The memo by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Karl L. Thompson is available here. I’ll update the post as I read it. For now, here is the introduction and conclusion.
You have asked two questions concerning the scope of the Department of Homeland Security’s discretion to enforce the immigration laws. First, you have asked whether, in light of the limited resources available to the Department (“DHS”) to remove aliens unlawfully present in the United States, it would be legally permissible for the Department to implement a policy prioritizing the removal of certain categories of aliens over others. DHS has explained that although there are approximately 11.3 million undocumented aliens in the country, it has the resources to remove fewer than 400,000 such aliens each year. DHS’s proposed policy would prioritize the removal of aliens who present threats to national security, public safety, or border security. Under the proposed policy, DHS officials could remove an alien who did not fall into one of these categories provided that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) Field Office Director determined that “removing such an alien would serve an important federal interest.” Draft Memorandum for Thomas S. Winkowski, Acting Director, ICE, et al., from Jeh Charles Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, Re: Policies for the Apprehension, Detention, and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants at 5 (Nov. 17, 2014) (“Johnson Prioritization Memorandum”).
Second, you have asked whether it would be permissible for DHS to extend deferred action, a form of temporary administrative relief from removal, to certain aliens who are the parents of children who are present in the United States. Specifically, DHS has proposed to implement a program under which an alien could apply for, and would be eligible to receive, deferred action if he or she is not a DHS removal priority under the policy described above; has continuously resided in the United States since before January 1, 2010; has a child who is either a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident; is physically present in the United States both when DHS announces its program and at the time of application for deferred action; and presents “no other factors that, in the exercise of discretion, make[] the grant of deferred action inappropriate.” Draft Memorandum for Leon Rodriguez, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, et al., from Jeh Charles Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, Re: Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children and Others at 4 (Nov. 17, 2014) (“Johnson Deferred Action Memorandum”). You have also asked whether DHS could implement a similar program for parents of individuals who have received deferred action under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program.
As has historically been true of deferred action, these proposed deferred action programs would not “legalize” any aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States: Deferred action does not confer any lawful immigration status, nor does it provide a path to obtaining permanent residence or citizenship. Grants of deferred action under the proposed programs would, rather, represent DHS’s decision not to seek an alien’s removal for a prescribed period of time. See generally Reno v. Am.-Arab Anti-Discrim. Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 483–84 (1999) (describing deferred action). Under decades-old regulations promulgated pursuant to authority delegated by Congress, see 8 U.S.C. §§ 1103(a)(3), 1324a(h)(3), aliens who are granted deferred action—like certain other categories of aliens who do not have lawful immigration status, such as asylum applicants—may apply for authoriza- tion to work in the United States in certain circumstances, 8C.F.R. § 274a.12(c)(14) (providing that deferred action recipients may apply for work authorization if they can show an “economic necessity for employment”); see also 8 C.F.R. § 109.1(b)(7) (1982). Under DHS policy guidance, a grant of deferred action also suspends an alien’s accrual of unlawful presence for purposes of 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(B)(i) and (a)(9)(C)(i)(I), provisions that restrict the admission of aliens who have departed the United States after having been unlawfully present for specified periods of time. A grant of deferred action under the proposed programs would remain in effect for three years, subject to renewal, and could be terminated at any time at DHS’s discretion. See Johnson Deferred Action Memorandum at 2, 5.
For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that DHS’s proposed prioritiza- tion policy and its proposed deferred action program for parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents would be permissible exercises of DHS’s discre- tion to enforce the immigration laws. We further conclude that, as it has been described to us, the proposed deferred action program for parents of DACA recipients would not be a permissible exercise of enforcement discretion.
In sum, for the reasons set forth above, we conclude that DHS’s proposed prioritization policy and its proposed deferred action program for parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents would be legally permissible, but that the proposed deferred action program for parents of DACA recipients would not be permissible.
