Court Opinion

ID: 9001849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 13:11:33.488669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:11:12.103787
License: Public Domain

JON 0. NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
with whom GEORGE C. PRATT, Circuit Judge, joins, concurring:
I concur in Judge Pratt’s opinion and add these few words primarily to clarify what I believe is the significance to the collateral estoppel issue of the Government’s shift from the position it took when it successfully opposed certiorari in Haitian Refugee Center v. Baker, 949 F.2d 1109 (11th Cir.1991) (“HRC”), to the position it now takes with regard to interdiction. The Government persuaded the Supreme Court not to review the Eleventh Circuit’s decision by assuring the Court that it would screen Haitian refugees and bring to this country those who qualified for asylum. Having made that representation to insulate from review a decision that the screening policy was lawful, the Government now asks us to apply collateral estoppel to a lawsuit challenging the new policy of returning Haitians without screening — a policy Judge Pratt and I believe is unlawful. If we were to accede to that argument, we would be letting the Government keep the Eleventh Circuit ruling from the Supreme Court on a promise that is no longer being honored and then let the Government keep our decision from the Supreme Court by asserting that we had correctly applied collateral es-toppel. That would be gamesmanship of the rankest sort, especially inappropriate in a lawsuit affecting people’s lives.
Judge Walker, in dissent, misperceives the point of our discussion of the Government’s change of position from what it asserted in opposition to certiorari in Baker. First, he points out that the plaintiffs are not entitled to certiorari. That is true, but entirely beside the point. We are not suggesting that the HRC plaintiffs were entitled to have the Supreme Court review the Eleventh Circuit’s decision. We are suggesting that the Government cannot fend off such review on a promise to pursue one policy, then abandon that policy, and then use that unreviewed decision, insulated from review by a representation no longer being honored, to obtain a collateral estoppel ruling from this Court as to the lawfulness of the new policy. I do not question the Government’s right to change its mind. But I do question its right to secure a litigating benefit from the position it previously asserted and then, after it has abandoned that position, to secure another litigating benefit in this Court.
Judge Walker also suggests that what the plaintiffs are really arguing is that the Supreme Court should apply some sort of equity argument to grant review of the collateral estoppel ruling he believes we should make in this case. But that is not at all what the plaintiffs are arguing. They are not so easily gulled. They understand that the issue is not whether some generous certiorari review should be applied to our collateral estoppel ruling. Instead, the issue is whether we should apply collateral estoppel in the first place. We should not do so, especially since we disagree on the merits with the Eleventh Circuit and since the Government has now abandoned the promise it made to the Supreme Court in fending off review of that Circuit’s ruling.
With respect to the merits, I wish to add only one point. Judge Walker maintains that section 243(h) is confined to the territorial limits of the United States because its reach is co-extensive with section 208(a), which establishes asylum procedures for “an alien physically present in the United States or at a land border or port of entry,” 11 U.S.C. § 1158(a) (1988). I can readily agree that the two provisions are co-extensive in most of their applications. When Congress drafted both sections 208(a) and 243(h), it was most likely thinking primarily of those who would arrive at our shores seeking asylum. The idea that our country would seize aliens in foreign lands or on the high seas and return them to their persecutors was probably not in the contemplation of most legislators. But the language of section 243(h), like the language of the UN Protocol that it imple-*1369merits, goes one step beyond the scope of section 208(a): It forbids our country from laying hands on an alien anywhere in the world and forcibly returning him to a country in which he faces persecution.
Unlike section 243(h), the asylum procedure of section 208(a) is explicitly limited to those in our territory. But asylum procedures for entry of an alien do not operate in the same manner as the prohibition on returning an alien to face persecution. Asylum is a discretionary decision of the Attorney General. No alien, even one who satisfies the standard of “refugee,” has a right to asylum, or a right to enter the United States. See Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Gardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 428 n. 5, 107 S.Ct. 1207, 1211 n. 5, 94 L.Ed.2d 434 (1987) (“It is important to note that, the Attorney General is not required to grant asylum to everyone who meets the definition of refugee.”) (emphasis in original). If denied asylum, he may not enter; he may go elsewhere, or, in an extreme case, languish at our border. Cf. Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 73 S.Ct. 625, 97 L.Ed. 956 (1953) (excluded alien detained at Ellis Island). But the command of section 243(h) is absolute: the alien shall not be returned to face persecution. That command cannot be circumvented by seizing the alien as he approaches our border, whether by land or by sea, and returning him to his persecutors.