Immigration, Retaliation, and Jurisdiction
I. Introduction
TOPWhen federal officials told Ravidath Ragbir that they were deporting him because of his immigration activism, no one could stop them.1
Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019), vac’d sub nom. Pham v. Ragbir, No. 19-1046, 2020 WL 5882107 (U.S. Oct. 5, 2020); see also Ragbir v. Holder, 389 F. App’x 80 (2d Cir. 2010); Ragbir v. Lynch, 640 F. App’x 105 (2d Cir. 2016); Ragbir v. Barr, No. 18-1595, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 37203 (2d Cir. July 30, 2019); Ragbir v. United States, No. 17-1256, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13236, (D.N.J. Jan. 25, 2019), aff’d, 950 F.3d 54 (3d Cir. 2020) (denying writ of coram nobis).
8 U.S.C. § 1252(g) (2020).
Ragbir’s case demonstrates the dangers of this general rule. Ragbir — an alien deportable as a result of a federal wire fraud conviction — has spent years organizing for more lenient immigration policies. That advocacy led a senior official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to admit that he was deporting Ragbir because of his advocacy. Ragbir remains in the United States thanks to the intervention of federal courts. But in Ragbir’s case, discretion layered with unreviewability allowed the Executive to come perilously close to deporting Ragbir to his native Trinidad because of his criticisms of a government policy — the undisputed nucleus of the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause. Whether he should be here or there is quite beyond the point: motive matters in the law as in life, and identifying motives as impermissible serves valuable expressive and dignitary purposes.
This Comment explains why certain claims of selective enforcement in retaliation for First Amendment activity are — thanks to the Suspension Clause3
U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 2.
139 S. Ct. 1715 (2019).
Id. at 1727.
Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 488 (1999).
But it shouldn’t. The vast discretion afforded the executive in immigration enforcement authorizes it to knowingly tolerate the unlawful presence of aliens within the United States. When, after obtaining an order of final removal against an alien, the government grants the alien a stay of removal, the government should not be allowed use that order to chill that alien’s First Amendment rights. Such a proposition is not new. The Constitution and statutes such as the Speedy Trial Act7
Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 2080, as amended August 2, 1979, 93 Stat. 328, codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 3161 – 3174.
This Comment proceeds in three principal parts. The first traces the histories of habeas corpus, immigration, and retaliation. The second explains Ragbir’s dilemma. And the third brings the two together.
Ultimately, the Comment concludes that for a narrow class of aliens — those who entered the United States lawfully, remain in the United States pursuant to a stay of removal, and have exhausted all statutory avenues for review — the Suspension Clause bars the application of jurisdiction-stripping statutes to claims arising from the government’s retaliatory decision to remove the alien from the country. Because these aliens are in detention within — and have substantial ties to — the United States, the writ of habeas corpus as understood at the Framing guarantees that the Suspension Clause applies to them. When an alien has exhausted her lone statutorily authorized motion to reopen her case with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, no adequate judicial forum exists in which she can challenge subsequent constitutional violations. Any statutes, then, which operate to preclude judicial review of the government’s allegedly retaliatory decisionmaking must be deemed inapplicable absent a Congressional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.
A. Habeas Corpus in America
TOPAny effort to examine the power of the executive to detain might sensibly start with an examination of the laws authorizing such detentions. For reasons which will hopefully become apparent, this examination instead starts with the most ancient and storied remedy for such detentions, the writ of habeas corpus.
“Indisputably hold[ing] an honored position in our jurisprudence,”8
Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 126 (1982).
The Federalist No. 84, at 512 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961); William Blackstone, 1 Commentaries on The Laws of England 137 – 38 (9th ed. 1783) (“And by the habeas corpus act, 31 Cha. II. c. 2. (that second magna carta, and the stable bulwark of our liberties) it is enacted, that no subject of this realm . . . shall be sent prisoner into . . . places beyond the seas (where they cannot have the benefit and protection of the common law).”).
Int’l Covenant on Civil & Political Rights, art. 9, adopted Dec. 19, 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 14668.
See, e.g., “amparo de libertad” and “Verfassungsbeschwerde.” Cf. Criminal Procedure: a Worldwide Study (Craig M. Bradley ed., 2d ed. 2007) (surveying international criminal procedure); Wilhelm Karl Geck, Judicial Review of Statutes: A Comparative Survey of Present Institutions and Practices, 51 Cornell L. Rev. 250, 300 – 301 (1966).
1 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 249 (Jonathan Elliot ed., 1837); see also 3 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 460 – 64 (Jonathan Elliot ed., 1837).
Paul D. Halliday, Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire 253 (2010).
1 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774 – 89, 105–13 (1904); see Zechariah Chafee Jr., The Most Important Human Right in the Constitution, 32 B.U. L. Rev. 143, 145 (1952).
To do so the Framers drew from the experience of the Confederation. Before the Ratification, just four state constitutions contained provisions protecting the writ.15
Dallin H. Oaks, Habeas Corpus in the States—1776 – 1865, 32 U. Chi. L. Rev. 243, 247 (1965). Georgia incorporated the Act of 1679 into its constitution; North Carolina conferred a personal right to habeas corpus (though it did not use those words); and Massachusetts and New Hampshire provided both an affirmative right to the writ and legislative power to suspend it for a period of time. See N.C. Const art. XIII (1776); Ga. Const. art. LX (1777); Mass. Const. ch. 6, art. VII (1780); N.H. Const. pt. 2, art. 91 (1784).
Act of Feb. 18, 1785, § 12, reprinted in Digest of the Laws of Pennsylvania 573 (7th ed., Philadelphia, Davis 1847) (imposing a £200 fine on anyone who transfers a prisoner without legal authority).
Act of Feb. 21, 1787, N.Y. Laws 1785 – 88, 424 (Official Reprint 1886).
Act of 1779, 11 Va. Stat. 410 (Richmond, Cochran 1823) (prohibiting transfers of prisoners out of the state except “where the prisoner shall be charged by affidavit with treason or felony, alleged to be done in any of the other United States of America, in which . . . case he shall be sent thither in custody” by order of a Virginia court).
See, e.g., Ga. Const. art. LX (1777) (“The principles of the habeas-corpus act shall be a part of this constitution.”); Act of Mar. 16, 1785, 1 Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 72, § 10 (1823) (prohibiting “any person [from] transport[ing] . . . any subject of this Commonwealth . . . to any part or place without the limits of the same . . . except [if] such person be sent by due course of law, to answer for some criminal offense committed in some other of the United States of America”).
Regarded by Blackstone as the “second magna carta,” the Act represented a decades-long struggle to codify the power of courts to question the basis for an individual’s detention. 31 Cha. 2. c. 2 § 8 (1679); see supra note NOTEREF _Ref56258365 \h 9 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350036003200350038003300360035000000 ; Halladay, supra note NOTEREF _Ref56258383 \h 13 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350036003200350038003300380033000000 , at 80 – 81.
See GA Const. art. LX (1777); Act of Oct. 16, 1692, 2 S.C. Stat. 74 (Cooper 1837).
Act of Dec. 12, 1712, 2 S.C. Stat. 399 – 401 (Columbia, Johnston 1837) (adopting the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679).
Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maryland round out the Thirteen. Rhode Island had no written constitution before the Ratification. See Oaks, supra note NOTEREF _Ref50022652 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 15 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350030003000320032003600350032000000 , at 247.
The Northwest Ordinance, art. II, codified at 1 Stat. 50 (1787).
At Philadelphia, however, little was said about what would become the Suspension Clause. Notables at the Convention questioned the need for an explicit protection of the writ in the new Union, fearing it would provide a roadmap for abuse.25
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (July 31, 1788), in 13 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 440, 442 (Julian P. Boyd ed., 1956); see also, Eric M. Freedman, The Suspension Clause in the Ratification Debates, 44 Buff. L. Rev. 451, 463 – 65 (1996) (describing Anti-Federalist opposition to the Suspension Clause).
See Neil Douglas McFeeley, The Historical Development of Habeas Corpus, 30 Sw. L. J. 585, 595 (1976) (noting that Charles Pinckney’s plan provided for the habeas right in what was then Article VI, the section on judicial power).
U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 2.
Oaks, supra note NOTEREF _Ref50022652 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 15 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350030003000320032003600350032000000 , at 248; see also Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (Dec. 20, 1787), in 12 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 438, 440 (Julian P. Boyd ed., 1955) (objecting that the Constitution lacked “the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws”).
Of course, all thirteen states would ratify the Constitution. While the Constitution provided an implied right of habeas corpus, it would take legislative action to provide a path for accessing the writ. Congress did not delay. Section 14 of the Judiciary Act of 178929
Ch. 20, 1 Stat. 73, 81 – 82 (1789).
Id. § 14. The current habeas corpus statute authorizing review of federal detention, 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (2020), flows directly from this first authorization.
Gerald L. Neuman, Habeas Corpus, Executive Detention, and the Removal of Aliens, 98 Colum. L. Rev. 961, 973–74 (1998); accord William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 113 – 15 (Phillip H. Nicklin ed., Portage Pub., Inc. 2011) (1825); Akhil Reed Amar, Of Sovereignty and Federalism, 96 Yale L. J. 1425, 1509 – 10 (1987).
8 U.S. (4 Cranch) 75, 94 (1807).
Id. at 95.
Id. (“[F]or if the means [of exercising review] be not in existence, the privilege itself would be lost, although no law for its suspension should be enacted.”).
Since that time, little has changed in the writ’s purposes. Much has changed in the way of process and limitations, however. Modern federal habeas corpus petitions are brought in federal district court.35
28 U.S.C. § 2241. Though statutes authorize the Supreme Court to grant habeas corpus as a matter of the Court’s original jurisdiction, the Court has not done so since 1925. See Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87 (1925); cf. Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651 (1996) (denying petitioner’s habeas claim on the merits).
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 797 (2008).
Swain v. Pressley, 430 U.S. 372, 381 (1977).
Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 783.
Modern habeas corpus has, for all intents and purposes, always acted as a check on the authority of the executive to detain the individual.39
INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 301–03 (2001), superseded by statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1252. (“At its historical core, the writ of habeas corpus has served as a means of reviewing the legality of Executive detention, and it is in that context that its protections have been strongest.”). See, e.g., Swain, 430 U.S. at 380 n.13 (1977); Id. at 386 (Burger, C.J., concurring) (“[T]he traditional Great Writ was largely a remedy against executive detention.”); Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 533 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring in result) (“The historic purpose of the writ has been to relieve detention by executive authorities without judicial trial.”).
Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 2 91 (1969); see also Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 309, 346 (1915) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (“[H]abeas corpus cuts through all forms and goes to the very issue of the structure. It comes in from the outside, not in subordination to the proceedings, and although every form may have been preserved, opens the inquiry whether they have been more than an empty shell.”).
B. Immigration Proceedings & Their Limits
TOPThe power to exclude noncitizens is a hallmark of sovereignty.41
See United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 318 (1936) (“As a member of the family of nations, the right and power of the United States in that field are equal to the right and power of the other members of the international family. Otherwise, the United States is not completely sovereign. The power to . . . expel undesirable aliens . . . [is not] expressly affirmed by the Constitution, nevertheless exist[s] as inherently inseparable from the conception of nationality.”) (citing Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 705 (1893)); see also Stephen H. Legomsky, Immigration Law and the Principle of Plenary Congressional Power, 1984 Sup. Ct. Rev. 255, 274 (1984).
Ch. 58, 1 Stat. 557 (1798).
Id. § 1. Congress had passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, ch. 3, 1 Stat. 103. That law, however, regulated naturalization rather than immigration — a distinction of significance.
Ragbir v. Sessions, No 18-cv-236, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13939, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 29, 2018), vacated as moot, No. 18-1595, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 37203 (2d Cir. July 30, 2019).
The realm of exclusion, or the denial of entry into the United States, is largely beyond the scope of this Comment. The Executive enjoys even broader discretion in the area of exclusion than it does in removal, and the First Amendment has never been applied extraterritorially. See, e.g., Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2416 – 23 (2018); see also Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 769–70 (1972) (holding that plenary power authorized the Attorney General to exclude foreign nationals on the basis of their speech); Kerry v. Din, 576 U.S. 86, 103 (2015) (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment) (applying Mandel’s reasoning and holding). Claims regarding the exclusion of aliens on First Amendment grounds are thus unlikely to succeed.
