Court Opinion

ID: 9495219
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:57:37.227472+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:53.725383
License: Public Domain

RYMER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Sensible though it may sound to construe the same statute the same way for all purposes, inadmissible aliens are different from admitted aliens. For this reason, I disagree that we must interpret 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6)’s provision for post-removal-period detention of inadmissible aliens as having the same “reasonable time” limitation that applies to admitted aliens. Instead, I take the Supreme Court at its word: while indefinite detention raises serious constitutional questions in the case of aliens who have been admitted to the United States, “[a]liens who have not yet gained initial admission to this country would present a very different question.” Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 682, 121 S.Ct. 2491, 150 L.Ed.2d 653 (2001). This is because aliens who have entered the country have constitutional rights that aliens who have not entered do not. As the Court explained:
The distinction between an alien who has effected an entry into the United States and one who has never entered runs throughout immigration law. It is well established that certain constitu*841tional protections available to persons inside the United States are unavailable to aliens outside of our geographic borders. But once an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due Process Clause applies to all “persons” within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.
Id. at 693, 121 S.Ct. 2491 (citations omitted).
In Zadvydas, the Court chose to avoid constitutional concerns for admitted aliens by construing the statute to contain a “reasonable time” limitation. Here, we are dealing with inadmissible aliens, for whom the same constitutional questions do not arise. It is well settled that the United States may constitutionally detain an ex-cludable (inadmissible) alien indefinitely if his country of origin refuses to accept his return. Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 73 S.Ct. 625, 97 L.Ed. 956 (1953). Zadvydas distinguished Mezei and declined to reconsider its continuing legal authority. Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 693-94, 121 S.Ct. 2491. Accordingly, in this case we lack both the same constitutional problem that animated Zad-vydas’s limiting construction of § 1231(a)(6)’s application to admitted aliens, and the same license to interpret § 1231(a)(6)’s application to inadmissible aliens more restrictively than it is plainly written.
Unlike the majority, I do not read the Court’s interpretation of § 1231(a)(6) in Zadvydas as “categorical.” The Court’s opinion was not unqualified; it said that inadmissible aliens “present a very different question” and that being inadmissible “made all the difference.” Id. at 682, 693, 121 S.Ct. 2491. Nor do I believe that Zadvydas leaves us “little choice” but to conclude that it applies to inadmissible aliens. We do have a choice because the Court’s interpretation was discrete to admitted aliens. It was driven by the need to avoid constitutional problems that pertain to those who are admitted — but that do not pertain to those who are not admitted. By invoking the constitutional avoidance doctrine, the Court was trying to effectuate legislative intent yet assure constitutional application to admitted aliens. The result is a nuanced interpretation of § 1231(a)(6) that keeps it from being applied unconstitutionally but otherwise leaves it alone. When a statute has different applications, it is not necessary to say that it is categorically infirm; it is only the constitutionally problematic aspects which are subject to the construction that avoids the problem.
This is well illustrated by Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 52 S.Ct. 285, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932), which Zadvydas treats as the leading case on the principle of avoiding a statutory construction that raises a serious constitutional concern. At issue there was the newly enacted Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (Act of March 4, 1927, c. 509, 44 Stat. 1424 (codified as amended at 33 U.S.C. §§ 901-950)), which vested deputy commissioners of the United States Employees’ Compensation Commission with “full power and authority to hear and determine all questions” in claims for workers’ compensation benefits. The Court recognized that a constitutional problem would arise if the statute were construed to foreclose judicial review of jurisdictional facts, but avoided that problem by construing the statute to make an implicit exception for just those findings. This left the statute intact as to all other findings. As I see it, that is what the Court did in Zadvydas as well. It recognized that there was serious constitutional doubt about the indefinite detention of admitted aliens who had been ordered *842removed (or deported), but avoided the problem by construing the statute to have an implicit time limitation after which the alien must be released if there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future. However, the Court left the law — -and, it seems to me, the statutory scheme — intact with respect to aliens who have never been admitted to the United States.
For similar reasons, stare decisis lacks the force in this case that the majority ascribes to it. While true that stare deci-sis carries particular sway in areas of statutory interpretation because Congress can alter, the result, nothing about Zadvydas’s construction for admitted aliens would have alerted Congress to the need to amend § 1231(a)(6) with respect to the “very different question” of inadmissible aliens.
I am not persuaded to the contrary by Justice Kennedy’s dissent, which gives my colleagues solace but strikes me as a re-ductio ad absurdum rather than a fair gauge of how broadly we are required to read Zadvydas. Indeed, Justice Breyer’s opinion for the majority emphasizes that “the cases before us [do not] require us to consider the political -branches’ authority to control entry into the United States. Hence we leave no ‘unprotected spot in the Nation’s armor.’ ” Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 695-96, 121 S.Ct. 2491 (citation omitted). Given this, I cannot see how Zadvydas leaves us no choice but to create the very “unprotected spot in the Nation’s armor” that the Court thought it was leaving the Nation without. Id.
Creating an “unprotected spot in the Nation’s armor” is what this ruling does. We recently explained why in Barrera-Echavarria v. Rison, 44 F.3d 1441 (9th Cir.1995) (en banc):
Reading a time limit on detention into § 1227[which provided for immediate deportation of excludable aliens unless the Attorney General concludes that it is not practicable or proper] would risk frustrating the government’s ability to control immigration policy and relations with foreign nations. A judicial decision requiring that excludable aliens be released into American society when neither their countries of origin nor any third country will admit them might encourage the sort of intransigence Cuba has exhibited in negotiations over the Mariel refugees. See, e.g., Jean v. Nelson, 727 F.2d 957, 975 (11th Cir.1984) (en banc) (“[T]his approach would ultimately result in our losing control of our borders. A foreign leader could eventually compel us to grant physical admission via parole to any aliens he wished by the simple expedient of sending them here and then refusing to take them back.”), aff'd, 472 U.S. 846, 105 S.Ct. 2992, 86 L.Ed.2d 664 (1985). In an area with sensitive foreign policy implications, we must hesitate to interpret an ambiguous statutory scheme as requiring such a result.
Barrera-Echavarria, 44 F.3d at 1448.
The majority discounts Barrerar-ECha-varria because the statute has changed and “excludable” aliens have become “inadmissible;” “entry” has been replaced by “admission” and been redefined as “the lawful entry of [an] alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer,” compare 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(13), 1182 (1994) with 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(13)(A), 1182 (2002); and Barrerar-Echavarria predates Zadvydas. However, while Barrera-Echavarria’s statutory analysis may no longer be relevant, its rationale is alive and well. IIRI-RA does not affect that rationale, because *843IIRIRA tightened, rather than loosened, removal procedures. And Zadvydas distinguished Mezei on the basis that Mezei’s excludable status “made all the difference.” Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 693, 121 S.Ct. 2491. To me, this means that both Mezei and Barrera-Echavarria are still good law.1
This being so, there is no need to construe § 1231(a)(6) to avoid due process concerns for inadmissible aliens.2 Aliens such as Lin have never resided freely within this country. Ideally, they should be returned as soon as possible to their own country. However, this can’t happen if their own country won’t allow it. For reasons explained in Barrera-Echavarria which are compelling to me, Congress has given the Attorney General the discretion to detain or parole persons who are not admitted into this country and whose country will not take them back. I would not fetter that discretion by presumptively requiring their release into this country after six months. Congress did not prescribe it, nor does a serious constitutional doubt compel it, and we have no call to construe § 1281(a)(6) to contain this limitation for inadmissible aliens.
Because holding otherwise judicially mandates a dramatic shift in immigration policy, I dissent.

