Opinion ID: 708223
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Government's Arguments Are Inapplicable to Deportation

Text: 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