Court Opinion

ID: 9475541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:30:30.775116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:46.492642
License: Public Domain

SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Federal courts do not possess “unconditioned authority to determine the constitutionality of legislative or executive acts,” Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 471,102 S.Ct. 752, 757, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982), but rather must await the existence of a justiciable case or controversy. The allegations raised in the plaintiffs’ complaint, in my view, fail to make out a case that a federal court properly may entertain. I would hold that the plaintiff union Local 25 lacks standing to challenge the process by which the INS considers aliens’ claims for asylum; that plaintiff Mauro Hernandez’ similar challenge is not ripe for judicial review at this juncture; and that the Attorney General’s decision not to suspend the regular enforcement of the immigration laws against Salvadoran aliens is unreviewable. I would, therefore, remand the case to the district court with instructions to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.
I.
The majority decides that a labor union has standing to challenge the adequacy of training of State Department officers and the weight the INS accords State Department advisory opinions in processing asylum claims. Arriving at this far-reaching conclusion, the majority, in my view, exceeds the established limitations on the power of federal courts under Article III of the Constitution. While dutifully reciting the applicable standards governing the doctrine of standing, the majority nonetheless manifestly misapplies those standards. The majority thus fails to keep itself within “the proper — and properly limited — role of the courts in a democratic society.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, *12732204, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975) (citations omitted).
In this case, Local 25 asserts standing both on the basis of its own interests and as representative for its members. See Amended Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief U 2. The first theory relies upon alleged interference with Local 25’s organizational activities. See Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 71 L.Ed.2d 214 (1982). To establish standing on this basis, the plaintiff must satisfy both constitutional and prudential requirements encompassed by the doctrine of standing. See, e.g., Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984). In this case, although I have profound doubts about whether Local 25 can satisfy the prudential aspects of standing,1 I think Local 25’s challenge to the INS’ asylum procedures suffers from a more fundamental infirmity: it does not meet the bedrock constitutional requirement of resting on “personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.” Id. In my view, the absence of any demonstrable link between the injury of which Local 25 complains and the alleged procedural flaws in the political asylum scheme prevents this court from entertaining its claim.
The injury upon which Local 25 would premise its standing is an impairment of its ability to perform its duties as a labor union. Local 25 alleges that many of the hotel and restaurant employees within its jurisdiction are Salvadorans who, apparently, are illegal aliens whose only realistic prospect of lawfully remaining in the United States is political asylum. Because of their precarious status, these employees “do not identify themselves to the union, do not make known their grievances against their employers, and do not become actively involved in union activities.” Maj. Op. at 1264. Next, Local 25 alleges that the procedures by which the INS handles asylum claims are unlawful: the INS gives too much weight to the State Department’s advisory opinions, which, in turn, are ill-prepared and otherwise arbitrary.
The problem with Local 25’s argument, as I see it, is that there is no recognizable line of causation between the injury it claims and the putative law violations it seeks to redress. The INS’ administration of the immigration laws as a whole could have at best an indirect effect upon Local 25’s relations with its members. When what is at stake is a particularized attack upon a single aspect of those laws — i.e., a challenge to the procedures used in considering claims for political asylum — then it is apparent that that effect is truly diaphanous. Even assuming arguendo that the insecurity which Local 25’s Salvadoran members experience palpably undermines the union’s activities,2 it cannot be conclud*1274ed that that insecurity is attributable to the procedural irregularities that allegedly mark the political asylum system.
The statutory standards governing the grant of political asylum are particularly difficult to satisfy. To become eligible for asylum, applicants bear the burden of proving “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular group, or political opinion.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A) (1982). They must demonstrate an individualized threat of harm awaiting them if they are deported; proof of general unrest or repression in their homeland is insufficient. See Sanchez v. INS, 707 F.2d 1523, 1526-28 (D.C.Cir.1983). Even those who satisfy this exacting standard may be denied asylum in the discretion of the agency. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a) (1982); 8 C.F.R. § 208.8(a) (1986).3 Traditionally, only a small percentage of applicants has been granted asylum. Without a change in these onerous substantive standards, then, modification of INS procedures would not be likely to make any particular applicant confident about his prospects for remaining lawfully in the United States. Uncertainty inheres in the asylum process: an applicant may not in fact have a sufficiently “well-founded fear of persecution”; or may lack the evidence to prove it; or may be denied asylum on discretionary grounds. It follows that in matters respecting political asylum applications, as in most of an illegal alien’s affairs, insecurity is inevitable. The fear and uncertainty which Local 25’s Salvadoran members experience is more likely to represent the undifferentiated angst of illegal aliens than a discrete harm “fairly traceable” to the INS’ allegedly improper procedures. Therefore “unadorned speculation,” Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 44, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 1927, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976), is needed to reach the conclusion that granting Local 25 the relief it seeks — however the decree might be framed — would remove the insecurity of its alien members which allegedly undermines its organizational activities. In short, “the presence of an independent variable between ... the harm and the [putatively illegal] conduct makes causation sufficiently tenuous that standing should be denied.” Mideast Systems v. Hodel, 792 F.2d 1172, 1178 (D.C.Cir.1986). See also Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. at 757-58, 104 S.Ct. at 3328-29.4