. See Ma v. Ashcroft, 257 F.3d 1095, 1108 n. 22 (9th Cir.2001) (treating Barrera-Echavar-ria 's constitutional analysis as good law because it "was dictated by the Supreme Court’s holding in Mezei .... ”); Hoyte-Mesa v. Ashcroft, 272 F.3d 989, 991 (7th Cir.2001) (Mezei and prior Seventh Circuit authority upholding indefinite detention of excludable aliens remain good law).

. Inadmissible aliens are not detained without any process at all. An administrative review procedure is in place. See 8 C.F.R. 241.4. INS regulations provide for an initial records review of inadmissible aliens prior to the expiration of the 90-day removal period (which is tolled until the alien cooperates in obtaining the necessary travel papers). The district director’s decision granting or denying the alien’s request for release must set forth reasons for continued detention. If release is denied, the district director may retain authority for up to three months after the removal period, but if the alien is not released within that time his case is referred to the Executive Associate Commissioner, acting through the Headquarters Post-Order Detention Unit (HQPDU). The alien is then given another records review. If release is not recommended, a Review Panel interviews the alien, who may have a representative present. The Panel then makes a recommendation and the Executive Associate Commissioner makes the final determination. Thereafter, HQPDU must review the alien's case annually, but the alien may request review based on changed circumstances every three months and HQPDU must respond within 90 days. HQPDU may conduct more frequent reviews if prompt removal is practicable, proper, or other good cause appears.
The decision whether to release an alien is discretionary and non-appealable. However, the INS may not release an alien unless the alien demonstrates that he is not a danger to the community or a flight risk, and not before considering numerous factors that militate for and against release. The Service’s determination that an alien is likely to receive travel documents by itself can warrant continuation of detention, and if it is established at any stage in a custody review that travel documents can be obtained or are forthcoming, the alien will generally not be released, at least