Read more after jump:
The memo’s discussion of the “Take Care” clause focuses almost exclusively no Heckler v. Chaney:
As a general rule, when Congress vests enforcement authority in an executive agency, that agency has the discretion to decide whether a particular violation of the law warrants prosecution or other enforcement action. This discretion is rooted in the President’s constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” U.S. Const. art. II, § 3, and it reflects a recognition that the “faithful[]” execution of the law does not necessarily entail “act[ing] against each technical violation of the statute” that an agency is charged with enforcing. Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 831 (1985). Rather, as the Supreme Court explained in Chaney, the decision whether to initiate enforcement proceedings is a complex judgment that calls on the agency to “balanc[e] . . . a number of factors which are peculiarly within its expertise.” Id. These factors include “whether agency resources are best spent on this violation or another, whether the agency is likely to succeed if it acts, whether the particular enforcement action requested best fits the agency’s overall policies, and . . . whether the agency has enough resources to undertake the action at all.” Id. at 831; cf. United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 465 (1996) (recognizing that exercises of prosecutorial discretion in criminal cases involve consideration of “‘[s]uch factors as the strength of the case, the prosecution’s general deterrence value, the Government’s enforcement priorities, and the case’s relationship to the Government’s overall enforcement plan’” (quoting Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 607 (1985))). In Chaney, the Court considered and rejected a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s refusal to initiate enforcement proceedings with respect to alleged violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, concluding that an agency’s decision not to initiate enforcement proceedings is presumptively immune from judicial review. See 470 U.S. at 832. The Court explained that, while Congress may “provide[] guidelines for the agency to follow in exercising its enforcement powers,” in the absence of such “legislative direction,” an agency’s non-enforcement determina- tion is, much like a prosecutor’s decision not to indict, a “special province of the Executive.” Id. at 832–33.
Here is how the memo applies Heckler to immigration:
With respect to removal decisions in particular, the Supreme Court has recog- nized that “the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials” is a “principal feature of the removal system” under the INA. Arizona, 132 S. Ct. at 2499. The INA expressly authorizes immigration officials to grant certain forms of discre- tionary relief from removal for aliens, including parole, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A); asylum, id. § 1158(b)(1)(A); and cancellation of removal, id. § 1229b. But in addition to administering these statutory forms of relief, “[f]ederal officials, as an initial matter, must decide whether it makes sense to pursue removal at all.” Arizona, 132 S. Ct. at 2499. And, as the Court has explained, “[a]t each stage” of the removal process—“commenc[ing] proceedings, adjudicat[ing] cases, [and] execut[ing] removal orders”—immigration officials have “discretion to abandon the endeavor.” Am.-Arab Anti-Discrim. Comm., 525 U.S. at 483 (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g) (alterations in original)). Deciding whether to pursue removal at each of these stages implicates a wide range of considerations.
The memo acknowledges that the limits here are not clearly defined, citing Youngstown:
Immigration officials’ discretion in enforcing the laws is not, however, unlim-ited. Limits on enforcement discretion are both implicit in, and fundamental to, the Constitution’s allocation of governmental powers between the two political branches. See, e.g., Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 587– 88 (1952). These limits, however, are not clearly defined. The open-ended nature of the inquiry under the Take Care Clause—whether a particular exercise of discretion is “faithful[]” to the law enacted by Congress—does not lend itself easily to the application of set formulas or bright-line rules.
Because it is not clear, the memo looks to the discretion given by Congress:
And because the exercise of enforcement discretion generally is not subject to judicial review, see Chaney, 470 U.S. at 831–33, neither the Supreme Court nor the lower federal courts have squarely addressed its constitutional bounds. Rather, the political branches have addressed the proper allocation of enforcement authority through the political process. As the Court noted in Chaney, Congress “may limit an agency’s exercise of enforcement power if it wishes, either by setting substantive priorities, or by otherwise circumscribing an agency’s power to discriminate among issues or cases it will pursue.” Id. at 833. The history of immigration policy illustrates this principle: Since the INA was enacted, the Executive Branch has on numerous occasions exercised discretion to extend various forms of immigration relief to categories of aliens for humanitarian, foreign policy, and other reasons. When Congress has been dissatisfied with Executive action, it has responded, as Chaney suggests, by enacting legislation to limit the Executive’s discretion in enforcing the immigration laws.1
Nonetheless, the nature of the Take Care duty does point to at least four general (and closely related) principles governing the permissible scope of enforcement discretion that we believe are particularly relevant here. First, enforcement decisions should reflect “factors which are peculiarly within [the enforcing agency’s] expertise.” Chaney, 470 U.S. at 831. Those factors may include considerations related to agency resources, such as “whether the agency has enough resources to undertake the action,” or “whether agency resources are best spent on this violation or another.” Id. Other relevant considerations may include “the proper ordering of [the agency’s] priorities,” id. at 832, and the agency’s assessment of “whether the particular enforcement action [at issue] best fits the agency’s overall policies,” id. at 831.