1. Historical proceedings
The Court in the Passenger Cases46
48 U.S. 283 (1849).
Id.
See Act of Mar. 3, 1875, ch. 141, 5, 18 Stat. 477, 477 – 78; accord INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 305 (2001).
See generally Legomsky, supra note NOTEREF _Ref31877545 \h 41 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600330031003800370037003500340035000000 .
Chae Chan Ping v. United States (The Chinese Exclusion Case), 130 U.S. 581 (1889).
See, e.g., Matthew J. Lindsay, Immigration as Invasion: Sovereignty, Security, and the Origins of the Federal Immigration Power, 45 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1 (2010); see also Curtiss-Wright, 299 U.S. at 318. But see also Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 416 (2012) (“The history of the United States is in part made of the stories, talents, and lasting contributions of those who crossed oceans and deserts to come here.”).
Removal of aliens ultimately came to be viewed as an administrative process rather than a true “legal” (in the common law sense) proceeding requiring a hearing before a court.52
See Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 713 (1893).
Christian G. Fritz, A Nineteenth Century “Habeas Corpus Mill”: The Chinese Before the Federal Courts in California, 32 Am. J. Legal Hist. 347, 348 (1988).
Frustrated with the delays such proceedings could entail, Congress elected to provide alternative forms of review. In the 1917 Immigration Act Congress strove to curb judicial review to the maximum extent possible.54
S. Rep. No. 352, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 2, 16 (remarking of § 17 of the Act that “[t]he last [finality] provision, while new in this particular location, is not new in the law, the courts having repeatedly held that in the cases of aliens arrested for deportation, as well as in the cases of those excluded at our ports, the decision of the administrative officers is final, and the Supreme Court having in several decisions regarded the case of the alien arrested for deportation as practically a deferred exclusion (The Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U.S. 86 [(1903)]; Pearson v. Williams, 202 U.S. 281 [(1906)]; etc.).”).
Kwok Jan Fat v. White, 253 U.S. 454, 458 (1920) (quoting Tang Tun v. Edsell, 223 U.S. 673, 681–82 (1912)).
Pub. L. No. 82-414, ch. 477, 66 Stat. 163 (1952) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 8 U.S.C.).
Pub.L. 79-404, 60 Stat. 237 (1946) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 5 U.S.C.).
Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U.S. 48, 50 – 51 (1955); Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U.S. 33, 52 –53 (1950) (holding that deportation proceedings must comply with the APA to be enforceable).
“[T]here is always available to an alien in custody under a deportation order the right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus for the purpose of questioning the validity of the order.” H. Rep. No. 1086, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., (1961), reprinted in 1961 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2950, 2974.
2. Modern immigration proceedings
Congress dramatically reformed immigration proceedings in 1996. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA)60
Pub. L. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (April 24, 1996).
Div. C, Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1996 (H.R. 3610), Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009 – 546 (1996).
8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1) (2020).
Id. § 1227(a)(2).
Id.
To render an alien removable, the DHS serves an alien it believes to be subject to removal with a “notice to appear” for a hearing before an immigration judge employed by the Department of Justice.65
Id. § 1229(a) (initiation of removal proceedings); 8 C.F.R. § 1240.1(a) (2020) (describing authority of Immigration Judges); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1003.10(a) (2020) (authorizing appointment of immigration judges).
8 C.F.R. § 1240.1(a)(1)(i) – (iv).
Both the government and the alien may appeal adverse aspects of the immigration judge’s ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), an appellate body within the Department of Justice.67
Id. §§ 1003.1 – 1003.3 (2020).
8 U.S.C. § 1252(b); see also 28 U.S.C. §§ 2341 – 2353 (2020) (specifying procedures for exercise of jurisdiction by courts of appeals over petitions for review).
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-208, div. C, 110 Stat. 3009–546 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 8, 18, and 28 U.S.C.).
8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D) (specifying courts of appeal may review constitutional questions and questions of law in a petition for review proceeding); 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B) (“[T]he administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.”).
Because immigration hearings are not criminal in nature,71
INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1038 (1984).
8 U.S.C. § 1362 (2020); 8 C.F.R. § 1240.3 (2020) (implementing regulation). Nearly all agree that this right is constitutional in nature. See Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 306 (1993) (“[T]he Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings.”); see also Biwot v. Gonzales, 403 F.3d 1094, 1098 (9th Cir. 2005) (“The right to counsel in immigration proceedings is rooted in the Due Process Clause.”); Dakane v. U.S. Attorney General, 399 F.3d 1269, 1273 (11th Cir. 2005) (“It is well established in this Circuit that an alien in civil deportation proceedings . . . has the constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause . . . to a fundamentally fair hearing.”); Borges v. Gonzales, 402 F.3d 398, 408 (3d Cir. 2005) (“[T]he Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings.”) (citing Reno, 507 U.S. at 306); Rosales v. Bureau of Immigr. & Customs Enforcement, 426 F.3d 733, 736 (5th Cir. 2005) (“[D]ue process requires that [deportation hearings] be fundamentally fair . . . .”); Brown v. Ashcroft, 360 F.3d 346, 350 (2d Cir. 2004) (“The right . . . under the Fifth Amendment to due process of law in deportation proceedings is well established.”). The Attorney General has agreed with this consensus. Matter of Compean, 25 I. & N. Dec. 1 (A.G. 2009).
For example, the Ex Post Facto Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 3, does not apply to immigration proceedings: Congress may pass laws that retroactively render aliens deportable for offenses that, at the time of conviction, could not have led to deportation. See Galvan v. Press, 347 U.S. 522, 531 (1954) (“And whatever might have been said at an earlier date for applying the ex post facto Clause, it has been the unbroken rule of this Court that it has no application to deportation.”).
559 U.S. 356 (2010).
Id. at 374; see 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(B)(i) (classifying aliens convicted “of a violation of . . . any law or regulation of a State, the United States, or a foreign country relating to a controlled substance” as deportable).
Resource constraints make removing all deportable aliens impossible. Congress has authorized the executive to selectively pursue both an order of removal and the order’s ultimate effectuation.76
See INA § 241 (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1231(c)(2)(A)(i)) (authorizing the Attorney General to stay the removal of an alien if removal “is not practicable or proper”); see also Clark v. Suarez Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 374 n.1 (2005) (stating that, pursuant to 6 U.S.C. §§ 251(2), 252(a)(3), 271(b), the Secretary of Homeland Security now has the authority to stay removals originally delegated by Congress in § 241 of the INA to the Attorney General).
8 C.F.R. § 241.6 (2020) (“Any request of an alien under a final order of deportation or removal for a stay of deportation or removal shall be filed . . . with the district director [of ICE] having jurisdiction over the place where alien is at the time of filing.”); see also Id. § 212.5 (2020) (listing factors ICE should consider in whether to grant a stay); accord 8 U.S.C. § 1231(c)(2)(A).
Vivian Yee, Migrants Confront Judgment Day over Old Deportation Orders, N.Y.
Times (Mar. 4, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/us/migrants-facing-old-deportation-orders.html[https://perma.cc/65XW-REXF].
Id.
8 U.S.C. § 1252(g); see also infra Part III.
8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(1)(A) (“Except as otherwise provided in this section, when an alien is ordered removed, the Attorney General shall remove the alien from the United States within a period of 90 days (in this section referred to as the ‘removal period’).”).
3. Collateral review of immigration proceedings
The broad power of Congress to define the substantive bases for excluding or removing immigrants did nothing “which in any manner affect[ed] the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States to issue a writ of habeas corpus.”82
United States v. Jung Ah Lung, 124 U.S. 621, 628–29 (1888).
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 747 (2008); see, e.g., Sommersett v. Stewart (Sommersett’s Case), 20 How. St. Tr. 1, 80 – 82 (1772) (ordering an African slave freed upon finding the custodian’s return insufficient). See generally Khera v. Sec’y of State for the Home Dept., [1984] A.C. 74, 111 (H.L.) (“Habeas corpus protection is often expressed as limited to ‘British subjects.’ Is it really limited to British nationals? Suffice it to say that the case law has given an emphatic ‘no’ to the question.”).
Nishimura Ekiu v. United States, 142 U.S. 651, 660 (1892); see also United States v. Jung Ah Lung, 124 U.S. 621 (1888) (affirming district court’s use of habeas corpus to review an immigrant’s long-term detention aboard a ship of voyage in San Francisco harbor).
This remained the case for over a century. In two landmark cases involving the power of the federal judiciary to review the exclusion of aliens from the United States, the Court declined to provide the aliens with relief. In United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy,85
338 U.S. 537 (1950).
Id. This uncomfortable phraseology comes from statute. See War Brides Act of 1945, Pub. L. No. 79-271, 59 Stat. 659.
Knauff, 338 U.S. at 539.
Id. at 544 – 45.
345 U.S. 206 (1953).
Id. at 213.
Id. at 213 –15.
But in both cases the Court reached the merits. Nowhere in either opinion did the Court consider that the Plenary Power precluded judicial consideration of the immigrants’ habeas petitions. The substantive discretion enjoyed by the executive did not minimize the procedural protections afforded by habeas corpus. Whether the immigrants could win relief on the merits was discrete from the method of challenging their predicaments. And even where Congress curtailed the extent of judicial review over immigration decisions, habeas remained available. In Heikkila v. Barber,92
345 U.S. 229 (1953).
Id. at 235.
INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 306 (2001).
Seeking to streamline the process for removing aliens, Congress enacted the Immigration and Nationality Act.95
Pub. L. No. 82-414, ch. 477, 66 Stat. 163 (1952) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 8 U.S.C.).
75 Stat. 651, 652 (1961), codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(10) (repealed 1996).
First enacted by IIRIRA, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g) originally provided that:
Except as provided in this section and notwithstanding any other provision of law, no court shall have jurisdiction to hear any cause or claim by or on behalf of any alien arising from the decision or action by the Attorney General to commence proceedings, adjudicate cases, or execute removal orders against any alien under this Act.97
97Pub. L. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009, 3612.
That text was ambiguous as to whether it precluded jurisdiction over constitutional as well as statutory claims. Courts of appeals were nearly unanimous that the efforts in AEDPA and IIRIRA to strip courts of jurisdiction did not extend to habeas corpus.98
See Goncalves v. Reno, 144 F.3d 110 (1st Cir. 1998); Henderson v. INS, 157 F.3d 106 (2d Cir. 1998); Sandoval v. Reno, 166 F.3d 225 (3d Cir. 1999); Bowrin v. INS, 194 F.3d 483 (4th Cir. 1999); Requena-Rodriguez v. Pasquarell, 190 F.3d 299 (5th Cir. 1999); Pak v. Reno, 196 F.3d 666 (6th Cir. 1999); Shah v. Reno, 184 F.3d 719 (8th Cir. 1999); Magana-Pizano v. INS, 200 F.3d 603 (9th Cir. 1999); Jurado-Gutierrez v. Greene, 190 F.3d 1135 (10th Cir. 1999) (as amended upon denial of rehearing en banc); Mayers v. INS, 175 F.3d 1289 (11th Cir. 1999). The lone dissenting circuit was the Seventh. LaGuerre v. Reno, 164 F.3d 1035 (7th Cir. 1998).
INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 314 (2001). Although St. Cyr did not address § 1252(g) directly, it did address other subsections of § 1252 with identical language.
Congress responded. Section 106 of the REAL ID Act of 2005100
Pub. L. No. 109 – 13, 119 Stat. 302 (2005).
Real ID Act § 106 adds a new subsection, (a)(5) to 8 U.S.C. § 1252: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or non-statutory), including [habeas, mandamus, and All Writs Act] . . . a petition for review filed with an appropriate court of appeals . . . shall be the sole and exclusive means for judicial review of an order of removal entered or issued under any provision of this chapter.”