Perhaps because Local 25 cannot persuasively establish injury to itself, it also relies upon the theory of “representative standing” recognized in Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977). This doctrine permits voluntary associations to sue on behalf of their mem*1275bers in certain circumstances. Under Hunt, an organization has standing to sue on behalf of its members if “(a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.” Id. at 333, 97 S.Ct. 2434; see also International Union, UAW v. Brock, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 2523, 91 L.Ed.2d 228 (1986). While it is not precisely clear which of these requirements are constitutional and which are prudential, this court, of course, has no authority to disregard any of them. And contrary to the majority, I believe that these criteria are not satisfied by the allegations in Local 25’s complaint. Putting aside any question about the last of these requirements,51 am convinced both that Local 25’s members would not now have standing to sue in their individual capacities and that the interests sought to be protected by this lawsuit are not germane to Local 25’s organizational purpose.
Local 25’s complaint does not allege that its members have in fact applied for political asylum, and the record discloses only a single member who has done so.6 I think it plain that Local 25’s members cannot claim to have been unfairly treated — and concretely harmed — by the government until they actually have applied for and have been denied asylum. This proposition is all the more compelling in a case like this one involving a procedural claim. The majority does not explain how individuals can be injured by procedural infirmities in a regulatory scheme that they have not yet invoked. The injury alleged, it would seem, is contingent: if Local 25’s members apply for asylum, it is asserted, then their applications will not be given their due. Neither such conjectural injury, nor the psychic harm one experiences in anticipating that the government will not respond lawfully when one ultimately chooses to call upon it, is cognizable under Article III. See Local 37, International Longshoremen’s Union v. Boyd, 347 U.S. 222, 74 S.Ct. 447, 98 L.Ed. 650 (1954) (alien workers cannot challenge INS’ policies respecting their admission to the country in advance of seeking such admission); see also Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. at 746, 755, 104 S.Ct. at 3322 (parents cannot challenge tax status of discriminatory private schools in which they have not sought to have their children enrolled); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. at 516, 95 S.Ct. at 2214 (builders cannot challenge zoning policies of municipality in which they have not sought to build any projects); O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 94 S.Ct. 669, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974) (individuals cannot challenge procedures of criminal justice system when they cannot establish any likelihood that they will be subjected to those procedures); Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163, 166-67, 92 S.Ct. 1965, 1968, 32 L.Ed.2d 627 (1972) (individual cannot challenge private club’s membership policies when he has never applied for membership).
*1276I must also part company with the majority on the question of whether the rights Local 25 seeks to vindicate through this lawsuit are germane to its organizational purpose. The majority deems it sufficient that Local 25 has alleged that the operation of the immigration laws interferes with its union activities. See Maj.Op. at 1264. But the same could be said of the enforcement of any laws against a union’s members. For example, a union could allege that narcotics prosecutions against its members impaired its organizational activities, and seek to challenge the governmental action at issue on that basis. I cannot believe that the Supreme Court in Hunt intended to authorize such dubious proxy litigation. That the Court did not so intend is precisely why it insisted that the interests an organization asserts in a lawsuit must be “germane” to its official purpose, i.e., that the rights sought to be vindicated are the sort of rights that by their nature relate to a particular organization.7
In this regard, certain types of laws inherently relate to a union’s traditional functions. In UAW, for instance, the Supreme Court recognized a union’s interest in seeing that its members received statutory benefits available to workers displaced by foreign competition. See 106 S.Ct. at 2531. See also National Treasury Employees Union v. MSPB, 743 F.2d 895, 910 (D.C. Cir.1984) (public employment regulations are germane to union representing affected employees). I do not mean to suggest that unions may never have standing to represent interests of their members that do not relate to a union’s traditional functions. Where, for example, Congress has recognized the legitimacy of union participation in a statutory scheme, courts would have little basis for questioning the “germaneness” of the statutorily created interests to the union’s purpose. See UAW, 106 S.Ct. 2531 (noting that Congress gave unions a role in statute’s administration). In the absence of such congressional recognition, however, I do not believe that a union may infinitely expand the interests “germane” to its organizational purpose simply by expressing its concern, in its constitution or elsewhere, about the operation of particular laws. To be sure, the duties and functions of a labor union vis-a-vis its members may be broad indeed, and courts should normally be circumspect in determining the appropriate scope of a union’s representation of its members. But Article III courts are not available to anyone wishing to litigate any grievances, and, I submit, the claims of aliens for procedural regularity in the political asylum process, under any reasonable view, simply do not implicate the functions of a union qua union. I therefore would conclude that Local 25 lacks standing to challenge the procedures by which the INS considers political asylum applications.8
*1277II.
Plaintiff Mauro Hernandez’s challenge to the INS’ political asylum procedures obviously rests on somewhat sturdier ground than does Local 25’s. Hernandez has applied for asylum to an INS district director and has been rejected. If the procedures involved in that determination were unlawful, then Hernandez has suffered cognizable injury to a personal interest; moreover, as an applicant for political asylum, Hernandez is within the zone of interests protected by the Refugee Act. See supra note 1. I therefore agree with the majority that Hernandez has standing to challenge the procedures used in processing his asylum application.9 To say that Hernandez has standing, however, is not to say that a court must immediately hear his claim. I would conclude that because the political asylum scheme contemplates further administrative procedures before the denial of asylum is finalized, and because Hernandez will not be irrevocably injured if review is postponed, Hernandez’s claim is not yet ripe for judicial review.10
Although the criteria governing the ripeness doctrine are familiar, they have not— as may be evident from my disagreement with the majority — proven themselves susceptible to precise application. The test for ripeness enunciated in Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967), which requires courts to evaluate the fitness of the issues for judicial decision and the hardship to the parties of deferring review, id. at 149, 87 S.Ct. at 1515, cannot be applied with syllogistic certainty. Rather, the test entails “a prudential attempt to time review in a way that balances the petitioner’s interest in prompt consideration of allegedly unlawful agency action against the agency’s interest in crystallizing its policy before that policy is subjected to judicial review and the court’s interests in avoiding unnecessary adjudication and in deciding issues in a concrete setting.” Eagle-Picher Indus, v. EPA, 759 F.2d 905,915 (D.C.Cir.1985) (footnote omitted). It would be idle, moreover, to attempt to explicate all of the approaches to this balancing inquiry reflected in decisions of this circuit as if they formed a finely meshed doctrine. That much being conceded, however, I must say that I have little difficulty in concluding that Hernandez’s challenge is not ripe. It seems to me that all of the relevant interests to be balanced in this case point in the direction of deferring judicial review.
