Court Opinion

ID: 9474994
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:14:17.522574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:26.715209
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
While language in Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985), could be read to suggest that section 701(a)(2) precludes review in a wide range of cases, Heckler v. Chaney itself holds only that an agency’s refusal to take enforcement action is presumptively unre-viewable under § 701(a)(2) where Congress has provided no guidelines for exercise of enforcement discretion. The “general unsuitability for judicial review of agency decisions to refuse enforcement,” 105 S.Ct. at 1656, arises because failure to act is hard to review; by contrast, “when an agency does act to enforce, that action itself provides a focus for judicial review, inasmuch as the agency must have exercised its power in some manner.” Id. (emphasis in original). In this case, regulations circumscribe the way in which the agency reviews waiver requests: 22 C.F.R. § 514.31(b)(2) (1985) requires that “a summary of the details of the expected hardship” be submitted to the agency’s Waiver Review Branch; 22 C.F.R. § 514.32 (1985) provides that “[u]pon receipt of a request for a recommendation of waiver ... the Director will review the policy, program, and foreign relations aspects of the case and will transmit a recommendation to the Attorney General for decision.” These regulations provide adequate guidance to make review for abuse of discretion possible. Consequently, I would find that Heckler v. Chaney does not preclude judicial review of agency action in this ease and would assume jurisdiction but recognize that the scope of our review for abuse of discretion is limited where, as here, a statute and its accompanying regulations constrain agency action only minimally.
Appellant’s first claim that the USIA relied entirely on AID’s determination in making its recommendation has surface appeal. The first denial by the USIA, issued in August, 1983, might be susceptible to that interpretation — it suggested that USIA relied solely on AID’s recommendations, which in turn apparently rested entirely on “the policy of Nigeria that all participants in programs sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education must return to Nigeria upon program completion.” Because the statute envisions that hardship waivers may be granted even in the face of objections by the home country, see section 1182(e) (waiver may be granted where there is hardship to alien’s spouse or child or where alien would be subject to persecution or where home country has no objection), denying a waiver recommendation on the sole basis that the home country disapproves might under some circumstances be an abuse of discretion. However, I would not decide whether the USIA abused its discretion the first time it considered Dina’s waiver, because on his motion to reopen and reconsider, the USIA’s denial read as follows:
Aid [sic] has advised that the Government of Nigeria maintains its request that Mr. Dina return home. AID also continues to recommend against a waiver in order to preserve the integrity of the exchange program. After careful reconsideration of Mr. Dina’s file, USIA finds that the hardship as determined does not outweigh the policy, program, and foreign relations aspects of the case.
While not specific, the determination reflects that the particular hardships to this appellant were reviewed, that AID’s recommendation with respect to the integrity of the exchange program was considered, and *478that the USIA took account of foreign policy concerns and found against recommending a waiver. Thus I do not think the denial indicates that USIA relied entirely on AID’S recommendation.
Dina’s last claim is that the USIA gave inadequate explanation of its reasons for failing to recommend waiver. While a more particularized statement of reasons would be desirable, there seems no basis for requiring it since our review is so severely limited. Broad agency discretion is appropriate since waiver decisions necessarily reflect foreign policy concerns. Cf. Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U.S. 424, 441-42, 94 S.Ct. 3042, 3051-52, 41 L.Ed.2d 855 (1974) (Court refused to require that a statement of supporting reasons accompany a sentencing judge’s finding that a youth offender would derive “no benefit” from a Federal Youth Corrections Act sentence; only purpose of such a requirement would be to limit trial court’s sentencing discretion). With one exception, the cases Dina cites as requiring a statement of reasons where a claim of hardship is rejected involve immigration judges or the Board of Immigration Appeals, both of which act as adjudicatory bodies, not as agencies using their foreign affairs expertise to exercise a discretionary function.
The exception is Keh Tong Chen v. Attorney General, 546 F.Supp. 1060 (D.D.C. 1982), in which the court overturned the INS Regional Commissioner’s affirmance of the district director’s denial of a hardship waiver, that denial being based on the ground that exceptional hardship had not been shown. The court there held that, given the interest in maintaining the family unit, “a finding of ‘no exceptional hardship’ should not be affirmed unless the reasons for this finding are made clear.” Id. at 1064 (citation omitted). In Chen, however, whether exceptional hardship was present depended solely on the facts of that particular case. By contrast, here the USIA was required to make a determination based not only on Dina’s family situation, but on broader concerns regarding foreign policy and the future of the exchange program. A narrower inquiry is therefore proper. Having been satisfied by the USIA’s statement of reasons that it balanced the conflicting concerns, I think further elaboration of the reasons USIA struck the balance it did is unnecessary and therefore concur.