Clause in determining which citizens and aliens may receive particular government benefits. See, e.g. Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 83-84, 96 S.Ct. 1883, 1893-94, 48 L.Ed.2d 478 (1976) (upholding a five-year residency requirement for medicare benefits for aliens); Hampton v. Mow Sun Wong, 426 U.S. 88, 100-101, 96 S.Ct. 1895, 1903-04, 48 L.Ed.2d 495 (1976) (holding that an arbitrary regulation barring aliens from employment in the federal civil service violates due process, though suggesting that a classification based on a legitimate overriding national interest would not violate equal protection). Ordinary equal protection analysis requires only that the government bestow benefits in accord with classifications that rationally satisfy the stated government objective. See, e.g., Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 271-72, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 2291-93, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979). In contrast, to deny citizens or aliens some measure of their admitted rights to First Amendment associational freedom would be to nullify the right in its entirety. The Government begs the question in asserting that differential treatment is merited because these six aliens with technical visa violations are at the bottom of the sliding scale of alien connections to this country; underlying this contention is the assumption that the Government can use the pretext of technical violations to expel aliens on the basis of their group affiliations. That is the heart of the selective enforcement claim under consideration. 86 The aliens have provided evidence of disparate impact and of impermissibly motivated enforcement of the immigration laws. The aliens' First Amendment rights are subject to irreparable harm because of the prosecution, and they have a strong likelihood of success on their claim that the INS has selectively enforced the immigration laws in retaliation for their exercise of constitutionally protected rights. We conclude, therefore, that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting a preliminary injunction against continued deportation proceedings for the Six. 87