East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump, 9th Cir.,12-07-18
PANEL: LEAVY, BYBEE, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges
OPINION BY: Judge Bybee
DISSENT: Judge Leavy
KEY QUOTE FROM JUDGE BYBEE’S MAJORITY:
The Government asserts that the TRO “constitutes a major and ‘unwarranted judicial interference in the conduct of foreign policy’” and “undermines the separation of powers by blocking the Executive Branch’s lawful use of its authority.” But if there is a separation-of-powers concern here, it is between the President and Congress, a boundary that we are sometimes called upon to enforce.See, e.g., Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 566 U.S. 189 (2012); INS v.
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Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983). Here, the Executive has attempted an end-run around Congress. The President’s Proclamation by itself is a precatory act.14 The entry it “suspends” has long been suspended: Congress criminalized crossing the Mexican border at any place other than a port of entry over 60 years ago. See Pub. L. No. 82-414, 66 Stat. 163-229 (codified as amended at 8 U.S.C. § 1325). The Proclamation attempts to accomplish one thing. In combination with the Rule, it does indirectly what the Executive cannot do directly: amend the INA. Just as we may not, as we are often reminded, “legislate from the bench,” neither may the Executive legislate from the Oval Office.
This separation-of-powers principle hardly needs repeating. “The power of executing the laws . . . does not include a power to revise clear statutory terms that turn out not to work in practice,” and it is thus a “core administrative-law principle that an agency may not rewrite clear statutory terms to suit its own sense of how the statute should operate.” Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, 134 S. Ct. 2427, 2446 (2014). Where “Congress itself has significantly limited executive discretion by establishing a detailed scheme that the Executive must follow in [dealing with] aliens,” the Attorney General may not abandon that scheme because he thinks it is not working well—at least not in the way in which the Executive attempts to do here. Jama v. Immigration & Customs Enf’t, 543 U.S. 335, 368 (2005). There surely are enforcement measures that the President and the Attorney General can take to ameliorate the crisis, but continued inaction by Congress is not a sufficient basis under our Constitution for the Executive to rewrite our immigration laws.
We are acutely aware of the crisis in the enforcement of our immigration laws. The burden of dealing with these issues has fallen disproportionately on the courts of our circuit. And as much as we might be tempted to revise the law as we think wise, revision of the laws is left with the branch that enacted the laws in the first place—Congress.
KEY QUOTE FROM JUDGE LEAVY’S DISSENT:
I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the Rule was not exempt from the standard notice-and-comment procedures. The Attorney General articulated a need to act immediately in the interests of safety of both law enforcement and aliens, and the Rule involves actions of aliens at the southern border undermining particularized determinations of the President judged as required by the national interest, relations with Mexico, and the President’s foreign policy.
I dissent from the denial of the motion to stay because the President, Attorney General, and Secretary of Homeland Security have adopted legal methods to cope with the current problems rampant at the southern border.
The question whether the Rule is consistent with 8 U.S.C. § 1158 goes to the consideration of likelihood of success on the merits. The majority errs by treating the grant or denial of eligibility for asylum as equivalent to a bar to application for asylum, and conflating these two separate statutory directives.
An alien does not obtain the right to apply for asylum because he entered
illegally. The reason “any alien” has the right to apply, according to the statute, is because he is physically present in the United States or has arrived in the United States. The parenthetical in 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(1) (“whether or not at a designated port of arrival”),which the majority chooses to italicize, does not expand upon who is eligible to apply beyond the words of the statute, “any alien.”
The majority concludes that the Rule conditioning eligibility for asylum is the equivalent to a rule barring application for asylum. But the statute does not say that, nor does the Rule. I would stick to the words of the statute rather than discerning meaning beyond the words of the statute and Rule in order to find the action of the Attorney General and Secretary “not in accordance with the law.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).
Congress placed authorization to apply for asylum in one section of the statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(1). Congress then placed the exceptions to the authorization to apply in another section, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2). Congress placed the eligibility for asylum in a different subsection, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1), and disqualifications for eligibility in 8 U.S.C, § 1158(b)(2)(A)(i)-(vi). The Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security has no authority to grant asylum to the categories of aliens enumerated in § 1158(b)(2)(A). Congress has decided that the right to apply for asylum does not assure any alien that something other than a
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categorical denial of asylum is inevitable. Congress has instructed, by the structure and language of the statute, that there is nothing inconsistent in allowing an application for asylum and categorically denying any possibility of being granted asylum on that application. Thus, Congress has instructed that felons and terrorists have a right to apply for asylum, notwithstanding a categorical denial of eligibility.
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Judge Leavy’s dissent seems pretty absurdist to me. There is no parallel between “felons and terrorists” and others who might enter illegally. To state the obvious, most terrorists and felons would be ineligible for “refugee status” under the U.N. Convention. Those whose only offense was illegal entry would not.
There’s a little glimmer of hope for the Administration scofflaws. They finally got a dissenting Article III Judge to bite on their bogus legal arguments for rewriting asylum law.
The bad news: The majority opinion upholding the TRO against the asylum scam was written by erstwhile conservative Judge Jay Bybee. Bybee is so far to the right that he had trouble getting confirmed because of his participation in the Bush II era torture scandals at the DOJ. He also voted in favor of the Trumpsters on the “Travel Ban” case. So, when you lose a case with a 9th Circuit panel of two “GOP conservative” judges and only one “Democratic appointment” you know you’re in trouble (even if you subscribe to Trump’s semi-myth that judges are identified for life by the party that appointed them).
But wait, there’s more. Judge Bybee is not only a “strict constructionist,” but has also been a strong critic of Trump’s “dissing” of the integrity of Federal Judges. That puts him on exactly the same wavelength as conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. Plus, for the reasons he set forth in this opinion, those conservative Justices who are “strict constructionist defenders of separation of powers” might be reluctamnt to “bite” on the Administration’s rewrite of specific Congressional direction in asylum statutes.
Additionally, Judge Bybee pointed out that the record before Judge Tigar still needs more development. For lots of reasons, it’s looking like the Supremes might be unwilling to intervene to bail Trump out of his self-created mess at the preliminary stage.
It’s also pretty evident at this point that the “asylum crisis” is bogus; if there is any crisis it is self-created by the Trumpsters White Nationalist xenophobia. That’s going to come out in any historical analysis, thus making any Justice voting for Trump’s position look about the same as those who voted to uphold American-Japanese internment in World War II. In other words, it will be a cowardly and disgraceful legacy. While Trump is too ignorant to look at life in historical terms, Chief Justice Roberts (who holds the balance of power these days) clearly cares about how history will judge him and “his” Court.
I could be wrong, but if I were a Trumpster, I’d be concerned about the future of the racist-restrictionist immigration agenda. It’s going nowhere in Congress and at least some of the “bureaucratic end runs” are running into problems with the Article IIIs. That’s not to minimize the short and long term damage he’s doing to America with his abuse of the bureaucratic processes. Whether we can recover, remains to be seen.
PWS
12-08-18