Except as provided in this section and notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), including section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, or any other habeas corpus provision, and sections 1361 and 1651 of such title, no court shall have jurisdiction to hear any cause or claim by or on behalf of any alien arising from the decision or action by the Attorney General to commence proceedings, adjudicate cases, or execute removal orders against any alien under this chapter.102
102(2005 additions italicized).The meaning of “nonstatutory” is unclear. The Second Circuit concludes that “nonstatutory” means “constitutional.” Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53, 66 (2d Cir. 2019). (“[W]e are aware of no ‘nonstatutory’ claim that a petitioner could bring in relation to a deportation proceeding other than one rooted in the Constitution.”). The Ninth Circuit disagrees: in Arce v. United States, that court concluded that § 1252(g) did not preclude jurisdiction over a habeas claim brought by an alien who had been removed in violation of a judicial order staying his removal, suggesting that the inherent power of a court exceeds statutory and nonstatutory grants. 899 F.3d 796, 799–801 (9th Cir. 2018).
The legislative history of § 106 makes clear that Congress’s intent was to provide the clear statement the Court said was lacking from the earlier language in St. Cyr.103
151 Cong. Rec. 8393 (2005); see also Strengthening Interior Enforcement: Deportation and Related Issues: Joint Hearing Before the Subcomms. on Immigr., Border Sec. & Citizenship and Terrorism, Tech. & Homeland Sec. of the S. Comm. Of the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 1 (2005); Paul Diller, Habeas and (Non-) Delegation, 77 U. Chi. L. Rev. 585, 615 (2010) (confirming that the REAL ID Act had been passed in direct response to St. Cyr.); H.R. Rep. No. 109-72, at 175 (2005), reprinted in 2005 U.S.C.C.A.N. 240, 300 (Conference Report on the REAL ID Act seeking to avoid the constitutional concerns presented in St. Cyr regarding the complete suspension of habeas corpus for immigrants).
8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D).
See, e.g., Ruiz-Martinez v. Mukasey, 516 F.3d 102, 114 (2d Cir. 2008); Mohamed v. Gonzales, 477 F.3d 522, 526 (8th Cir. 2007); Puri v. Gonzales, 464 F.3d 1038, 1041 (9th Cir. 2006); Alexandre v. Attorney General, 452 F.3d 1204, 1206 (11th Cir. 2006).
To take stock: habeas corpus in the United States has traditionally been understood to protect against unlawful executive detentions,106
Swain v. Pressley, 430 U.S. 372, 386 (1977) (Burger, C.J., concurring).
Cases arising from the United States’ detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base reaffirmed the traditional understanding that, because a writ of habeas corpus was directed against the jailer on the detainee’s behalf, an issuing court’s jurisdiction over the jailer — not the detainee — is the paramount question in determining the jurisdictional power of a court to issue the writ. See generally Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2006), superseded by statute, Pub. L. No. 109-148, div. A, title X, 119 Stat. 2680, 2739-44 (2005); Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008).
INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 300 (2001) (“[S]ome judicial intervention in deportation cases is unquestionably required by the Constitution.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
This analysis excludes the vast number of individuals removed pursuant to “expedited removal.” Expedited removal is available against certain categories of recently-arrived aliens who are incapable of demonstrating long-term presence within the United States — generally those apprehended near the border.
C. Retaliation
TOP“As a general matter, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.”110
United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 716 (2012) (quoting Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564, 573 (2002)).
Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250, 256 (2006) (citing Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 592 (1998)).
Perry v. Spinderman, 408 U.S. 593, 597 (1972) (“[The government] may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests — especially, his interest in freedom of speech. For if the government could deny a benefit to a person because of his constitutionally protected speech or associations, his exercise of those freedoms would in effect be penalized and inhibited.”).
1. Modern doctrine
The earliest causes of action for unlawful arrest stemmed from the common law tort equivalent of false imprisonment.113
Wheeler v. Nesbitt, 65 U.S. 544, 549 – 50 (1861) (noting that “[w]ant of reasonable and probable cause” is an “element in the action for a malicious criminal prosecution”); see also Restatement of Torts § 653 (Am. Law Inst. 1938).
Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715, 1726 (2019) (quoting Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 389 – 90 (2007)).
See Thomas M. Cooley, A Treatise on the Law of Torts, or, the Wrongs Which Arise Independent of Contract 175 (Chicago, Callaghan 1880); 1 F. Hilliard, The Law of Torts or Private Wrongs 207 – 08 (Boston, Little, Brown & Co. 1859).
429 U.S. 274 (1977).
547 U.S. 250 (2006).
Fred Doyle sued the Mt. Healthy, Ohio school board after his teaching contract was not renewed, he alleged, because of his comments on school policy to a local radio program.118
Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 281 – 83 (1977).
Brief for Respondent at *6, Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. 274 (No. 75-1278).
Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 287.
Id.
In Hartman, William Moore was indicted for various violations of federal lobbying laws stemming from his advocacy against the implementation of ZIP+4 by the postal service.122
Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250, 252 (2006). Although irrelevant, the nature of the dispute is fascinating: Moore’s company produced multiline optical scanners which would have been rendered obsolete to his largest customer, the Postal Service, had ZIP+4 become the norm; it obviously has not. Ironically, Moore’s company did not receive a renewed contract for multiline readers.
United States v. Recognition Equip. Inc., 725 F. Supp. 587, 596 (D.D.C. 1989).
Hartman, 547 U.S. at 254.
Hartman posed a problem not present in Mt. Healthy’s civil context: the arresting officer and the prosecutor are almost never the same person. Thus, the retaliatory animus of the officer may be irrelevant to the prosecutor’s decision to charge a suspect. And because prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity,125
Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976). Absolute prosecutorial immunity is a longstanding feature of common law. See Bradley v. Fisher, 80 U.S. 335 (1872) (first recognizing absolute prosecutorial immunity); accord Floyd v. Barker, 12 Coke 23, 77 Eng. Rep. 1305 (1608) (early recognition of the immunity); Yates v. Lansing, 5 Johns. 282, 291 – 96 (N.Y. 1810) (tracing history of the immunity).
Lozeman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1945, 1947 (2018) (citing Hartman, 547 U.S. at 265 – 66).
Id.
After nearly a decade of further proceedings, Moore finally lost his case against the inspectors at trial. Moore v. Hartman, 102 F. Supp. 3d 35 (D.D.C. 2015).
Having addressed the civil and prosecutorial contexts, it was inevitable that the Court would be asked to address what standard applied when individuals alleged retaliatory arrest. The first two cases to present this question were met with artful dodges.
At a shopping mall in Beaver Creek, Colorado, Vice President Dick Cheney was confronted by Steven Howards who was, simply put, not a fan.129
Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 660 (2012).
Id.
Id. at 661.
Id.
Id.
Id. at 662.
Although presented with an opportunity to establish a standard for determining what a plaintiff must prove to show a retaliatory arrest, the Court dodged in Reichle v. Howards.135
566 U.S. 658 (2012).
Howards v. McLaughlin, 634 F.3d 1131, 1149 (10th Cir. 2011).
Reichle, 566 U.S. at 669 – 71.
Id. at 663 (“If the answer to either question is ‘no,’ then the agents are entitled to qualified immunity. We elect to address only the second question.”).
Five months after Steven Howards was arrested, Fane Lozman was, too.139
Compare McLaughlin, 634 F.3d at 1135 (noting date of Howards’ arrest as June 16, 2006), with Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1945, 1950 (2018) (citing Def.’s Ex. 505, Doc. 687) (noting date of Lozman’s arrest as November 2006).
A longtime critic of his local government, Lozman was arrested at a city council meeting when he refused to vacate the podium.140
Lozman, 138 S. Ct. at 1949– 50.
City of Riviera Beach v. That Certain Unnamed Gray, Two-Story Vessel, Approximately Fifty-Seven Feet In Length, 649 F.3d 1259, 1263 (11th Cir. 2011) (noting that the dachshund in question — Lady — was, by all accounts, a very good girl). That libel gave rise to Lozman’s first victory in the Supreme Court. See Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 568 U.S. 115 (2013).
Recognizing the long history of animosity between Lozman and his local government, the Court concluded that Lozman’s arrest was no ordinary arrest.142
Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1949 (2018).
Id.
Id.
Id. at 1954 (“Instead Lozman alleges more governmental action than simply an arrest. His claim is that the City itself retaliated against him pursuant to an official municipal policy of intimidation”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Id. at 1955.
Id. at 1954 (“Whether in a retaliatory arrest case the Hartman approach should apply, thus barring a suit where probable cause exists, or, on the other hand, the inquiry should be governed only by Mt. Healthy is a determination that must await a different case.”).
2. The Nieves standard
Russell Bartlett’s enjoyment of Arctic Man—the subarctic bacchanal which descends upon Paxson, Alaska, each spring—was cut short when he was arrested by Trooper Luis Nieves on April 13, 2014.148
Bartlett v. Nieves, No. 4:15-cv-00004-SLG, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87805 at *1 – 2 (D. Alaska July 17, 2016).
Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715, 1720 (2019).
Later that evening, a second trooper was questioning two individuals when Bartlett reappeared, carrying with him his message of noncompliance.150
Id.
Id. at 1720 – 21.
Id. at 1721 (citing Bartlett v. Nieves, 712 F. App’x 613, 616 (9th Cir. 2017)) (cleaned up).
Id.
Id.
In a 2019 opinion for himself and four others, Chief Justice Roberts concluded that the existence of probable cause to arrest Bartlett defeated his claim as a matter of law. Drawing on Mt. Healthy and Hartman, the Court held that probable cause will defeat most claims but that “objective evidence that [the plaintiff] was arrested when otherwise similarly situated individuals not engaged in the same sort of protected speech had not been” may allow such claims to go forward.155
Id. at 1727.
Id. at 1724 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). That protected speech may be a legitimate consideration in a context such as a riot does not render it legitimate in the immigration context. A rabblerousing demonstrator who fails to disperse may be deemed more likely to escalate a situation because of her protected speech. But an immigration activist who is subjected to removal proceedings explicitly because of her anti-ICE rhetoric poses no such risk of escalation in a heated situation. And, unlike local law enforcement, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations officers are not tasked with maintaining public order at a demonstration.
Id. at 1725 (citing Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1945, 1952 (2018)).
3. In immigration
Neither the First nor Fifth Amendment “acknowledge[] any distinction between citizens and resident aliens.”158
Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U.S. 590, 596 n.5 (1953) (quoting Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 161 (Murphy, J., concurring)). But see also Michael Kagan, When Immigrants Speak: The Precarious Status of Non-Citizen Speech Under the First Amendment, 57 B.C. L. Rev. 1237 (2016).
Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 693 – 94 (2001). The Department of Justice in 2015 filed a brief in a class action against the Department of Homeland Security which argued that aliens unlawfully present in the United States are not protected by the First Amendment. See Federal Defendants’ Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction at 11 – 13, Pineda-Cruz v. Thompson, No. 15-cv-00326, 2015 WL 3922298 (W.D. Tex. May 7, 2015). The outcome of that case did not turn on whether aliens unlawfully present were, in fact, protected by the First Amendment. See Dkt. 54, Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, Pineda-Cruz, 15-cv-00326 (W.D. Tex. Sept. 9, 2015). The government cites as authority for that proposition a published district court opinion, but that case addressed whether a nonresident noncitizen could claim the protections of the First Amendment in a defamation action against him. See Hoffman v. Bailey, 996 F. Supp. 2d 477 (E.D. La. 2014).
The Court first addressed a claim of retaliatory removal in 1904.160
United States ex rel. Turner v. Williams, 194 U.S. 279 (1904) (argued by Clarence Darrow and future Justice James Clark McReynolds).
Id. at 292.
Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 594– 96 (1952).
Galvan v. Press, 347 U.S. 522, 531–32 (1954).
408 U.S. 753 (1972).
Id. at 760–70.
But the seminal case in the area of selective removal is Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (AADC ).166
525 U.S. 471 (1999) [hereinafter AADC].
Id. at 473.
Hearings before the Senate Select Comm. on Intel. on the Nomination of William H. Webster, to be Dir. of Cent. Intel., 100th Cong. 95 (1987) (“[A]ll of them were arrested because they are alleged to be members of a world-wide Communist organization which under the McCarran Act makes them eligible for deportation . . . . [I]n this particular case if these individuals had been United States citizens, there would not have been a basis for their arrest.”).
AADC, 525 U.S. at 488.
Id. at 489.
Id. (citing United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 463 – 64 (1996)).
Id. at 490 (quoting Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 607–08 (1985)).
Unlike in the context of criminal law enforcement where constitutional challenges merely “postpone the criminal’s receipt of his just deserts [sic],” selective-enforcement challenges in the deportation context “permit and prolong a continuing violation of United States law.”173
Id.