Second, the Executive cannot, under the guise of exercising enforcement dis- cretion, attempt to effectively rewrite the laws to match its policy preferences. See id. at 833 (an agency may not “disregard legislative direction in the statutory scheme that [it] administers”). In other words, an agency’s enforcement decisions should be consonant with, rather than contrary to, the congressional policy underlying the statutes the agency is charged with administering. Cf. Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 637 (Jackson, J., concurring) (“When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb.”); Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U.S. 644, 658 (2007) (explaining that where Congress has given an agency the power to administer a statutory scheme, a court will not vacate the agency’s decision about the proper administration of the statute unless, among other things, the agency “‘has relied on factors which Congress had not intended it to consider’” (quot Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983))).
Third, the Executive Branch ordinarily cannot, as the Court put it in Chaney, “‘consciously and expressly adopt[] a general policy’ that is so extreme as to amount to an abdication of its statutory responsibilities.” 470 U.S. at 833 n.4 (quoting Adams v. Richardson, 480 F.2d 1159, 1162 (D.C. Cir. 1973) (en banc)); see id. (noting that in situations where an agency had adopted such an extreme policy, “the statute conferring authority on the agency might indicate that such decisions were not ‘committed to agency discretion’”). Abdication of the duties assigned to the agency by statute is ordinarily incompatible with the constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the laws. But see, e.g., Presidential Authority to Decline to Execute Unconstitutional Statutes, 18 Op. O.L.C. 199, 200 (1994) (noting that under the Take Care Clause, “the President is required to act in accordance with the laws—including the Constitution, which takes precedence over other forms of law”).
Finally, lower courts, following Chaney, have indicated that non-enforcement decisions are most comfortably characterized as judicially unreviewable exercises of enforcement discretion when they are made on a case-by-case basis. See, e.g., Kenney v. Glickman, 96 F.3d 1118, 1123 (8th Cir. 1996); Crowley Caribbean Transp., Inc. v. Peña, 37 F.3d 671, 676–77 (D.C. Cir. 1994). That reading of Chaney reflects a conclusion that case-by-case enforcement decisions generally avoid the concerns mentioned above. Courts have noted that “single-shot non- enforcement decisions” almost inevitably rest on “the sort of mingled assessments of fact, policy, and law . . . that are, as Chaney recognizes, peculiarly within the agency’s expertise and discretion.” Crowley Caribbean Transp., 37 F.3d at 676– 77 (emphasis omitted). Individual enforcement decisions made on the basis of case-specific factors are also unlikely to constitute “general polic[ies] that [are] so extreme as to amount to an abdication of [the agency’s] statutory responsibilities.” Id. at 677 (quoting Chaney, 477 U.S. at 833 n.4). That does not mean that all “general policies” respecting non-enforcement are categorically forbidden: Some “general policies” may, for example, merely provide a framework for making individualized, discretionary assessments about whether to initiate enforcement actions in particular cases. Cf. Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 313 (1993) (explain- ing that an agency’s use of “reasonable presumptions and generic rules” is not incompatible with a requirement to make individualized determinations). But a general policy of non-enforcement that forecloses the exercise of case-by-case discretion poses “special risks” that the agency has exceeded the bounds of its enforcement discretion. Crowley Caribbean Transp., 37 F.3d at 677.
