Opinion ID: 715739
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: TWOV Policy

Text: 27 The first question is whether the relevant portion of the INA which survived the 1986 Amendments--section 238--provides an adequate basis for the INS's TWOV detention policy. We conclude, along with two of our sister circuits, that it does not. See Aerolineas Argentinas v. United States, 77 F.3d 1564 (Fed.Cir.1996); Linea Area Nacional De Chile v. Meissner, 65 F.3d 1034 (2d Cir.1995) (LAN Chile ). In light of the well-reasoned discussions of identical issues in these recent opinions, we will be brief. 28 Put simply, it is clear to this court that the repeal of section 233--which had previously supported the INS's TWOV detention policy--left the INS without a statutory leg to stand on in its attempts to charge the airlines for detention expenses for aliens pending their asylum determinations by the INS. Section 233 had indeed required the carriers to pay all expenses arising during subsequent detention, if aliens failed to immediately depart the United States, and had been specifically identified by the INS as the source of its authority for imposing these costs on the airlines. See Hearings on Commerce, Justice, State and Related Agencies Appropriation for 1986 Before House Subcomm. on Appropriations, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. 1230-32 (1985). In the absence of section 233, we find no basis in law for the INS's TWOV detention policy. 2 29 The INS argues that notwithstanding the repeal of section 233, Congress evinced its intention to allow the TWOV policy to continue by leaving intact section 238, which authorizes the INS to enter into bonding agreements with the airlines. But section 238 cannot support the weight the INS would lay upon it. The contracts or bonding agreements authorized under that section are only for the purpose of guarantee[ing] the passage through the United States in immediate and continuous transit of aliens destined to foreign countries, 8 U.S.C. § 1228(c) (emphasis supplied), not for the purpose of guaranteeing the payment of detention expenses while an asylum application is pending. 3 In response, the INS argues that if section 238 does not permit it to shift detention costs to the airlines, the section would be rendered a nullity. Brief for Appellee at 11. We, however, agree with the Second Circuit's rejection of that argument in LAN Chile:We believe that Congress left § 1228(c) [section 238] untouched in 1986 because that section provides the necessary statutory authority to allow the Commissioner to require common carriers to maintain responsibility for TWOV's during the relatively brief period of a routine layover. Had § 1228(c) been repealed, no provision would allow the INS to place that burden upon the airlines. As a matter of statutory construction, however, § 1228(c) cannot authorize the Commissioner [of the INS] to enter into contracts that exceed the bounds of the authority granted her. 30 65 F.3d at 1040. Thus the INS is still free, under section 238, to enter into bonding agreements with airlines, and to penalize the airlines if they fail to ensure that TWOV passengers (other than those seeking asylum) remain in the proper areas of the airport, and board their outbound flights. 31 Finally, although our conclusion that the INS's TWOV detention policy is ultra vires is bolstered by the enactment of the User Fee Statute, we are not as confident as our sister circuits that the IUFS by itself stripped the INS of its authority to require the airlines to bear TWOV detention expenses. Cf. Aerolineas Argentinas, 77 F.3d at 1570; LAN Chile, 65 F.3d at 1041 (both finding that IUFS required INS to assume detention responsibility). While the IUFS provides a fund for the payment of expenses the INS has incurred in detaining excludable aliens, it does not expressly require the INS to assume responsibility for such detention. 4 Most certainly, the IUFS was a part of an overall congressional plan to shift the burden of detention of excludable aliens to the INS, but in our view, it was the repeal of section 233 which decisively established that the INS has no authority to require carriers to bear the detention expenses for TWOV passengers who claim asylum.