Moreover, as was particularly the case in AADC (and Knauff and Mezei, too), inquiry into the motives of immigration officials may result in “the disclosure of foreign-policy objectives and (as in this case) foreign-intelligence products and techniques.”174
Id. at 491.
Id.
Id.
One scholar has catalogued at least a dozen instances in which a high-profile immigration activist has been subject to removal proceedings,177
Jason A. Cade, Judicial Review of Disproportionate (or Retaliatory) Deportation, 75 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1427, 1443–45 (2018).
That survey measured until March 2018. See id. at 1445 n.95.
Admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 1994, Ravidath Ragbir was convicted of federal wire fraud in 2001.179
Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53, 58 (2d Cir. 2019), vac’d sub nom. Pham v. Ragbir, No. 19-1046, 2020 WL 5882107 (U.S. Oct. 5, 2020). All facts here are portrayed in the light most favorable to Ragbir partially for demonstrative purposes, but also because that is the light in which reviewing courts have viewed them. Cf. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) (authorizing removal of those aliens convicted of aggravated felonies, defined at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(M) to include frauds involving a loss of greater than $10,000); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1001.1(p) (cancelling lawful permanent resident status for those against whom a final order of removal has been entered).
8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(M)(i) (defining “aggravated felonies”). It is worth noting that the list of “aggravated felonies” has grown substantially over time. This growth is particularly concerning because it renders more aliens potentially deportable, but as described supra Part III.B.2, the government enjoys discretion as to against whom it will pursue immigration proceedings.
United States v. Ragbir, 38 F. App’x 788, 794 (3d Cir. 2002).
Ragbir v. United States, 537 U.S. 1089 (2002).
Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 58.
Ragbir v. Holder, 389 F. App’x 80, 85 (2d Cir. 2010); Ragbir v. Lynch, 640 F. App’x 105, 108 (2d Cir. 2016); Ragbir v. Barr, No. 18-1595, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 37203, at *3 (2d Cir. July 30, 2019); Ragbir v. United States, No. 17-1256, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13236, at *85–86 (D.N.J. Jan. 25, 2019), appeal pending, No. 19-1282 (3d Cir. 2019) (stay of judgment pending appeal denied Feb. 27, 2019).
Like many undocumented aliens, Ragbir was not removed. For nearly a decade Ragbir benefited from this discretion: On four occasions between 2011 and 2018, ICE granted Ragbir administrative stays of removal. During the period of these stays, Ragbir was required to check in with immigration officials and refrain from illegal conduct.186
Pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 212.5(d), immigration officials “may require reasonable assurances” that an alien whose removal has been stayed will make any required appearances and will “depart the United States when required to do so.”
Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 59.
See id. at 59 n.8; see also, Cade, supra note NOTEREF _Ref50285304 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 177 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350030003200380035003300300034000000 , at 1444 n.91.
In January 2018 Ragbir’s lawyers began meeting with the Deputy Director of ICE’s New York office — Scott Mechkowski — to discuss renewing Ragbir’s stay of removal. During one meeting, Mechkowski told Ragbir’s counsel that he had met with Jean Montrevil — with whom Ragbir had co-founded an immigration-rights group — and told him, “Jean, from me to you . . . you don’t want to make matters worse by saying things.”189
Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 60 (citation omitted).
Id.
Id. (citation omitted).
Id. (citation omitted).
Id.
Id.
Ragbir v. Sessions, 18-cv-236, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13939, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 29, 2018).
Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 60–61.
The district court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over Ragbir’s claims as a result of § 1252(g).197
Ragbir v. Homan, No. 18-cv-1159, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86753, at *9 – 18 (S.D.N.Y May 23, 2018).
Id. at *25 – 26.
Not so, said the Second Circuit.199
Ragbir, 923 F.3d 53.
Id. at. 64– 65.
Id. at 62 – 67.
Id. at 71.
Id. at 69 (quoting Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 451 – 52 (2011)).
Id. (quoting Snyder, 562 U.S. at 451 – 52).
Id. (quoting Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414, 421 – 22 (1988)).
Id. at 70 (quoting Meyer, 486 U.S. at 425)).
The court then weighed these interests against the government’s “interest in having unchallenged discretion to deport Ragbir.”207
Id. at 72.
Id.
Id. (quoting AADC, 525 U.S. 471, 491 (1999)). Recall: In AADC, none of the aliens had established lawful permanent residence in the United States; all had temporary visas the terms of which they had violated, rendering them deportable. 525 U.S. at 473.
See Gerald L. Neuman, Terrorism, Selective Deportation, and the First Amendment after Reno v. AADC, 14 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 313, 342 (2000).
8 U.S.C. § 1231(a).
Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 58 – 59.
After the Second Circuit deemed the government’s conduct “outrageous” within the meaning of AADC, the Suspension Clause question that the district court had dodged became unavoidable. Ragbir had exhausted both direct review of his order of removal and his statutorily authorized single motion to reopen those proceedings long before the alleged retaliation took place,213
Id. at 58 – 59, 62, 62 n.10 (“[T]he Government does not dispute, that [Ragbir] could not have brought his claim in a BIA proceeding or in a petition for review. That is because Ragbir’s claim arose only after his petition process was exhausted and his order of removal became final.”). Cf. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7) (specifying that aliens are entitled to one motion to reopen their immigration proceedings and that any such motion must be filed within ninety days of the entry of the final order of removal).
Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 73– 74.
Id. at 78 – 99.
Although the Second Circuit remanded to the district court to determine what relief might be appropriate if Ragbir succeeded in demonstrating that retaliatory animus motivated ICE’s decision, it did suggest that a delay in his removal equivalent to the most recent stay granted by ICE would balance both the government’s interest in removing “aliens convicted of ‘aggravated felonies’” and Ragbir’s First Amendment interests.216
Id. at 79 n.34 (citing Memorandum from John Kelly, Sec’y of Dep’t of Homeland Sec., to Kevin MacAleenan, Acting Comm’r, U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (Feb. 20, 2017) (on file with author)). It is notable that prior Administrations had even more emphatically stated that aliens convicted of aggravated felonies were the highest enforcement priority for DHS. See, e.g., Memorandum from Jeh Charles Johnson, Sec’y of Dep’t of Homeland Sec., to Thomas S. Winkowski, Acting Dir. of Immigr. & Customs Enf’t (Nov. 20, 2014) (on file with author) (classifying as “Priority 1,” the “highest priority to which enforcement resources should be directed,” “aliens convicted of an ‘aggravated felony’” as defined by the INA).
The government sought rehearing, which was denied.217
Order Denying Petition for Rehearing and/or Rehearing En Banc, Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019) (No. 18-1597).
140 S. Ct. 1959 (2020).
Thuraissigiam presented the question of whether an alien seeking asylum but subject to so-called “expedited removal”219
Thuraissigiam was apprehended just twenty-five yards from the United States’ border with Mexico, thus rendering him eligible for the trimmed-down removal proceeding known as “expedited removal.” 140 S. Ct. at 1964– 65; see also 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(A)(i), (iii)(I – II) (outlining eligibility for expedited removal).
Thuraissigiam, 140 S. Ct. at 1963.
Id. at 1969.
Id. at 1971.
See supra at Part II.
Thuraissigiam, 140 S. Ct. at 1975 – 81.
In any event, Justice Alito’s opinion in Thuraissigiam reaffirmed that “[t]he writ of habeas corpus as it existed at common law provided a vehicle to challenge all manner of detention by government officials, and the Court had held long before that the writ could be invoked by aliens already in the country who were held in custody pending deportation.”225
Id. at 1981.
The Thuraissigiam Court’s discussion of due process is likewise inapposite to Ragbir’s case; Ragbir was a lawful permanent resident, not unlawful entrant.
IV. The Case for Habeas Jurisdiction
TOPRagbir’s case presents circumstances markedly different from those in Thuraissigiam.227
Unlike in Thuraissigiam, Ragbir does seek “simple release”: his objective is to remain in the United States as he did pursuant to the stay of removal issued by DHS. That the “law” that resulted in his detention is regulatory in nature is of no matter. But for DHS’s decision to terminate his stay, Ragbir would be free within the United States. Cf. Thuraissigiam, 140 S. Ct. at 1974 (“The relief that a habeas court may order and the collateral consequences of that relief are two entirely different things. Ordering an individual’s release from custody may have the side effect of enabling that person to pursue all sorts of opportunities that the law allows.”)
It is quite likely that, unless the government elects not to seek certiorari, the Court would once again take up Ragbir’s case, particularly given recent changes to the Court’s membership: “Holding that an Act of Congress unconstitutionally suspends the writ of habeas corpus is momentous.” Thuraissigiam, 140 S. Ct. at 1978.
A. Aliens and the First Amendment
TOP1. AADC is distinguishable
Any theory under which Ragbir can receive habeas review of his detention presupposes a world in which deportable aliens can prevail on a claim of selective enforcement. AADC may have foreclosed that possibility. But Justice Scalia’s reservation of “outrageous conduct” offers hope, as does the recognition that much of the Court’s doctrine relating to governmental retaliation was established after AADC was decided.229
Hartman, Reichle, Lozman, and Nieves all post-date AADC.
Under modern statutes, the aliens in AADC might have been prosecuted for providing material support to a terrorist organization. The foreign policy rationale which supports much of the Plenary Power doctrine upon which immigration law is based — and which was explicitly relied upon in AADC as a reason to deny those aliens relief — is inapposite in the context of speech about immigration as a domestic policy matter. “[S]peech critical of the exercise of the State’s power lies at the very center of the First Amendment.”230
Gentile v. State Bar of Nev., 501 U.S. 1030, 1034 (1991).
Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1945, 1954 (2018).
Indeed, Ragbir’s prayer for relief and the body of his complaint both suggest that a court could provide relief in his case to individuals other than Ragbir. See Complaint at 40 – 41, Ragbir v. Homan, 18-cv-1159, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 102443 (S.D.N.Y. June 19, 2018).
Cade, supra note NOTEREF _Ref50285304 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 177 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350030003200380035003300300034000000 , at 1443 nn.86 –88, 1444 nn.89–92, 1445 nn.93 – 95.
One might argue that Ragbir’s advocacy of relaxed immigration policy in the United States can continue from his native Trinidad and Tobago, much as the Court suggested in Turner, where the anarchist would be deported the Australia to continue his speech. But that, too, ignores not only the nature of the First Amendment but the nature of rights in general. In another context the Court has reinforced the principle that the availability of alternative venues is not an adequate substitute for direct protection of a right.234
See, e.g., Transcript of Oral Argument at 37 – 38, Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 136 S. Ct. 2292 (2016) (No. 15-274).
See generally Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010); Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011); Brown v. Entm’t Merchs. Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786 (2011); Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int’l Union, 567 U.S. 298 (2012); United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012); McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464 (2014); Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018).
This presupposes that Ragbir has First Amendment rights at all.236
Before the Second Circuit, the government did not argue that Ragbir lacked First Amendment rights as a result of his deportability. Compare Brief for U.S., Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019) (No. 18-1597), with Ragbir v. Homan, No. 18-cv-1159, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86753 (S.D.N.Y May 23, 2018) (“Political speech is worthy of the highest protection and so long as Ragbir remains in the United States, the First Amendment guarantees his freedom to speak and associate on any subject of his choosing.”), thus the argument is forfeited, if not waived. See Ret. Plans Comm. of IBM v. Jander, 140 S. Ct. 592, 595 (2020) (“The Second Circuit ‘did not address the[se] argument[s], and, for that reason, neither shall we.’”) (quoting F. Hoffmann – La Roche Ltd. v. Empagran S.A., 542 U. S. 155, 175, (2004)); Jander, 140 S. Ct. at 597 (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (“[I]t is beyond debate that ‘[q]uestions which merely lurk in the record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents.’”) (quoting Webster v. Fall, 266 U. S. 507, 511 (1925)); see also Granite Rock Co. v. Int’l Brotherhood of Teamsters, 561 U.S. 287, 306 (2010) (declining to consider argument not presented in the court of appeals); Cooper Indus., Inc. v. Availl Servs., Inc., 543 U.S. 157, 168 – 69 (2004) (same). Cf. Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosing Instruments, Inc., 572 U.S. 898, 913 (2014) (“[W]e are a court of review, not of first view.”) (quoting Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718 n.7 (2005)).