DHS has explained that the proposed policy is designed to respond to the prac- tical reality that the number of aliens who are removable under the INA vastly exceeds the resources Congress has made available to DHS for processing and carrying out removals. The resource constraints are striking. As noted, DHS has informed us that there are approximately 11.3 million undocumented aliens in the country, but that Congress has appropriated sufficient resources for ICE to remove fewer than 400,000 aliens each year, a significant percentage of whom are typically encountered at or near the border rather than in the interior of the country. See E-mail for Karl R. Thompson, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from David Shahoulian, Deputy General Counsel, DHS, Re: Immigration Opinion (Nov. 19, 2014) (“Shahoulian E-mail”). The proposed policy explains that, because DHS “cannot respond to all immigra- tion violations or remove all persons illegally in the United States,” it seeks to “prioritize the use of enforcement personnel, detention space, and removal assets” to “ensure that use of its limited resources is devoted to the pursuit of” DHS’s highest priorities. Johnson Prioritization Memorandum at 2.
For the 4th Hackler “principle,” there is not an “abdication”
Further, although the proposed policy is not a “single-shot non-enforcement decision,” neither does it amount to an abdication of DHS’s statutory responsibili- ties, or constitute a legislative rule overriding the commands of the substantive statute. Crowley Caribbean Transp., 37 F.3d at 676–77. The proposed policy provides a general framework for exercising enforcement discretion in individual cases, rather than establishing an absolute, inflexible policy of not enforcing the immigration laws in certain categories of cases. Given that the resources Congress has allocated to DHS are sufficient to remove only a small fraction of the total population of undocumented aliens in the United States, setting forth written guidance about how resources should presumptively be allocated in particular cases is a reasonable means of ensuring that DHS’s severely limited resources are systematically directed to its highest priorities across a large and diverse agency, as well as ensuring consistency in the administration of the removal system. The proposed policy’s identification of categories of aliens who constitute removal priorities is also consistent with the categorical nature of Congress’s instruction to prioritize the removal of criminal aliens in the DHS Appropriations Act….
Accordingly, the policy provides for case-by-case determinations about whether an individual alien’s circumstances warrant the expenditure of removal resources, employing a broad standard that leaves ample room for the exercise of individualized discretion by responsible officials. For these reasons, the proposed policy avoids the difficulties that might be raised by a more inflexible prioritization policy and dispels any concern that DHS has either undertaken to rewrite the immigration laws or abdicated its statutory responsibilities with respect to non-priority aliens.4
The discussion of the 1990 “Family Fairness” plan (which I discuss here) is a tad misleading:
And in 1990, INS implemented a “Family Fairness” program that authorized granting extended voluntary departure and work authorization to the estimated 1.5 million spouses and children of aliens who had been granted legal status under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99- 603, 100 Stat. 3359 (“IRCA”). See Memorandum for Regional Commissioners, INS, from Gene McNary, Commissioner, INS, Re: Family Fairness: Guidelines for Voluntary Departure under 8 CFR 242.5 for the Ineligible Spouses and Children of Legalized Aliens (Feb. 2, 1990) (“Family Fairness Memorandum”); see also CRS Immigration Report at 10.
They were granted this deferral becomes they would too, in time, have a path to citizenship. That was the purpose of the temporary deferrals.
Every single instance of deferral cited is based on a statute or a humanitarian crisis like Katrina.
We learned that no OLC memo was prepared for DACA, but oral advice was given:
Before DACA was announced, our Office was consulted about whether such a program would be legally permissible. As we orally advised, our preliminary view was that such a program would be permissible, provided that immigration officials retained discretion to evaluate each application on an individualized basis. We noted that immigration officials typically consider factors such as having been brought to the United States as a child in exercising their discretion to grant deferred action in individual cases. We explained, however, that extending deferred action to individuals who satisfied these and other specified criteria on a class-wide basis would raise distinct questions not implicated by ad hoc grants of deferred action. We advised that it was critical that, like past policies that made deferred action available to certain classes of aliens, the DACA program require immigration officials to evaluate each application for deferred action on a case-by-case basis, rather than granting deferred action automatically to all applicants who satisfied the threshold eligibility criteria. We also noted that, although the proposed program was predicated on humanitarian concerns that appeared less particular- ized and acute than those underlying certain prior class-wide deferred action programs, the concerns animating DACA were nonetheless consistent with the types of concerns that have customarily guided the exercise of immigration enforcement discretion.
