Opinion ID: 185451
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Presence of Petitioners

Text: 26 We consider first the eligibility of the petitioners for constitutional protection. In resisting the claims of the PMOI to due process protection, the government asserts that nearly all of these arguments are foreclosed by the binding precedent of this Court in the People's Mojahedin published decision, where this Court rejected those same arguments. Brief of the Secretary at 20. In fact, in that decision this court rejected only the statutory arguments. We did so after concluding that the petitioners in that case had established no constitutional entitlement because a foreign entity without property or presence in this country has no constitutional rights, under the Due Process Clause or otherwise. People's Mojahedin Org. of Iran v. Dep't of State, 182 F.3d 17, 22 (D.C. Cir. 1999). We left the constitutional questions for such time as a designated foreign terrorist organization might be able to establish its constitutional presence in the United States. Therefore, that decision cannot foreclose constitutional claims asserted by the PMOI in this case unless for some reason it forecloses the possibility of our concluding that the entities before us now have a presence in this country. It does not. 27 First, for People's Mojahedin to foreclose any question as to the NCRI, the government must rely on the two entities being one, a proposition we have been willing to accept for purposes of the alias designation which brings NCRI within the ambit of the terrorist designation bestowed upon the PMOI. Even accepting their identity for all purposes, the People's Mojahedin decision cannot foreclose our reconsideration of the presence question, just as the 1997 failure to designate the NCRI as an alias for the PMOI did not bar the Secretary from reconsidering that question in 1999. We accepted, and continue to accept, the government's proposition in support of the 1999 designation that the record is not the same and the decision is not the same as in 1997. Therefore, the fact that the PMOI had not established a constitutional presence in the United States in 1997 under its own name cannot possibly establish that neither the PMOI nor the NCRI had established a presence by 1999. And while we accept the government's proposition that neither the record nor the classified information establishes a presence for the PMOI under its own name, we cannot agree that the same is true as to the NCRI. 28 The government admits that the record before us reflects that the NCRI has an overt presence within the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., and further recognizes that the NCRI claims an interest in a small bank account. The government attempts to blow this away by saying that foreign entities  'receive constitutional protections [only] when they have come within the territory of the United States and developed substantial connections within this country.'  Brief of the Secretary at 39 (quoting United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 271 (1990)) (bracketed material and emphasis added by the Secretary). Accepting that quotation, with the bracketed addition of only at face value, the Secretary asserts that this evidence in the record would not support a conclusion that the Council has developed substantial connections. On that basis, the Secretary then asserts that the NCRI is not entitled to constitutional protection. We reject the Secretary's position for multiple reasons. 29 First, the Secretary's construction of the quotation from Verdugo-Urquidez is misleading. In context, the full sentence by the Supreme Court did contain the word only but not in the same position as the government brackets it. The High Court rejected the application of several prior cases-Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982); Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U.S. 590 (1953); Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135 (1945); Russian Volunteer Fleet v. United States, 282 U.S. 481 (1931); Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228 (1896); and Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886)--which were offered by an alien who had been arrested. The Court stated: 30 These cases, however, establish only that aliens receive constitutional protections when they have come within the territory of the United States and developed substantial connections with this country. 31 Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. at 271 (emphasis added). The critical adverb limits the application of prior precedent. In Verdugo-Urquidez, the Court rejected the claims of a Mexican citizen arrested in Mexico to constitutional protections under the United States Constitution outside the United States. Neither the word only nor anything else in the holding purports to establish whether aliens who have entered the territory of the United States and developed connections with this country but not substantial ones are entitled to constitutional protections. 32 In any event, we are not undertaking to determine, as a general matter, how substantial an alien's connections with this country must be to merit the protections of the Due Process Clause or any other part of the Constitution. Rather, we have reviewed the entire record including the classified information and determine that NCRI can rightly lay claim to having come within the territory of the United States and developed substantial connections with this country. We acknowledge that in reviewing the whole record, we have included the classified material. As we noted above and in People's Mojahedin, we will not and cannot disclose the contents of the record. We note further that the PMOI has made little serious assertion of an independent presence in the United States. Unfortunately for the cause of the Secretary, the PMOI does not need one. Insofar as PMOI's claimed presence is concerned, the United States is now hoist with its own petard. The Secretary concluded in her designation, which we upheld for the reasons set forth above, that the NCRI and the PMOI are one. The NCRI is present in the United States. If A is B, and B is present, then A is present also. 33 The Secretary offers one further argument for the proposition that petitioners are not entitled to the protection of the Due Process Clause. The Secretary asserts that the United States exercises the powers of external sovereignty independent of the affirmative grants of the Constitution as an inherent attribute of sovereignty under international law. See, e.g., Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 765 (1972). As a result of that sovereignty, the Secretary contends, the government interacts with foreign entities not within the constitutional framework, but through the system of international law and diplomacy. Specifically, the Secretary asserts that foreign governmental entities therefore 'lie[ ] outside the structure of the union.'  Brief of the Secretary at 35 (quoting Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U.S. 313, 330 (1934)). This argument need not detain us long. 34 It is certainly true that sovereign states interact with each other through diplomacy and even coercion in ways not affected by constitutional protections such as the Due Process Clause. However, since neither the PMOI nor the NCRI is a government, none of the authorities offered by the Secretary have any force. The closest the Secretary can come is to assert that the Council has described itself as a government in exile. That untested claim is not sufficient by itself to bring the Council within the ambit of authorities governing the interrelationship of two sovereigns. If the United States were to recognize the Council as a government, or even perhaps to deal with it as if it were a government, then the result might be different. But on the present record, the Secretary has deemed the Council to be nothing but a foreign terrorist organization, and it is as such that the Secretary must litigate with that entity. 35 The PMOI and NCRI have entered the territory of the United States and established substantial connections with this country. The cases distinguished by the Verdugo Urquidez Court make plain that both organizations therefore are entitled to the protections of the Constitution. See, e.g., Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U.S. at 596 (holding that an alien who permanently resided in the United States was a person within the protection of the Fifth Amendment and therefore was entitled to due process); Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. at 148 (holding that a permanent alien resident was entitled to the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and press); Russian Volunteer Fleet v. United States, 282 U.S. at 489, 491-92 (holding that a Russian corporation whose property was taken by the United States was an alien friend, and hence deserved protection under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause); Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. at 238 (holding that permanent alien residents were entitled to due process under the Fifth Amendment, and indictment by grand jury under the Sixth Amendment); and Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. at 369 (holding that permanent alien residents deserved protection under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause). We therefore proceed to consider whether the PMOI and NCRI have been deprived of a constitutional right.