See, e.g., Janus, 138 S. Ct. at 2463 – 64 (2018); Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 328, 339 – 41 (2010); see also Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730 (2017) (striking down on First Amendment grounds a law which criminalized access to certain major social media websites by sex offenders).
See Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830, 840 (2018) (eschewing “uncritical literalism” when construing phrases like “arising from” to, in that case, allow for consideration of a habeas petition challenging indefinite detention without bail hearings) (citation omitted).
2. Nieves is irrelevant
Ragbir was decided before the Court’s decision in Nieves, a fact the government took pains to emphasize in its petition for rehearing before the Court of Appeals. That reliance may be misplaced. For decades the government has repeatedly emphasized — not incorrectly — that immigration proceedings are not criminal and that deportation is not a punishment.239
See, e.g., AADC, 525 U.S. 471, 491 (1999).
Id. (citing Carlson v. Landon, 324 U.S. 524, 537 (1952)); see also Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 365 (2010) (“[R]emoval proceedings are civil . . . .”) (citation omitted); INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1038 (1984) (“A deportation proceeding is a purely civil action . . . .”).
See Part II.C.1 above.
While it does not bolster Ragbir’s claim, Nieves does not undermine Mt. Healthy, particularly in light of Lozeman. Recall, Lozeman distinguished between the heat-of-the-moment arrests like those in Nieves and Reichle and a pattern or practice of governmental discrimination. The decision to remove an individual from the United States is not “a dangerous task that requires making quick decisions in ‘circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.’”242
Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715, 1725 (2019) (describing the nature of making arrests) (quoting Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, 397 (1989)).
Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53, 60 (2d Cir. 2019) (noting that Ragbir’s application for renewal of his stay was filed in November 2017 and still under consideration, according to ICE, on January 10, 2018).
Moreover, the decision to arrest an individual and the decision to pursue the charges of arrest are often made by different individuals within different organizations in the arrest context. In Russell Bartlett’s case, for example, his arrest may have been inspired by impermissible animus, but the decision of the local district attorney—who may be accountable to a different polity than the arresting officer—to pursue otherwise-valid charges against him is entitled to a presumption of regularity and impartiality.244
See generally United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 464 (1996) (“‘[T]he presumption of regularity supports’ their prosecutorial decisions and, ‘in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that they have properly discharged their official duties.’”) (quoting United States v. Chemical Foundation, Inc., 272 U.S. 1, 14–15, (1926)).
But ICE acts alone and unsupervised in the realm of stays of removal. Much like the school board in Mt. Healthy and the city council in Lozman, the decision to remove prominent ICE critics is clouded in a fog of uncertainty. As Gerald Neuman and others have noted, “Prosecutorial and adjudicative functions may be mixed, creating psychosocial and economic disincentives to the impartial resolution of cases once they have been brought.”245
Neuman, supra note NOTEREF _Ref31894296 \h 31 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600330031003800390034003200390036000000 , at 1023.
Adam Liptak, A Persistent Gadfly Wins Again in the Supreme Court, N.Y. Times (June 18, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/politics/a-persistent-gadfly-wins-again-in-the-supreme-court.html[https://perma.cc/5RF7-ZWKV].
Cf. Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 394 – 98 (2012).
B. The Habeas Question
TOPThe problem in precluding habeas relief for retaliatory conduct is that, as in the case of Ragbir, alternative routes are often foreclosed. A final order of removal was entered against Ragbir in 2007. From that time until his arrest by ICE 2018, his continued presence in the United States was pursuant to stays of removal.248
From 2007 – 2011 Ragbir’s removal was stayed as he pursued appeals.
Congress was well aware of this phenomenon as well as the breadth of discretion afforded immigration authorities in selecting whom to deport. See AADC, 525 U.S. 471, 483 – 84 (1999).
See Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830 (2018).
In its petition for rehearing before the Second Circuit, the government went to great lengths to emphasize that the order of removal entered against Ragbir had twice been sanctified by other Article III courts.251
Petition for Rehearing at 9 – 11, Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53 (2d. Cir. 2019) (No. 18-1597).
Hamama v. Adducci, 912 F.3d 869 (6th Cir. 2018), cert. denied, No. 19-294, 2020 WL 3578681 (U.S. July 2, 2020).
Id. at 876.
Id. at 875.
To be sure, the decision to stay Ragbir’s removal is one committed to DHS’s discretion.255
8 U.S.C. § 1231(c)(2)(A) authorizes the Attorney General to promulgate regulations regarding the granting of discretionary relief; he has done so. See 8 C.F.R. § 241.6.
It is not clear what good habeas review will do, though. No one challenges that Ragbir is removable based on his conviction. Numerous administrations have prioritized deportation of those convicted of aggravated felonies.256
See supra note NOTEREF _Ref31890806 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 216 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600330031003800390030003800300036000000 .
As the Court of Appeals suggested in Ragbir, perhaps a remedy is that Ragbir is permitted to remain in the country for the duration of his most recent stay — something of an expectation damages theory of habeas relief. Or perhaps the value is in naming-and-shaming government officials, thus potentially opening them to liability in a civil damages suit brought by the alien regardless of his location. Maybe damages, but not a stay, is the correct remedy.257
Recent scholarship examines the availability of other civil actions in situations like Ragbir’s. See Matthew Miyamoto, Comment, Whether 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g) Precludes the Exercise of Federal Jurisdiction over Claims Brought by Wrongfully Removed Noncitizens, 86 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1655 (2019).
1 William Blackstone, Commentaries *136.
V. Conclusion
TOPSince John at Runnymede, the principle that no person should be imprisoned but in accordance with the law has suffused the common law.259
See 9 W.S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 1112– 21 (3d ed. 1944).
Sir Edward Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England 55 (6th ed. 1681).
James Madison, The Virginia Report of 1799 – 1800 Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws 233 (1850).
Henry M. Hart, Jr., The Power of Congress to Limit the Jurisdiction of Federal Courts: An Exercise in Dialectic, 66 Harv. L. Rev. 1362, 1390 (1953).
Chin Yow v. United States, 208 U.S. 8, 12 (1908).
The presumption of judicial review in America is strong for good reason. “The ‘check’ the Judiciary provides to maintain our separation of powers is enforcement of the rule of law through judicial review.”264
Dep’t of Transp. v. Ass’n of Am. R.R.s, 575 U.S. 43, 76 (2015) (Thomas, J., concurring) (cleaned up).
Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Comment, Applying the Suspension Clause to Immigration Cases, 98 Colum. L. Rev. 1068, 1084 (1998).
Those concerned with the strain on judicial resources that may result from recognizing the conclusion urged above can take solace in a simple legislative fix. Just as Congress in the mid-twentieth century shifted immigration oversight from habeas corpus to petitions for review, a modern Congress could cure any Suspension Clause concerns by reforming the current system of motions to reopen immigration proceedings. Such a move would resupply the requisite “adequate alternative” to avoid running afoul of the Suspension Clause while preserving efficiency and discretion in immigration enforcement.
- 1Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019), vac’d sub nom. Pham v. Ragbir, No. 19-1046, 2020 WL 5882107 (U.S. Oct. 5, 2020); see also Ragbir v. Holder, 389 F. App’x 80 (2d Cir. 2010); Ragbir v. Lynch, 640 F. App’x 105 (2d Cir. 2016); Ragbir v. Barr, No. 18-1595, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 37203 (2d Cir. July 30, 2019); Ragbir v. United States, No. 17-1256, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13236, (D.N.J. Jan. 25, 2019), aff’d, 950 F.3d 54 (3d Cir. 2020) (denying writ of coram nobis).
- 28 U.S.C. § 1252(g) (2020).
- 3U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 2.
- 4139 S. Ct. 1715 (2019).
- 5Id. at 1727.
- 6Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 488 (1999).
- 7Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 2080, as amended August 2, 1979, 93 Stat. 328, codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 3161 – 3174.
- 8Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 126 (1982).
- 9The Federalist No. 84, at 512 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961); William Blackstone, 1 Commentaries on The Laws of England 137 – 38 (9th ed. 1783) (“And by the habeas corpus act, 31 Cha. II. c. 2. (that second magna carta, and the stable bulwark of our liberties) it is enacted, that no subject of this realm . . . shall be sent prisoner into . . . places beyond the seas (where they cannot have the benefit and protection of the common law).”).
- 10Int’l Covenant on Civil & Political Rights, art. 9, adopted Dec. 19, 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 14668.
- 11See, e.g., “amparo de libertad” and “Verfassungsbeschwerde.” Cf. Criminal Procedure: a Worldwide Study (Craig M. Bradley ed., 2d ed. 2007) (surveying international criminal procedure); Wilhelm Karl Geck, Judicial Review of Statutes: A Comparative Survey of Present Institutions and Practices, 51 Cornell L. Rev. 250, 300 – 301 (1966).
- 121 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 249 (Jonathan Elliot ed., 1837); see also 3 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 460 – 64 (Jonathan Elliot ed., 1837).
- 13Paul D. Halliday, Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire 253 (2010).
- 141 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774 – 89, 105–13 (1904); see Zechariah Chafee Jr., The Most Important Human Right in the Constitution, 32 B.U. L. Rev. 143, 145 (1952).
- 15Dallin H. Oaks, Habeas Corpus in the States—1776 – 1865, 32 U. Chi. L. Rev. 243, 247 (1965). Georgia incorporated the Act of 1679 into its constitution; North Carolina conferred a personal right to habeas corpus (though it did not use those words); and Massachusetts and New Hampshire provided both an affirmative right to the writ and legislative power to suspend it for a period of time. See N.C. Const art. XIII (1776); Ga. Const. art. LX (1777); Mass. Const. ch. 6, art. VII (1780); N.H. Const. pt. 2, art. 91 (1784).
- 16Act of Feb. 18, 1785, § 12, reprinted in Digest of the Laws of Pennsylvania 573 (7th ed., Philadelphia, Davis 1847) (imposing a £200 fine on anyone who transfers a prisoner without legal authority).
- 17Act of Feb. 21, 1787, N.Y. Laws 1785 – 88, 424 (Official Reprint 1886).
- 18Act of 1779, 11 Va. Stat. 410 (Richmond, Cochran 1823) (prohibiting transfers of prisoners out of the state except “where the prisoner shall be charged by affidavit with treason or felony, alleged to be done in any of the other United States of America, in which . . . case he shall be sent thither in custody” by order of a Virginia court).
- 19See, e.g., Ga. Const. art. LX (1777) (“The principles of the habeas-corpus act shall be a part of this constitution.”); Act of Mar. 16, 1785, 1 Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 72, § 10 (1823) (prohibiting “any person [from] transport[ing] . . . any subject of this Commonwealth . . . to any part or place without the limits of the same . . . except [if] such person be sent by due course of law, to answer for some criminal offense committed in some other of the United States of America”).
- 20Regarded by Blackstone as the “second magna carta,” the Act represented a decades-long struggle to codify the power of courts to question the basis for an individual’s detention. 31 Cha. 2. c. 2 § 8 (1679); see supra note NOTEREF _Ref56258365 \h 9 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350036003200350038003300360035000000 ; Halladay, supra note NOTEREF _Ref56258383 \h 13 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350036003200350038003300380033000000 , at 80 – 81.
- 21See GA Const. art. LX (1777); Act of Oct. 16, 1692, 2 S.C. Stat. 74 (Cooper 1837).
- 22Act of Dec. 12, 1712, 2 S.C. Stat. 399 – 401 (Columbia, Johnston 1837) (adopting the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679).
- 23Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maryland round out the Thirteen. Rhode Island had no written constitution before the Ratification. See Oaks, supra note NOTEREF _Ref50022652 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 15 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350030003000320032003600350032000000 , at 247.
- 24The Northwest Ordinance, art. II, codified at 1 Stat. 50 (1787).
- 25Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (July 31, 1788), in 13 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 440, 442 (Julian P. Boyd ed., 1956); see also, Eric M. Freedman, The Suspension Clause in the Ratification Debates, 44 Buff. L. Rev. 451, 463 – 65 (1996) (describing Anti-Federalist opposition to the Suspension Clause).