The memo also makes something of an acquiescence argument:
Congress has long been aware of the practice of granting deferred action, in- cluding in its categorical variety, and of its salient features; and it has never acted to disapprove or limit the practice.9 On the contrary, it has enacted several pieces of legislation that have either assumed that deferred action would be available in certain circumstances, or expressly directed that deferred action be extended to certain categories of aliens.
Next, the memo breaks down the difference between deferred action and prosecutorial discretion in criminal cases:
Deferred action, however, differs in at least three respects from more familiar and widespread exercises of enforcement discretion. First, unlike (for example) the paradigmatic exercise of prosecutorial discretion in a criminal case, the conferral of deferred action does not represent a decision not to prosecute an individual for past unlawful conduct; it instead represents a decision to openly tolerate an undocumented alien’s continued presence in the United States for a fixed period (subject to revocation at the agency’s discretion). Second, unlike most exercises of enforcement discretion, deferred action carries with it benefits in addition to non- enforcement itself; specifically, the ability to seek employment authorization and suspension of unlawful presence for purposes of 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(B)(i) and (a)(9)(C)(i)(I). Third, class-based deferred action programs, like those for VAWA recipients and victims of Hurricane Katrina, do not merely enable individual immigration officials to select deserving beneficiaries from among those aliens who have been identified or apprehended for possible removal—as is the case with ad hoc deferred action—but rather set forth certain threshold eligibility criteria and then invite individuals who satisfy these criteria to apply for deferred action status.
The memo attempts to distinguish these facts. With respect to tolerating unlawful conduct:
While these features of deferred action are somewhat unusual among exercises of enforcement discretion, the differences between deferred action and other exercises of enforcement discretion are less significant than they might initially appear. The first feature—the toleration of an alien’s continued unlawful pres- ence—is an inevitable element of almost any exercise of discretion in immigration enforcement. Any decision not to remove an unlawfully present alien—even through an exercise of routine enforcement discretion—necessarily carries with it a tacit acknowledgment that the alien will continue to be present in the United States without legal status. Deferred action arguably goes beyond such tacit acknowledgment by expressly communicating to the alien that his or her unlawful presence will be tolerated for a prescribed period of time. This difference is not, in our view, insignificant. But neither does it fundamentally transform deferred action into something other than an exercise of enforcement discretion: As we have previously noted, deferred action confers no lawful immigration status, provides no path to lawful permanent residence or citizenship, and is revocable at any time in the agency’s discretion.
With respect to work authorization:
With respect to the second feature, the additional benefits deferred action con- fers—the ability to apply for work authorization and the tolling of unlawful presence—do not depend on background principles of agency discretion under DHS’s general immigration authorities or the Take Care Clause at all, but rather depend on independent and more specific statutory authority rooted in the text of the INA. The first of those authorities, DHS’s power to prescribe which aliens are authorized to work in the United States, is grounded in 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(h)(3), which defines an “unauthorized alien” not entitled to work in the United States as an alien who is neither an LPR nor “authorized to be . . . employed by [the INA] or by the Attorney General [now the Secretary of Homeland Security].” This statutory provision has long been understood to recognize the authority of the Secretary (and the Attorney General before him) to grant work authorization to particular classes of aliens.
Third, about the class-based deferrals:
The final unusual feature of deferred action programs is particular to class- based programs. The breadth of such programs, in combination with the first two features of deferred action, may raise particular concerns about whether immigra- tion officials have undertaken to substantively change the statutory removal system rather than simply adapting its application to individual circumstances. But the salient feature of class-based programs—the establishment of an affirmative application process with threshold eligibility criteria—does not in and of itself cross the line between executing the law and rewriting it. Although every class- wide deferred action program that has been implemented to date has established certain threshold eligibility criteria, each program has also left room for case-by- case determinations, giving immigration officials discretion to deny applications even if the applicant fulfills all of the program criteria. See supra pp. 15–18. Like the establishment of enforcement priorities discussed in Part I, the establishment of threshold eligibility criteria can serve to avoid arbitrary enforcement decisions by individual officers, thereby furthering the goal of ensuring consistency across a large agency. The guarantee of individualized, case-by-case review helps avoid potential concerns that, in establishing such eligibility criteria, the Executive is attempting to rewrite the law by defining new categories of aliens who are automatically entitled to particular immigration relief. See Crowley Caribbean Transp., 37 F.3d at 676–77; see also Chaney, 470 U.S. at 833 n.4. Furthermore, while permitting potentially eligible individuals to apply for an exercise of enforcement discretion is not especially common, many law enforcement agencies have developed programs that invite violators of the law to identify themselves to the authorities in exchange for leniency.12 Much as is the case with those pro- grams, inviting eligible aliens to identify themselves through an application process may serve the agency’s law enforcement interests by encouraging lower- priority individuals to identify themselves to the agency. In so doing, the process may enable the agency to better focus its scarce resources on higher enforcement priorities.