Although Hernandez’s application for asylum was rejected by an INS district director, that determination is hardly decisive. Hernandez may not be deported unless and until the government establishes *1278his deportability through an adversary process subject to ultimate judicial review. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b) (1982); 8 C.F.R. Part 242 (1986). If the government initiates deportation proceedings against him, Hernandez will have the opportunity to reapply for asylum to an immigration judge, see id. § 208.9, and the question will be considered afresh. A denial of asylum at that point would be appealable to the Board of Immigration Appeals, see id. § 3.1(b)(2), and thereafter to the United States Court of Appeals. See 8 U.S.C. § 1105a (1982). The agency’s initial rejection of Hernandez’s bid for asylum, thus, in no respect constitutes its final or definitive decision on the matter. Under these circumstances, the agency has a strong interest in deferring judicial review: the agency’s resources will be engaged only if it chooses to initiate deportation proceedings against Hernandez, and the agency will have an opportunity to correct any mistakes it has made, free from unwarranted judicial interference. See Continental Air Lines v. CAB, 522 F.2d 107, 125 (D.C.Cir.1974) (en banc).
Examination of the character of the district director’s role in the asylum process buttresses this conclusion. The procedure by which the district director entertains applications for asylum is, in essence, a form of pre-enforcement administrative screening. Both the agency and the applicant benefit from a procedure that permits asylum applications to be considered in advance of the commencement of deportation proceedings: the agency reduces the number of deportation proceedings it must initiate, and the applicant gets an early word on his bid for asylum. But nothing in the Act requires such advance review; the Act vests broad discretion in the Attorney General to establish the procedural framework governing asylum claims. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a) (1982). In providing for consideration of asylum applications by the district director, the agency did not contemplate that courts would intervene at this preliminary stage. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.8(c) (1986). The majority nevertheless maintains that Hernandez’s challenge may be heard now because systemwide, “structural” illegalities are alleged. See Maj.Op. at 1267. What the majority ignores is the incentive its decision creates for the government to do away with advance screening of applications altogether. Faced with the prospect of intrusive judicial oversight of its preliminary decisional processes, the Executive Branch may conclude that pre-enforcement screening is simply not worth the candle.
In any event, because the agency’s disposition of Hernandez’s application may be modified, this court also has a significant interest in deferring review. Continental Air Lines, 522 F.2d at 125. An about-face by the agency would render judicial review of Hernandez’s claim unnecessary. It would also enable the court to avoid reaching the difficult constitutional issues raised in this lawsuit. Review of Hernandez’s claim at this time, then, might well be a gratuitous venture entailing the risk of an improvident pronouncement on the law.11 These are precisely the prudential considerations with which the ripeness doctrine is concerned. See Abbott Laboratories, 387 U.S. at 148, 87 S.Ct. at 1515 (doctrine serves to “prevent the courts ... from entangling themselves in abstract disagreements over administrative policies”). The claim Hernandez seeks to raise is thus “unfit” for judicial review at this time.
In addition, Hernandez will suffer no irreversible hardship if review is delayed. Although the INS district director “injured” Hernandez by rejecting his application for asylum, that injury is not irrev*1279ocable. Should the government initiate deportation proceedings against Hernandez, he will have a second bite at the asylum apple. Until that time, Hernandez labors under no injury for which there is no ultimate remedy. The majority apparently finds the requisite “hardship” in the uncertainty to which an illegal alien is subject. See Maj.Op. at 1267. An interest in establishing certainty in one’s legal relations, however, accompanies every putative challenge to administrative action, and, without more, has not traditionally been thought sufficient to enable one to call upon the courts prior to the availability of authorized routes of review. See, e.g., Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. v. FERC, 736 F.2d 747, 750-51 (D.C.Cir.1984). Since “no irremediable adverse consequences flow from requiring a later challenge to this [decision],” Toilet Goods Ass’n v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 158, 164, 87 S.Ct. 1520, 1524, 18 L.Ed.2d 697 (1967), I would hold that Hernandez’s challenge to the INS’ preliminary asylum determination is not ripe for review.
III.
I agree with the majority that the Attorney General’s decision not to suspend the regular operation of the immigration laws against Salvadoran nationals (the so-called grant of “extended voluntary departure”) is not judicially reviewable. See Maj.Op. at 1272. I would rest this conclusion, however, squarely on the ground that the action is “committed to agency discretion by law,” 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2) (1982).
The decision to withhold enforcement of the immigration laws is extrastatutory; it constitutes one of the Executive’s inherent prerogatives. The Constitution entrusts to the President the duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed____” U.S. Const, art. II, § 3. It has long been settled that “the Executive Branch has exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide whether to prosecute a case.” United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 693, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 3100, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974) (citations omitted). The decision whether or not to enforce the immigration laws against particular nationalities, moreover, is an exercise of “the executive power to control the foreign affairs of the nation.” United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 537, 542, 70 S.Ct. 309, 312, 94 L.Ed. 317 (1950). The Executive Branch is therefore free to take into account whatever considerations it deems in the national interest. Such action is “committed to agency discretion by law,” 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2) (1982), because “a court would have no meaningful standard against which to judge the agency’s exercise of discretion.” Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 1655, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985). To be sure, Chaney involved an agency’s refusal to initiate enforcement action, while this case involves the refusal to suspend enforcement. Review of either decision, however, would enmesh a court in matters that are beyond judicial competence and that properly belong within the sphere of the Executive. The Attorney General’s decision to continue enforcing the immigration laws against Salvadorans plainly is not reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act. The majority, although taking a somewhat different path, ultimately reaches the same destination.