- 26See Neil Douglas McFeeley, The Historical Development of Habeas Corpus, 30 Sw. L. J. 585, 595 (1976) (noting that Charles Pinckney’s plan provided for the habeas right in what was then Article VI, the section on judicial power).
- 27U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 2.
- 28Oaks, supra note NOTEREF _Ref50022652 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 15 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350030003000320032003600350032000000 , at 248; see also Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (Dec. 20, 1787), in 12 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 438, 440 (Julian P. Boyd ed., 1955) (objecting that the Constitution lacked “the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws”).
- 29Ch. 20, 1 Stat. 73, 81 – 82 (1789).
- 30Id. § 14. The current habeas corpus statute authorizing review of federal detention, 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (2020), flows directly from this first authorization.
- 31Gerald L. Neuman, Habeas Corpus, Executive Detention, and the Removal of Aliens, 98 Colum. L. Rev. 961, 973–74 (1998); accord William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 113 – 15 (Phillip H. Nicklin ed., Portage Pub., Inc. 2011) (1825); Akhil Reed Amar, Of Sovereignty and Federalism, 96 Yale L. J. 1425, 1509 – 10 (1987).
- 328 U.S. (4 Cranch) 75, 94 (1807).
- 33Id. at 95.
- 34Id. (“[F]or if the means [of exercising review] be not in existence, the privilege itself would be lost, although no law for its suspension should be enacted.”).
- 3528 U.S.C. § 2241. Though statutes authorize the Supreme Court to grant habeas corpus as a matter of the Court’s original jurisdiction, the Court has not done so since 1925. See Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87 (1925); cf. Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651 (1996) (denying petitioner’s habeas claim on the merits).
- 36Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 797 (2008).
- 37Swain v. Pressley, 430 U.S. 372, 381 (1977).
- 38Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 783.
- 39INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 301–03 (2001), superseded by statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1252. (“At its historical core, the writ of habeas corpus has served as a means of reviewing the legality of Executive detention, and it is in that context that its protections have been strongest.”). See, e.g., Swain, 430 U.S. at 380 n.13 (1977); Id. at 386 (Burger, C.J., concurring) (“[T]he traditional Great Writ was largely a remedy against executive detention.”); Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 533 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring in result) (“The historic purpose of the writ has been to relieve detention by executive authorities without judicial trial.”).
- 40Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 2 91 (1969); see also Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 309, 346 (1915) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (“[H]abeas corpus cuts through all forms and goes to the very issue of the structure. It comes in from the outside, not in subordination to the proceedings, and although every form may have been preserved, opens the inquiry whether they have been more than an empty shell.”).
- 41See United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 318 (1936) (“As a member of the family of nations, the right and power of the United States in that field are equal to the right and power of the other members of the international family. Otherwise, the United States is not completely sovereign. The power to . . . expel undesirable aliens . . . [is not] expressly affirmed by the Constitution, nevertheless exist[s] as inherently inseparable from the conception of nationality.”) (citing Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 705 (1893)); see also Stephen H. Legomsky, Immigration Law and the Principle of Plenary Congressional Power, 1984 Sup. Ct. Rev. 255, 274 (1984).
- 42Ch. 58, 1 Stat. 557 (1798).
- 43Id. § 1. Congress had passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, ch. 3, 1 Stat. 103. That law, however, regulated naturalization rather than immigration — a distinction of significance.
- 44Ragbir v. Sessions, No 18-cv-236, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13939, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 29, 2018), vacated as moot, No. 18-1595, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 37203 (2d Cir. July 30, 2019).
- 45The realm of exclusion, or the denial of entry into the United States, is largely beyond the scope of this Comment. The Executive enjoys even broader discretion in the area of exclusion than it does in removal, and the First Amendment has never been applied extraterritorially. See, e.g., Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2416 – 23 (2018); see also Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 769–70 (1972) (holding that plenary power authorized the Attorney General to exclude foreign nationals on the basis of their speech); Kerry v. Din, 576 U.S. 86, 103 (2015) (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment) (applying Mandel’s reasoning and holding). Claims regarding the exclusion of aliens on First Amendment grounds are thus unlikely to succeed.
- 4648 U.S. 283 (1849).
- 47Id.
- 48See Act of Mar. 3, 1875, ch. 141, 5, 18 Stat. 477, 477 – 78; accord INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 305 (2001).
- 49See generally Legomsky, supra note NOTEREF _Ref31877545 \h 41 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600330031003800370037003500340035000000 .
- 50Chae Chan Ping v. United States (The Chinese Exclusion Case), 130 U.S. 581 (1889).
- 51See, e.g., Matthew J. Lindsay, Immigration as Invasion: Sovereignty, Security, and the Origins of the Federal Immigration Power, 45 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1 (2010); see also Curtiss-Wright, 299 U.S. at 318. But see also Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 416 (2012) (“The history of the United States is in part made of the stories, talents, and lasting contributions of those who crossed oceans and deserts to come here.”).
- 52See Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 713 (1893).
- 53Christian G. Fritz, A Nineteenth Century “Habeas Corpus Mill”: The Chinese Before the Federal Courts in California, 32 Am. J. Legal Hist. 347, 348 (1988).
- 54S. Rep. No. 352, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 2, 16 (remarking of § 17 of the Act that “[t]he last [finality] provision, while new in this particular location, is not new in the law, the courts having repeatedly held that in the cases of aliens arrested for deportation, as well as in the cases of those excluded at our ports, the decision of the administrative officers is final, and the Supreme Court having in several decisions regarded the case of the alien arrested for deportation as practically a deferred exclusion (The Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U.S. 86 [(1903)]; Pearson v. Williams, 202 U.S. 281 [(1906)]; etc.).”).
- 55Kwok Jan Fat v. White, 253 U.S. 454, 458 (1920) (quoting Tang Tun v. Edsell, 223 U.S. 673, 681–82 (1912)).
- 56Pub. L. No. 82-414, ch. 477, 66 Stat. 163 (1952) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 8 U.S.C.).
- 57Pub.L. 79-404, 60 Stat. 237 (1946) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 5 U.S.C.).
- 58Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U.S. 48, 50 – 51 (1955); Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U.S. 33, 52 –53 (1950) (holding that deportation proceedings must comply with the APA to be enforceable).
- 59“[T]here is always available to an alien in custody under a deportation order the right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus for the purpose of questioning the validity of the order.” H. Rep. No. 1086, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., (1961), reprinted in 1961 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2950, 2974.
- 60Pub. L. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (April 24, 1996).
- 61Div. C, Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1996 (H.R. 3610), Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009 – 546 (1996).
- 628 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1) (2020).
- 63Id. § 1227(a)(2).
- 64Id.
- 65Id. § 1229(a) (initiation of removal proceedings); 8 C.F.R. § 1240.1(a) (2020) (describing authority of Immigration Judges); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1003.10(a) (2020) (authorizing appointment of immigration judges).
- 668 C.F.R. § 1240.1(a)(1)(i) – (iv).
- 67Id. §§ 1003.1 – 1003.3 (2020).
- 688 U.S.C. § 1252(b); see also 28 U.S.C. §§ 2341 – 2353 (2020) (specifying procedures for exercise of jurisdiction by courts of appeals over petitions for review).
- 69Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-208, div. C, 110 Stat. 3009–546 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 8, 18, and 28 U.S.C.).
- 708 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D) (specifying courts of appeal may review constitutional questions and questions of law in a petition for review proceeding); 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B) (“[T]he administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.”).
- 71INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1038 (1984).
- 728 U.S.C. § 1362 (2020); 8 C.F.R. § 1240.3 (2020) (implementing regulation). Nearly all agree that this right is constitutional in nature. See Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 306 (1993) (“[T]he Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings.”); see also Biwot v. Gonzales, 403 F.3d 1094, 1098 (9th Cir. 2005) (“The right to counsel in immigration proceedings is rooted in the Due Process Clause.”); Dakane v. U.S. Attorney General, 399 F.3d 1269, 1273 (11th Cir. 2005) (“It is well established in this Circuit that an alien in civil deportation proceedings . . . has the constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause . . . to a fundamentally fair hearing.”); Borges v. Gonzales, 402 F.3d 398, 408 (3d Cir. 2005) (“[T]he Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings.”) (citing Reno, 507 U.S. at 306); Rosales v. Bureau of Immigr. & Customs Enforcement, 426 F.3d 733, 736 (5th Cir. 2005) (“[D]ue process requires that [deportation hearings] be fundamentally fair . . . .”); Brown v. Ashcroft, 360 F.3d 346, 350 (2d Cir. 2004) (“The right . . . under the Fifth Amendment to due process of law in deportation proceedings is well established.”). The Attorney General has agreed with this consensus. Matter of Compean, 25 I. & N. Dec. 1 (A.G. 2009).
- 73For example, the Ex Post Facto Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 3, does not apply to immigration proceedings: Congress may pass laws that retroactively render aliens deportable for offenses that, at the time of conviction, could not have led to deportation. See Galvan v. Press, 347 U.S. 522, 531 (1954) (“And whatever might have been said at an earlier date for applying the ex post facto Clause, it has been the unbroken rule of this Court that it has no application to deportation.”).
- 74559 U.S. 356 (2010).
- 75Id. at 374; see 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(B)(i) (classifying aliens convicted “of a violation of . . . any law or regulation of a State, the United States, or a foreign country relating to a controlled substance” as deportable).
- 76See INA § 241 (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1231(c)(2)(A)(i)) (authorizing the Attorney General to stay the removal of an alien if removal “is not practicable or proper”); see also Clark v. Suarez Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 374 n.1 (2005) (stating that, pursuant to 6 U.S.C. §§ 251(2), 252(a)(3), 271(b), the Secretary of Homeland Security now has the authority to stay removals originally delegated by Congress in § 241 of the INA to the Attorney General).
- 778 C.F.R. § 241.6 (2020) (“Any request of an alien under a final order of deportation or removal for a stay of deportation or removal shall be filed . . . with the district director [of ICE] having jurisdiction over the place where alien is at the time of filing.”); see also Id. § 212.5 (2020) (listing factors ICE should consider in whether to grant a stay); accord 8 U.S.C. § 1231(c)(2)(A).
- 78Vivian Yee, Migrants Confront Judgment Day over Old Deportation Orders, N.Y.
Times (Mar. 4, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/us/migrants-facing-old-deportation-orders.html[https://perma.cc/65XW-REXF].
- 79Id.
- 808 U.S.C. § 1252(g); see also infra Part III.
- 818 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(1)(A) (“Except as otherwise provided in this section, when an alien is ordered removed, the Attorney General shall remove the alien from the United States within a period of 90 days (in this section referred to as the ‘removal period’).”).
- 82United States v. Jung Ah Lung, 124 U.S. 621, 628–29 (1888).
- 83Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 747 (2008); see, e.g., Sommersett v. Stewart (Sommersett’s Case), 20 How. St. Tr. 1, 80 – 82 (1772) (ordering an African slave freed upon finding the custodian’s return insufficient). See generally Khera v. Sec’y of State for the Home Dept., [1984] A.C. 74, 111 (H.L.) (“Habeas corpus protection is often expressed as limited to ‘British subjects.’ Is it really limited to British nationals? Suffice it to say that the case law has given an emphatic ‘no’ to the question.”).
- 84Nishimura Ekiu v. United States, 142 U.S. 651, 660 (1892); see also United States v. Jung Ah Lung, 124 U.S. 621 (1888) (affirming district court’s use of habeas corpus to review an immigrant’s long-term detention aboard a ship of voyage in San Francisco harbor).
- 85338 U.S. 537 (1950).
- 86Id. This uncomfortable phraseology comes from statute. See War Brides Act of 1945, Pub. L. No. 79-271, 59 Stat. 659.
- 87Knauff, 338 U.S. at 539.
- 88Id. at 544 – 45.
- 89345 U.S. 206 (1953).
- 90Id. at 213.
- 91Id. at 213 –15.
- 92345 U.S. 229 (1953).
- 93Id. at 235.
- 94INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 306 (2001).
- 95Pub. L. No. 82-414, ch. 477, 66 Stat. 163 (1952) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 8 U.S.C.).
- 9675 Stat. 651, 652 (1961), codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(10) (repealed 1996).
- 97Pub. L. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009, 3612.
