Opinion ID: 771275
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Petitioner's Constitutional Claims

Text: 18 While the passage of NACARA ensured that IIRIRA's stop time provision would generally be applied retroactively, the act also exempted certain aliens from the stop time provision. For example, NACARA section 202 allows Nicaraguans and Cubans who have been present in the United States since December 1, 1995 to apply to adjust their status to lawful permanent residence (independent of the new stop time rule). See NACARA § 202. In addition, NACARA section 203 amended the transition rules in IIRIRA section 309(c )(5) to exempt certain nationalities from the retroactive application of the stop time rule discussed above. The nationals exempted include those of El Salvador, Guatemala, the Soviet Union (or its successor republics), Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, East Germany, and Yugoslavia (or its successor states). See NACARA § 203(a)(1).
19 Petitioner claims that the NACARA exemptions violate the Equal Protection Clause because they give aliens from certain nations access to suspension of deportation even though these individuals may be similarly situated to non-exempted aliens. The first step in assessing Ms. Ashki's equal protection claim is to determine the level of scrutiny that this Court should apply to the NACARA exemptions. 20 In her brief, Ashki contends the NACARA exemptions should receive intermediate scrutiny because illegal aliens need additional protection due to their powerless nature. Petr. Br. at 9. In support of this proposition she cites Plyler v. Doe, in which the Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute that denied educational benefits to illegal alien children. 457 U.S. 202 (1982). However, the Supreme Court's holding in Plyler does not apply to the case at bar. Unlike Plyler, which involved distinctions that the State of Texas made between aliens and non-aliens, the instant case concerns distinctions that the federal government has made among aliens. 21 While heightened scrutiny may be applied to distinctions that individual states make regarding aliens, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the scope of judicial inquiry is considerably more narrow when the federal government takes action in the area of immigration and naturalization. Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 792 (1977). This deference is based on the Court's understanding that the power to expel or exclude aliens is a fundamental sovereign attribute and that this power is most appropriately exercised by the government's political departments. Shaughnessy v. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 210 (1953). As Justice Powell explained in Fiallo v. Bell, 22 decisions in these matters may implicate our relations with foreign powers, and since a wide variety of classifications must be defined in the light of changing political and economic circumstances, such decisions are frequently of a character more appropriate to either the Legislature or the Executive than to the Judiciary, and the reasons that preclude judicial review of political questions also dictate a narrow standard of review ofdecisions made by the Congress or the President in the area of immigration and naturalization. 23 Fiallo, 430 U.S. 796 (citing Matthews v. Diaz 426 U.S. 67, 81-82 (1976)). 24 Thus, distinctions made by the federal government among aliens receive only rational basis scrutiny. For example, in Rodriguez v. United States, the Eleventh Circuit held that statutes which discriminate within the class of aliens comport with the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment (and the equal protection principles it incorporates) so long as they satisfy rational basis scrutiny. 169 F.3d 1342, 1349 (1999); see also Appiah, 202 F.3d at 704, 710 (4th Cir. 2000) citing Matthews v. Diaz 426 U.S. 67, 78-80 & n. 13 (1976). In the case of In re Longstaff, the Seventh Circuit held that, Congress can bar aliens from entering the United States for discriminatory and arbitrary reasons. In re Longstaff, 716 F.2d 1439, 1442 (7th Cir. 1983). 25 Under rational basis scrutiny, a statute is accorded a strong presumption of validity and will be upheld if any reasonably conceivable state of facts could demonstrate that the statute is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose. Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 319-320 (1993). As Justice Kennedy observed in Heller v. Doe, [a] classification does not fail rational-basis review because it 'is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality.' The problems of government are practical ones and may justify, if they do not require, rough accommodations . . . . Heller, 509 U.S. at 321 (citing Metropolis Theater Co. v. Chicago, 228 U.S. 61, 69-70) (citations omitted). 26 Given this deferential standard of review, the NACARA exemptions easily withstand constitutional challenge. Congress passed the NACARA exemptions in order to protect aliens who the government had encouraged to stay in the United States from the changes to the suspension of deportation rules made in the IIRIRA. See 143 Cong. Rec. S12,261 (daily ed. Nov. 9, 1997) (statement of Sen. Abraham). These exemptions were granted for diplomatic reasons and so that the United States would not violate its earlier understandings with these particular groups of aliens. Id. 27 Although the NACARA exemptions clearly do not cover all aliens who will face hostile conditions in their homelands, this fact does not make these exemptions irrational. There are a myriad of political and foreign policy reasons that might explain why aliens from certain nations were initially encouraged to stay in the U.S. and later exempted from the stop time provision and other aliens were not. Petitioner has offered no evidence that the Congressional exemptions were irrational or that they were based on an impermissible motivation. Therefore, this court will not second guess the line that Congress has drawn 2 . See Fiallo, 430 U.S. at 798; see also Appiah, 202 F.3d at 710; Afolayan, 219 F.3d at 789.
28 Ms. Ashki also asserts that NACARA violates Due Process because it deprives her of her right to a fair hearing. Ashki claims that her hearing was unfair because NACARA applied a different standard to her than it applies to similarlysituated aliens who belong to one of the exempted nationalities. However, in order to demonstrate that the Due Process Clause has been violated, Petitioner must establish that she has been deprived of a life, liberty, or property interest sufficient to trigger the protection of the Due Process Clause in the first place. See Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 569 (1972). 29 Ms. Ashki has not asserted any constitutionally protected interest. As an illegal alien she is deportable on the basis of her failure to obey United States immigration laws and has no right to stay in the United States. Furthermore, Ashki has no constitutionally-protected liberty interest in obtaining discretionary relief from deportation. As the Fourth Circuit pointed out in Appiah v. INS, 30 Eligibility for suspension is not a right protected by the Constitution. Suspension of deportation is rather an act of grace that rests in the unfettered discretion of the Attorney General. Because suspension of deportation is discretionary, it does not create a protectible liberty or property interest. This is true even where the state frequently has granted the relief sought. 202 F.3d at 704 (citing INS v. Yueh-Shaio Yang, 519 U.S. 26, 30 (1996) and Connecticut Bd. of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U.S. 458, 465 (1981)). 31 The Eleventh Circuit and the Fifth Circuit have reached this same conclusion. See Tefel v. Reno, 180 F.3d at 1301; Gonzalez-Torres v. INS, 213 F.3d 899, 903 (5th Cir. 2000). Although we are not bound by the holdings of our sister circuits, we find their reasoning persuasive. Therefore, we hold that NACARA does not violate Ms. Ashki's right to Due Process under the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.