. The prudential aspects of standing include the requirement that a plaintiffs claim fall within the zone of interests protected by the law he invokes. See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984). I cannot believe that labor unions were intended beneficiaries of the Refugee Act of 1980. That statute quite clearly was meant to protect the interests of foreign nationals suffering political persecution in their homelands; as such, it represents an exception to the general thrust of the immigration laws, which are intended in large part "to preserve jobs for American workers." Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 U.S. 883, 893, 104 S.Ct. 2803, 2809, 81 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984). In fact, this circuit has held that a labor union’s economic interest in preventing foreign workers from entering the country places it within the zone of interests protected by a provision of the immigration laws. See International Union of Bricklayers v. Meese, 761 F.2d 798, 804-05 (D.C. Cir.1985). It would be odd, to say the least, if labor unions fell both within the zone of interests protected by immigration laws limiting the entry of foreign workers and within the zone of interests protected by the political asylum exception to those laws.
In response to this objection, the majority tells us simply that the union seeks protection of an "organizational interest” in seeing that its members obtain "lawful and secure entry status,” and that the Refugee Act ”protect[s] this same interest in secure entry status.” Maj.Op. at 1263. Absent from this tautology is any demonstration that Congress recognized and sought to protect the union’s "organizational interest" in the proper administration of the immigration laws.