- 98See Goncalves v. Reno, 144 F.3d 110 (1st Cir. 1998); Henderson v. INS, 157 F.3d 106 (2d Cir. 1998); Sandoval v. Reno, 166 F.3d 225 (3d Cir. 1999); Bowrin v. INS, 194 F.3d 483 (4th Cir. 1999); Requena-Rodriguez v. Pasquarell, 190 F.3d 299 (5th Cir. 1999); Pak v. Reno, 196 F.3d 666 (6th Cir. 1999); Shah v. Reno, 184 F.3d 719 (8th Cir. 1999); Magana-Pizano v. INS, 200 F.3d 603 (9th Cir. 1999); Jurado-Gutierrez v. Greene, 190 F.3d 1135 (10th Cir. 1999) (as amended upon denial of rehearing en banc); Mayers v. INS, 175 F.3d 1289 (11th Cir. 1999). The lone dissenting circuit was the Seventh. LaGuerre v. Reno, 164 F.3d 1035 (7th Cir. 1998).
- 99INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 314 (2001). Although St. Cyr did not address § 1252(g) directly, it did address other subsections of § 1252 with identical language.
- 100Pub. L. No. 109 – 13, 119 Stat. 302 (2005).
- 101Real ID Act § 106 adds a new subsection, (a)(5) to 8 U.S.C. § 1252: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or non-statutory), including [habeas, mandamus, and All Writs Act] . . . a petition for review filed with an appropriate court of appeals . . . shall be the sole and exclusive means for judicial review of an order of removal entered or issued under any provision of this chapter.”
- 102The meaning of “nonstatutory” is unclear. The Second Circuit concludes that “nonstatutory” means “constitutional.” Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53, 66 (2d Cir. 2019). (“[W]e are aware of no ‘nonstatutory’ claim that a petitioner could bring in relation to a deportation proceeding other than one rooted in the Constitution.”). The Ninth Circuit disagrees: in Arce v. United States, that court concluded that § 1252(g) did not preclude jurisdiction over a habeas claim brought by an alien who had been removed in violation of a judicial order staying his removal, suggesting that the inherent power of a court exceeds statutory and nonstatutory grants. 899 F.3d 796, 799–801 (9th Cir. 2018).
- 103151 Cong. Rec. 8393 (2005); see also Strengthening Interior Enforcement: Deportation and Related Issues: Joint Hearing Before the Subcomms. on Immigr., Border Sec. & Citizenship and Terrorism, Tech. & Homeland Sec. of the S. Comm. Of the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 1 (2005); Paul Diller, Habeas and (Non-) Delegation, 77 U. Chi. L. Rev. 585, 615 (2010) (confirming that the REAL ID Act had been passed in direct response to St. Cyr.); H.R. Rep. No. 109-72, at 175 (2005), reprinted in 2005 U.S.C.C.A.N. 240, 300 (Conference Report on the REAL ID Act seeking to avoid the constitutional concerns presented in St. Cyr regarding the complete suspension of habeas corpus for immigrants).
- 1048 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D).
- 105See, e.g., Ruiz-Martinez v. Mukasey, 516 F.3d 102, 114 (2d Cir. 2008); Mohamed v. Gonzales, 477 F.3d 522, 526 (8th Cir. 2007); Puri v. Gonzales, 464 F.3d 1038, 1041 (9th Cir. 2006); Alexandre v. Attorney General, 452 F.3d 1204, 1206 (11th Cir. 2006).
- 106Swain v. Pressley, 430 U.S. 372, 386 (1977) (Burger, C.J., concurring).
- 107Cases arising from the United States’ detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base reaffirmed the traditional understanding that, because a writ of habeas corpus was directed against the jailer on the detainee’s behalf, an issuing court’s jurisdiction over the jailer — not the detainee — is the paramount question in determining the jurisdictional power of a court to issue the writ. See generally Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2006), superseded by statute, Pub. L. No. 109-148, div. A, title X, 119 Stat. 2680, 2739-44 (2005); Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008).
- 108INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 300 (2001) (“[S]ome judicial intervention in deportation cases is unquestionably required by the Constitution.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
- 109This analysis excludes the vast number of individuals removed pursuant to “expedited removal.” Expedited removal is available against certain categories of recently-arrived aliens who are incapable of demonstrating long-term presence within the United States — generally those apprehended near the border.
- 110United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 716 (2012) (quoting Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564, 573 (2002)).
- 111Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250, 256 (2006) (citing Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 592 (1998)).
- 112Perry v. Spinderman, 408 U.S. 593, 597 (1972) (“[The government] may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests — especially, his interest in freedom of speech. For if the government could deny a benefit to a person because of his constitutionally protected speech or associations, his exercise of those freedoms would in effect be penalized and inhibited.”).
- 113Wheeler v. Nesbitt, 65 U.S. 544, 549 – 50 (1861) (noting that “[w]ant of reasonable and probable cause” is an “element in the action for a malicious criminal prosecution”); see also Restatement of Torts § 653 (Am. Law Inst. 1938).
- 114Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715, 1726 (2019) (quoting Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 389 – 90 (2007)).
- 115See Thomas M. Cooley, A Treatise on the Law of Torts, or, the Wrongs Which Arise Independent of Contract 175 (Chicago, Callaghan 1880); 1 F. Hilliard, The Law of Torts or Private Wrongs 207 – 08 (Boston, Little, Brown & Co. 1859).
- 116429 U.S. 274 (1977).
- 117547 U.S. 250 (2006).
- 118Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 281 – 83 (1977).
- 119Brief for Respondent at *6, Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. 274 (No. 75-1278).
- 120Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 287.
- 121Id.
- 122Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250, 252 (2006). Although irrelevant, the nature of the dispute is fascinating: Moore’s company produced multiline optical scanners which would have been rendered obsolete to his largest customer, the Postal Service, had ZIP+4 become the norm; it obviously has not. Ironically, Moore’s company did not receive a renewed contract for multiline readers.
- 123United States v. Recognition Equip. Inc., 725 F. Supp. 587, 596 (D.D.C. 1989).
- 124Hartman, 547 U.S. at 254.
- 125Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976). Absolute prosecutorial immunity is a longstanding feature of common law. See Bradley v. Fisher, 80 U.S. 335 (1872) (first recognizing absolute prosecutorial immunity); accord Floyd v. Barker, 12 Coke 23, 77 Eng. Rep. 1305 (1608) (early recognition of the immunity); Yates v. Lansing, 5 Johns. 282, 291 – 96 (N.Y. 1810) (tracing history of the immunity).
- 126Lozeman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1945, 1947 (2018) (citing Hartman, 547 U.S. at 265 – 66).
- 127Id.
- 128After nearly a decade of further proceedings, Moore finally lost his case against the inspectors at trial. Moore v. Hartman, 102 F. Supp. 3d 35 (D.D.C. 2015).
- 129Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 660 (2012).
- 130Id.
- 131Id. at 661.
- 132Id.
- 133Id.
- 134Id. at 662.
- 135566 U.S. 658 (2012).
- 136Howards v. McLaughlin, 634 F.3d 1131, 1149 (10th Cir. 2011).
- 137Reichle, 566 U.S. at 669 – 71.
- 138Id. at 663 (“If the answer to either question is ‘no,’ then the agents are entitled to qualified immunity. We elect to address only the second question.”).
- 139Compare McLaughlin, 634 F.3d at 1135 (noting date of Howards’ arrest as June 16, 2006), with Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1945, 1950 (2018) (citing Def.’s Ex. 505, Doc. 687) (noting date of Lozman’s arrest as November 2006).
- 140Lozman, 138 S. Ct. at 1949– 50.
- 141City of Riviera Beach v. That Certain Unnamed Gray, Two-Story Vessel, Approximately Fifty-Seven Feet In Length, 649 F.3d 1259, 1263 (11th Cir. 2011) (noting that the dachshund in question — Lady — was, by all accounts, a very good girl). That libel gave rise to Lozman’s first victory in the Supreme Court. See Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 568 U.S. 115 (2013).
- 142Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1949 (2018).
- 143Id.
- 144Id.
- 145Id. at 1954 (“Instead Lozman alleges more governmental action than simply an arrest. His claim is that the City itself retaliated against him pursuant to an official municipal policy of intimidation”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
- 146Id. at 1955.
- 147Id. at 1954 (“Whether in a retaliatory arrest case the Hartman approach should apply, thus barring a suit where probable cause exists, or, on the other hand, the inquiry should be governed only by Mt. Healthy is a determination that must await a different case.”).
- 148Bartlett v. Nieves, No. 4:15-cv-00004-SLG, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87805 at *1 – 2 (D. Alaska July 17, 2016).
- 149Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715, 1720 (2019).
- 150Id.
- 151Id. at 1720 – 21.
- 152Id. at 1721 (citing Bartlett v. Nieves, 712 F. App’x 613, 616 (9th Cir. 2017)) (cleaned up).
- 153Id.
- 154Id.
- 155Id. at 1727.
- 156Id. at 1724 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). That protected speech may be a legitimate consideration in a context such as a riot does not render it legitimate in the immigration context. A rabblerousing demonstrator who fails to disperse may be deemed more likely to escalate a situation because of her protected speech. But an immigration activist who is subjected to removal proceedings explicitly because of her anti-ICE rhetoric poses no such risk of escalation in a heated situation. And, unlike local law enforcement, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations officers are not tasked with maintaining public order at a demonstration.
- 157Id. at 1725 (citing Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1945, 1952 (2018)).
- 158Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U.S. 590, 596 n.5 (1953) (quoting Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 161 (Murphy, J., concurring)). But see also Michael Kagan, When Immigrants Speak: The Precarious Status of Non-Citizen Speech Under the First Amendment, 57 B.C. L. Rev. 1237 (2016).
- 159Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 693 – 94 (2001). The Department of Justice in 2015 filed a brief in a class action against the Department of Homeland Security which argued that aliens unlawfully present in the United States are not protected by the First Amendment. See Federal Defendants’ Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction at 11 – 13, Pineda-Cruz v. Thompson, No. 15-cv-00326, 2015 WL 3922298 (W.D. Tex. May 7, 2015). The outcome of that case did not turn on whether aliens unlawfully present were, in fact, protected by the First Amendment. See Dkt. 54, Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, Pineda-Cruz, 15-cv-00326 (W.D. Tex. Sept. 9, 2015). The government cites as authority for that proposition a published district court opinion, but that case addressed whether a nonresident noncitizen could claim the protections of the First Amendment in a defamation action against him. See Hoffman v. Bailey, 996 F. Supp. 2d 477 (E.D. La. 2014).
- 160United States ex rel. Turner v. Williams, 194 U.S. 279 (1904) (argued by Clarence Darrow and future Justice James Clark McReynolds).
- 161Id. at 292.
- 162Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 594– 96 (1952).
- 163Galvan v. Press, 347 U.S. 522, 531–32 (1954).
- 164408 U.S. 753 (1972).
- 165Id. at 760–70.
- 166525 U.S. 471 (1999) [hereinafter AADC].
- 167Id. at 473.
- 168Hearings before the Senate Select Comm. on Intel. on the Nomination of William H. Webster, to be Dir. of Cent. Intel., 100th Cong. 95 (1987) (“[A]ll of them were arrested because they are alleged to be members of a world-wide Communist organization which under the McCarran Act makes them eligible for deportation . . . . [I]n this particular case if these individuals had been United States citizens, there would not have been a basis for their arrest.”).
- 169AADC, 525 U.S. at 488.
- 170Id. at 489.
- 171Id. (citing United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 463 – 64 (1996)).
- 172Id. at 490 (quoting Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 607–08 (1985)).
- 173Id.
- 174Id. at 491.
- 175Id.
- 176Id.
- 177Jason A. Cade, Judicial Review of Disproportionate (or Retaliatory) Deportation, 75 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1427, 1443–45 (2018).
- 178That survey measured until March 2018. See id. at 1445 n.95.
- 179Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53, 58 (2d Cir. 2019), vac’d sub nom. Pham v. Ragbir, No. 19-1046, 2020 WL 5882107 (U.S. Oct. 5, 2020). All facts here are portrayed in the light most favorable to Ragbir partially for demonstrative purposes, but also because that is the light in which reviewing courts have viewed them. Cf. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
- 1808 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) (authorizing removal of those aliens convicted of aggravated felonies, defined at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(M) to include frauds involving a loss of greater than $10,000); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1001.1(p) (cancelling lawful permanent resident status for those against whom a final order of removal has been entered).