Apart from the considerations just discussed, perhaps the clearest indication that these features of deferred action programs are not per se impermissible is the fact that Congress, aware of these features, has repeatedly enacted legislation appearing to endorse such programs. As discussed above, Congress has not only directed that certain classes of aliens be made eligible for deferred action pro- grams—and in at least one instance, in the case of VAWA beneficiaries, directed the expansion of an existing program—but also ranked evidence of approved deferred action status as evidence of “lawful status” for purposes of the REAL ID Act. These enactments strongly suggest that when DHS in the past has decided to grant deferred action to an individual or class of individuals, it has been acting in a manner consistent with congressional policy “‘rather than embarking on a frolic of its own.’” United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc., 474 U.S. 121, 139 (1985) (quoting Red Lion Broad. Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 375 (1969)); cf. id. at 137–39 (concluding that Congress acquiesced in an agency’s assertion of regulato- ry authority by “refus[ing] . . . to overrule” the agency’s view after it was specifi- cally “brought to Congress’[s] attention,” and further finding implicit congression- al approval in legislation that appeared to acknowledge the regulatory authority in question); Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654, 680 (1981) (finding that Congress “implicitly approved the practice of claim settlement by executive agreement” by enacting the International Claims Settlement Act of 1949, which “create[d] a procedure to implement” those very agreements).
Next the memo turns to limits:
Congress’s apparent endorsement of certain deferred action programs does not mean, of course, that a deferred action program can be lawfully extended to any group of aliens, no matter its characteristics or its scope, and no matter the circumstances in which the program is implemented. Because deferred action, like the prioritization policy discussed above, is an exercise of enforcement discretion rooted in the Secretary’s broad authority to enforce the immigration laws and the President’s duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, it is subject to the same four general principles previously discussed. See supra pp. 6–7. Thus, any expansion of deferred action to new classes of aliens must be carefully scrutinized to ensure that it reflects considerations within the agency’s expertise, and that it does not seek to effectively rewrite the laws to match the Executive’s policy preferences, but rather operates in a manner consonant with congressional policy expressed in the statute. See supra pp. 6–7 (citing Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 637, and Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders, 551 U.S. at 658). Immigration officials cannot abdicate their statutory responsibilities under the guise of exercising enforcement discretion. See supra p. 7 (citing Chaney, 470 U.S. at 833 n.4). And any new deferred action program should leave room for individualized evaluation of whether a particular case warrants the expenditure of resources for enforcement. See supra p. 7 (citing Glickman, 96 F.3d at 1123, and Crowley Caribbean Transp., 37 F.3d at 676–77).
And more on acquiescence:
Furthermore, because deferred action programs depart in certain respects from more familiar and widespread exercises of enforcement discretion, particularly careful examination is needed to ensure that any proposed expansion of deferred action complies with these general principles, so that the proposed program does not, in effect, cross the line between executing the law and rewriting it. In analyzing whether the proposed programs cross this line, we will draw substantial guidance from Congress’s history of legislation concerning deferred action. In the absence of express statutory guidance, the nature of deferred action programs Congress has implicitly approved by statute helps to shed light on Congress’s own understandings about the permissible uses of deferred action. Those understand- ings, in turn, help to inform our consideration of whether the proposed deferred action programs are “faithful[]” to the statutory scheme Congress has enacted. U.S. Const. art. II, § 3.