. It is not at all clear to me that insecurity among employees will tend to undermine a la*1274bor union’s activities. Since a principal function of unions is to assuage the fears and concerns of their members, traditionally unions have achieved their greatest influence among employees in troubled times.
The majority objects that I am not heeding the rule that factual allegations concerning standing must be taken as true for purposes of a motion to dismiss. See Maj.Op. at 1263. (citing Worth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. at 501, 95 S.Ct. at 2206). But it is also true that "pleadings must be something more than an ingenious academic exercise in the conceivable." Id. at 509, 95 S.Ct. at 2210 (citation omitted). Far from contenting itself with uncritically accepting the plaintiffs’ allegations, moreover, the majority embellishes those allegations with the assertion that Local 25's Salvadoran members are subject to "employer pressure to remain silent or else be reported for deportation — ” Maj.Op. at 1262. This suggestion is creative but is not alleged in the plaintiffs complaint and does not appear in the record.

. I do not mean to suggest, however, that exercises of this discretion would be unreviewable.

. That the causal link between the asserted injury and the putative law violation is tenuous suggests that Local 25’s suit is motivated more by sympathy for its members than by defense of its own interests. Though this sympathy may be understandable, it is clear that "Article III requires more than a desire to vindicate value interests.” Diamond v. Charles, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 1697, 1706, 90 L.Ed.2d 48 (1986) (citation omitted); cf. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. at 754, 104 S.Ct. at 3326. (”[A]n asserted right to have the Government act in accordance with law is not sufficient, standing alone, to confer jurisdiction on a federal court.”).

. Doubtless it might be thought that examination of individual asylum applications is indispensable to any evaluation of the fairness of political asylum procedures; due process, after all, is an individual right, not a group right.