- 1818 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(M)(i) (defining “aggravated felonies”). It is worth noting that the list of “aggravated felonies” has grown substantially over time. This growth is particularly concerning because it renders more aliens potentially deportable, but as described supra Part III.B.2, the government enjoys discretion as to against whom it will pursue immigration proceedings.
- 182United States v. Ragbir, 38 F. App’x 788, 794 (3d Cir. 2002).
- 183Ragbir v. United States, 537 U.S. 1089 (2002).
- 184Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 58.
- 185Ragbir v. Holder, 389 F. App’x 80, 85 (2d Cir. 2010); Ragbir v. Lynch, 640 F. App’x 105, 108 (2d Cir. 2016); Ragbir v. Barr, No. 18-1595, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 37203, at *3 (2d Cir. July 30, 2019); Ragbir v. United States, No. 17-1256, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13236, at *85–86 (D.N.J. Jan. 25, 2019), appeal pending, No. 19-1282 (3d Cir. 2019) (stay of judgment pending appeal denied Feb. 27, 2019).
- 186Pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 212.5(d), immigration officials “may require reasonable assurances” that an alien whose removal has been stayed will make any required appearances and will “depart the United States when required to do so.”
- 187Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 59.
- 188See id. at 59 n.8; see also, Cade, supra note NOTEREF _Ref50285304 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 177 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350030003200380035003300300034000000 , at 1444 n.91.
- 189Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 60 (citation omitted).
- 190Id.
- 191Id. (citation omitted).
- 192Id. (citation omitted).
- 193Id.
- 194Id.
- 195Ragbir v. Sessions, 18-cv-236, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13939, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 29, 2018).
- 196Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 60–61.
- 197Ragbir v. Homan, No. 18-cv-1159, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86753, at *9 – 18 (S.D.N.Y May 23, 2018).
- 198Id. at *25 – 26.
- 199Ragbir, 923 F.3d 53.
- 200Id. at. 64– 65.
- 201Id. at 62 – 67.
- 202Id. at 71.
- 203Id. at 69 (quoting Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 451 – 52 (2011)).
- 204Id. (quoting Snyder, 562 U.S. at 451 – 52).
- 205Id. (quoting Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414, 421 – 22 (1988)).
- 206Id. at 70 (quoting Meyer, 486 U.S. at 425)).
- 207Id. at 72.
- 208Id.
- 209Id. (quoting AADC, 525 U.S. 471, 491 (1999)). Recall: In AADC, none of the aliens had established lawful permanent residence in the United States; all had temporary visas the terms of which they had violated, rendering them deportable. 525 U.S. at 473.
- 210See Gerald L. Neuman, Terrorism, Selective Deportation, and the First Amendment after Reno v. AADC, 14 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 313, 342 (2000).
- 2118 U.S.C. § 1231(a).
- 212Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 58 – 59.
- 213Id. at 58 – 59, 62, 62 n.10 (“[T]he Government does not dispute, that [Ragbir] could not have brought his claim in a BIA proceeding or in a petition for review. That is because Ragbir’s claim arose only after his petition process was exhausted and his order of removal became final.”). Cf. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7) (specifying that aliens are entitled to one motion to reopen their immigration proceedings and that any such motion must be filed within ninety days of the entry of the final order of removal).
- 214Ragbir, 923 F.3d at 73– 74.
- 215Id. at 78 – 99.
- 216Id. at 79 n.34 (citing Memorandum from John Kelly, Sec’y of Dep’t of Homeland Sec., to Kevin MacAleenan, Acting Comm’r, U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (Feb. 20, 2017) (on file with author)). It is notable that prior Administrations had even more emphatically stated that aliens convicted of aggravated felonies were the highest enforcement priority for DHS. See, e.g., Memorandum from Jeh Charles Johnson, Sec’y of Dep’t of Homeland Sec., to Thomas S. Winkowski, Acting Dir. of Immigr. & Customs Enf’t (Nov. 20, 2014) (on file with author) (classifying as “Priority 1,” the “highest priority to which enforcement resources should be directed,” “aliens convicted of an ‘aggravated felony’” as defined by the INA).
- 217Order Denying Petition for Rehearing and/or Rehearing En Banc, Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019) (No. 18-1597).
- 218140 S. Ct. 1959 (2020).
- 219Thuraissigiam was apprehended just twenty-five yards from the United States’ border with Mexico, thus rendering him eligible for the trimmed-down removal proceeding known as “expedited removal.” 140 S. Ct. at 1964– 65; see also 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(A)(i), (iii)(I – II) (outlining eligibility for expedited removal).
- 220Thuraissigiam, 140 S. Ct. at 1963.
- 221Id. at 1969.
- 222Id. at 1971.
- 223See supra at Part II.
- 224Thuraissigiam, 140 S. Ct. at 1975 – 81.
- 225Id. at 1981.
- 226The Thuraissigiam Court’s discussion of due process is likewise inapposite to Ragbir’s case; Ragbir was a lawful permanent resident, not unlawful entrant.
- 227Unlike in Thuraissigiam, Ragbir does seek “simple release”: his objective is to remain in the United States as he did pursuant to the stay of removal issued by DHS. That the “law” that resulted in his detention is regulatory in nature is of no matter. But for DHS’s decision to terminate his stay, Ragbir would be free within the United States. Cf. Thuraissigiam, 140 S. Ct. at 1974 (“The relief that a habeas court may order and the collateral consequences of that relief are two entirely different things. Ordering an individual’s release from custody may have the side effect of enabling that person to pursue all sorts of opportunities that the law allows.”)
- 228It is quite likely that, unless the government elects not to seek certiorari, the Court would once again take up Ragbir’s case, particularly given recent changes to the Court’s membership: “Holding that an Act of Congress unconstitutionally suspends the writ of habeas corpus is momentous.” Thuraissigiam, 140 S. Ct. at 1978.
- 229Hartman, Reichle, Lozman, and Nieves all post-date AADC.
- 230Gentile v. State Bar of Nev., 501 U.S. 1030, 1034 (1991).
- 231Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. 1945, 1954 (2018).
- 232Indeed, Ragbir’s prayer for relief and the body of his complaint both suggest that a court could provide relief in his case to individuals other than Ragbir. See Complaint at 40 – 41, Ragbir v. Homan, 18-cv-1159, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 102443 (S.D.N.Y. June 19, 2018).
- 233Cade, supra note NOTEREF _Ref50285304 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 177 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600350030003200380035003300300034000000 , at 1443 nn.86 –88, 1444 nn.89–92, 1445 nn.93 – 95.
- 234See, e.g., Transcript of Oral Argument at 37 – 38, Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 136 S. Ct. 2292 (2016) (No. 15-274).
- 235See generally Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010); Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011); Brown v. Entm’t Merchs. Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786 (2011); Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int’l Union, 567 U.S. 298 (2012); United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012); McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464 (2014); Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018).
- 236Before the Second Circuit, the government did not argue that Ragbir lacked First Amendment rights as a result of his deportability. Compare Brief for U.S., Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019) (No. 18-1597), with Ragbir v. Homan, No. 18-cv-1159, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86753 (S.D.N.Y May 23, 2018) (“Political speech is worthy of the highest protection and so long as Ragbir remains in the United States, the First Amendment guarantees his freedom to speak and associate on any subject of his choosing.”), thus the argument is forfeited, if not waived. See Ret. Plans Comm. of IBM v. Jander, 140 S. Ct. 592, 595 (2020) (“The Second Circuit ‘did not address the[se] argument[s], and, for that reason, neither shall we.’”) (quoting F. Hoffmann – La Roche Ltd. v. Empagran S.A., 542 U. S. 155, 175, (2004)); Jander, 140 S. Ct. at 597 (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (“[I]t is beyond debate that ‘[q]uestions which merely lurk in the record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents.’”) (quoting Webster v. Fall, 266 U. S. 507, 511 (1925)); see also Granite Rock Co. v. Int’l Brotherhood of Teamsters, 561 U.S. 287, 306 (2010) (declining to consider argument not presented in the court of appeals); Cooper Indus., Inc. v. Availl Servs., Inc., 543 U.S. 157, 168 – 69 (2004) (same). Cf. Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosing Instruments, Inc., 572 U.S. 898, 913 (2014) (“[W]e are a court of review, not of first view.”) (quoting Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718 n.7 (2005)).
- 237See, e.g., Janus, 138 S. Ct. at 2463 – 64 (2018); Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 328, 339 – 41 (2010); see also Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730 (2017) (striking down on First Amendment grounds a law which criminalized access to certain major social media websites by sex offenders).
- 238See Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830, 840 (2018) (eschewing “uncritical literalism” when construing phrases like “arising from” to, in that case, allow for consideration of a habeas petition challenging indefinite detention without bail hearings) (citation omitted).
- 239See, e.g., AADC, 525 U.S. 471, 491 (1999).
- 240Id. (citing Carlson v. Landon, 324 U.S. 524, 537 (1952)); see also Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 365 (2010) (“[R]emoval proceedings are civil . . . .”) (citation omitted); INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1038 (1984) (“A deportation proceeding is a purely civil action . . . .”).
- 241See Part II.C.1 above.
- 242Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715, 1725 (2019) (describing the nature of making arrests) (quoting Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, 397 (1989)).
- 243Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53, 60 (2d Cir. 2019) (noting that Ragbir’s application for renewal of his stay was filed in November 2017 and still under consideration, according to ICE, on January 10, 2018).
- 244See generally United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 464 (1996) (“‘[T]he presumption of regularity supports’ their prosecutorial decisions and, ‘in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that they have properly discharged their official duties.’”) (quoting United States v. Chemical Foundation, Inc., 272 U.S. 1, 14–15, (1926)).
- 245Neuman, supra note NOTEREF _Ref31894296 \h 31 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600330031003800390034003200390036000000 , at 1023.
- 246Adam Liptak, A Persistent Gadfly Wins Again in the Supreme Court, N.Y. Times (June 18, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/politics/a-persistent-gadfly-wins-again-in-the-supreme-court.html[https://perma.cc/5RF7-ZWKV].
- 247Cf. Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 394 – 98 (2012).
- 248From 2007 – 2011 Ragbir’s removal was stayed as he pursued appeals.
- 249Congress was well aware of this phenomenon as well as the breadth of discretion afforded immigration authorities in selecting whom to deport. See AADC, 525 U.S. 471, 483 – 84 (1999).
- 250See Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830 (2018).
- 251Petition for Rehearing at 9 – 11, Ragbir v. Homan, 923 F.3d 53 (2d. Cir. 2019) (No. 18-1597).
- 252Hamama v. Adducci, 912 F.3d 869 (6th Cir. 2018), cert. denied, No. 19-294, 2020 WL 3578681 (U.S. July 2, 2020).
- 253Id. at 876.
- 254Id. at 875.
- 2558 U.S.C. § 1231(c)(2)(A) authorizes the Attorney General to promulgate regulations regarding the granting of discretionary relief; he has done so. See 8 C.F.R. § 241.6.
- 256See supra note NOTEREF _Ref31890806 \h \* MERGEFORMAT 216 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600330031003800390030003800300036000000 .
- 257Recent scholarship examines the availability of other civil actions in situations like Ragbir’s. See Matthew Miyamoto, Comment, Whether 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g) Precludes the Exercise of Federal Jurisdiction over Claims Brought by Wrongfully Removed Noncitizens, 86 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1655 (2019).
- 2581 William Blackstone, Commentaries *136.
- 259See 9 W.S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 1112– 21 (3d ed. 1944).
- 260Sir Edward Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England 55 (6th ed. 1681).
- 261James Madison, The Virginia Report of 1799 – 1800 Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws 233 (1850).
- 262Henry M. Hart, Jr., The Power of Congress to Limit the Jurisdiction of Federal Courts: An Exercise in Dialectic, 66 Harv. L. Rev. 1362, 1390 (1953).
- 263Chin Yow v. United States, 208 U.S. 8, 12 (1908).
- 264Dep’t of Transp. v. Ass’n of Am. R.R.s, 575 U.S. 43, 76 (2015) (Thomas, J., concurring) (cleaned up).
- 265Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Comment, Applying the Suspension Clause to Immigration Cases, 98 Colum. L. Rev. 1068, 1084 (1998).