We begin by considering whether the proposed program for the parents of U.S. citizens and LPRs reflects considerations within the agency’s expertise. DHS has offered two justifications for the proposed program for the parents of U.S. citizens and LPRs. First, as noted above, severe resource constraints make it inevitable that DHS will not remove the vast majority of aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States. Consistent with Congress’s instruction, DHS prioritizes the removal of individuals who have significant criminal records, as well as others who present dangers to national security, public safety, or border security. See supra p. 10. Parents with longstanding ties to the country and who have no significant criminal records or other risk factors rank among the agency’s lowest enforcement priorities; absent significant increases in funding, the likelihood that any individu- al in that category will be determined to warrant the expenditure of severely limited enforcement resources is very low. Second, DHS has explained that the program would serve an important humanitarian interest in keeping parents together with children who are lawfully present in the United States, in situations where such parents have demonstrated significant ties to community and family in this country. See Shahoulian E-mail.
And, in a nod to the permissibility of defunding it, the memo stresses that the program would be “borne almost entirely” by application fees.
The deferred action program DHS proposes would not, of course, be costless. Processing applications for deferred action and its renewal requires manpower and resources. See Arizona, 132 S. Ct. at 2521 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). But DHS has informed us that the costs of administering the proposed program would be borne almost entirely by USCIS through the collec- tion of application fees. See Shahoulian E-mail; see also 8 U.S.C. § 1356(m); 8 C.F.R. § 103.7(b)(1)(i)(C), (b)(1)(i)(HH). DHS has indicated that the costs of administering the deferred action program would therefore not detract in any significant way from the resources available to ICE and CBP—the enforcement arms of DHS—which rely on money appropriated by Congress to fund their operations. See Shahoulian E-mail. DHS has explained that, if anything, the proposed deferred action program might increase ICE’s and CBP’s efficiency by in effect using USCIS’s fee-funded resources to enable those enforcement divisions to more easily identify non-priority aliens and focus their resources on pursuing aliens who are strong candidates for removal. See id. The proposed program, in short, might help DHS address its severe resource limitations, and at the very least likely would not exacerbate them. See id.
Concerning the humanitarian interest:
Rather, as noted above, DHS has explained that the program would also serve a particularized humanitarian interest in promoting family unity by enabling those parents of U.S. citizens and LPRs who are not otherwise enforcement priorities and who have demonstrated community and family ties in the United States (as evidenced by the length of time they have remained in the country) to remain united with their children in the United States. Like determining how best to respond to resource constraints, determining how to address such “human concerns” in the immigra- tion context is a consideration that is generally understood to fall within DHS’s expertise. Arizona, 132 S. Ct. at 2499.
Specifically, U.S. Citizens, once they hit the age of 21, can petition for visas for their parents to permanently reside in the U.S.
The INA provides a path to lawful status for the parents, as well as other immedi- ate relatives, of U.S. citizens: U.S. citizens aged twenty-one or over may petition for parents to obtain visas that would permit them to enter and permanently reside in the United States, and there is no limit on the overall number of such petitions that may be granted. See 8 U.S.C. § 1151(b)(2)(A)(i); see also Cuellar de Osorio, 134 S. Ct. at 2197–99 (describing the process for obtaining a family-based immigrant visa). And although the INA contains no parallel provision permitting LPRs to petition on behalf of their parents, it does provide a path for LPRs to become citizens, at which point they too can petition to obtain visas for their parents. See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1427(a) (providing that aliens are generally eligible to become naturalized citizens after five years of lawful permanent residence); id. § 1430(a) (alien spouses of U.S. citizens become eligible after three years of lawful permanent residence); Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510, 544 (2003).13 Additionally, the INA empowers the Attorney General to cancel the removal of, and adjust to lawful permanent resident status, aliens who have been physically present in the United States for a continuous period of not less than ten years, exhibit good moral character, have not been convicted of specified offenses, and have immediate relatives who are U.S. citizens or LPRs and who would suffer exceptional hardship from the alien’s removal. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1). DHS’s proposal to focus on the parents of U.S. citizens and LPRs thus tracks a congres- sional concern, expressed in the INA, with uniting the immediate families of individuals who have permanent legal ties to the United States.