. Examination of the language of the Hunt test itself — rather than dictum from another case— belies the proposition announced by the majority, Le., that Local 25 may possess standing to sue on behalf of its members if a single one of its thousands of members would currently have standing to sue individually. Such a rule blatantly disregards the concerns about autonomy and adequacy of representation that underlie the Hunt test. As Justice Powell cautioned in International Union, UAW v. Brock, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 2523, 91 L.Ed.2d 228 (1986) (Powell, J., dissenting op. at 106 S.Ct. 2536-37), "[t]he number of members in the organization with a concrete stake in the outcome ... may be so small that th[e] theoretical identity [between an organization and its members] disappears.” In concluding that a union had representative standing in UAW, the Court noted that "many” union members had standing to sue in their own right, see id., 2530, and certainly did not authorize the fundamentally unsound rule adopted by the majority in this case.

. This is perhaps just another way of saying that the organization must be within the zone of interests protected by the law it invokes. See supra note 1.

. The majority takes me to task for failing to discuss the bearing upon the union’s standing of its separate challenge to the Attorney General’s decision not to suspend the regular operation of the immigration laws against Salvadorans. See Maj.Op. at 1263-65. I should have thought it settled that standing must be analyzed on a claim-by-claim basis. See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. at 752, 104 S.Ct. at 3325 (courts must "ascertain whether the particular plaintiff is entitled to an adjudication of the particular claims asserted”); Diamond v. Charles, 106 S.Ct. at 1707 (Article III standing “requires an injury with a nexus to the substantive character of the statute or regulation at issue”). In this regard, the interests implicated by the Attorney General’s decision not to suspend enforcement of the immigration laws are, under Hunt, no more germane to the union's purpose than are those implicated by the procedures governing political asylum. Nor does the decision to enforce the immigration laws cause Local 25 itself any injury redressable by a court: because a suspension of enforcement would not alter illegal aliens’ legal status, would be temporary, and would be reversable at the will of the Attorney General, it would not by itself render Local 25’s members "secure" enough to participate in union activities. In any event, the decision to enforce the immigration laws is unreviewable. See infra Part III.

. Because the Attorney General’s decision to continue enforcing the immigration laws against Salvadorans is unreviewable, see infra Part III, it is unnecessary to decide whether Hernandez has standing to challenge that determination as well.

. So that there is no misunderstanding, I should emphasize that I consider Hernandez’s claim to be "ripe" in the constitutional, case-or-controversy sense. Hernandez has alleged actual, non-speculative injury to himself sufficient to give rise to a constitutionally ripe controversy. See Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Envtl. Study Group, Inc., 438 U.S. 59, 81, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 2634, 57 L.Ed.2d 595 (1978); Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U.S. 102, 138, 143, 95 S.Ct. 335, 355, 358, 42 L.Ed.2d 320 (1974). In this regard, the constitutional requirements of standing and ripeness overlap, cf. Vander Jagt v. O’Neill, 699 F.2d 1166, 1178-79 (D.C.Cir.) (Bork, J., concurring), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 823, 104 S.Ct. 91, 78 L.Ed.2d 98 (1983), and satisfaction of the latter follows a fortiori from satisfaction of the former. See Duke Power, 438 U.S. at 81, 98 S.Ct. at 2634. My concerns lie instead with the purely prudential requirements of ripeness — i.e., with the doctrine, developed by courts of equity, that governs the appropriate timing of judicial review of challenged administrative action. See Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1515, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967). That doctrine typically requires not only that a party allege injury, but that the injury be of the sort that will be irremediable if judicial review is postponed. See Toilet Goods Ass’n v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 158, 164-65, 87 S.Ct. 1520, 1524-25, 18 L.Ed.2d 697 (1967).

. The majority seems to doubt that a grant of political asylum to Hernandez will moot his challenge to the procedures used by the INS in considering his application. See Maj.Op. at 1267. If Hernandez receives political asylum, I cannot imagine what effect his lawsuit — which seeks only prospective relief — possibly could have, save “the refinement of jurisprudential understanding." Valley Forge Christian College, 454 U.S. at 473, 102 S.Ct. at 759.