We also do not believe DHS’s proposed program amounts to an abdication of its statutory responsibilities, or a legislative rule overriding the commands of the statute. As discussed earlier, DHS’s severe resource constraints mean that, unless circumstances change, it could not as a practical matter remove the vast majority of removable aliens present in the United States. The fact that the proposed program would defer the removal of a subset of these removable aliens—a subset that ranks near the bottom of the list of the agency’s removal priorities—thus does not, by itself, demonstrate that the program amounts to an abdication of DHS’s responsibilities. And the case-by-case discretion given to immigration officials under DHS’s proposed program alleviates potential concerns that DHS has abdicated its statutory enforcement responsibilities with respect to, or created a categorical, rule-like entitlement to immigration relief for, the particular class of aliens eligible for the program. An alien who meets all the criteria for deferred action under the program would receive deferred action only if he or she “pre- sent[ed] no other factors that, in the exercise of discretion,” would “make[] the grant of deferred action inappropriate.” Johnson Deferred Action Memorandum at 4. The proposed policy does not specify what would count as such a factor; it thus leaves the relevant USCIS official with substantial discretion to determine whether a grant of deferred action is warranted. In other words, even if an alien is not a removal priority under the proposed policy discussed in Part I, has continu- ously resided in the United States since before January 1, 2010, is physically present in the country, and is a parent of an LPR or a U.S. citizen, the USCIS official evaluating the alien’s deferred action application must still make a judgment, in the exercise of her discretion, about whether that alien presents any other factor that would make a grant of deferred action inappropriate. This feature of the proposed program ensures that it does not create a categorical entitlement to deferred action that could raise concerns that DHS is either impermissibly attempting to rewrite or categorically declining to enforce the law with respect to a particular group of undocumented aliens.
And what if 100% are granted?
Finally, the proposed deferred action program would resemble in material respects the kinds of deferred action programs Congress has implicitly approved in the past, which provides some indication that the proposal is consonant not only with interests reflected in immigration law as a general matter, but also with congressional understandings about the permissible uses of deferred action. As noted above, the program uses deferred action as an interim measure for a group of aliens to whom Congress has given a prospective entitlement to lawful immi- gration status. While Congress has provided a path to lawful status for the parents of U.S. citizens and LPRs, the process of obtaining that status “takes time.” Cuellar de Osorio, 134 S. Ct. at 2199. The proposed program would provide a mechanism for families to remain together, depending on their circumstances, for some or all of the intervening period.
ON size:
We recognize that the proposed program would likely differ in size from these prior deferred action programs. Although DHS has indicated that there is no reliable way to know how many eligible aliens would actually apply for or would be likely to receive deferred action following individualized consideration under the proposed program, it has informed us that approximately 4 million individuals could be eligible to apply. See Shahoulian E-mail. We have thus considered whether the size of the program alone sets it at odds with congressional policy or the Executive’s duties under the Take Care Clause. In the absence of express statutory guidance, it is difficult to say exactly how the program’s potential size bears on its permissibility as an exercise of executive enforcement discretion. But because the size of DHS’s proposed program corresponds to the size of a popula- tion to which Congress has granted a prospective entitlement to lawful status
without numerical restriction, it seems to us difficult to sustain an argument, based on numbers alone, that DHS’s proposal to grant a limited form of administrative relief as a temporary interim measure exceeds its enforcement discretion under the INA. Furthermore, while the potential size of the program is large, it is neverthe- less only a fraction of the approximately 11 million undocumented aliens who remain in the United States each year because DHS lacks the resources to remove them; and, as we have indicated, the program is limited to individuals who would be unlikely to be removed under DHS’s proposed prioritization policy. There is thus little practical danger that the program, simply by virtue of its size, will impede removals that would otherwise occur in its absence. And although we are aware of no prior exercises of deferred action of the size contemplated here, INS’s 1990 Family Fairness policy, which Congress later implicitly approved, made a comparable fraction of undocumented aliens—approximately four in ten— potentially eligible for discretionary extended voluntary departure relief. Compare CRS Immigration Report at 22 (estimating the Family Fairness policy extended to 1.5 million undocumented aliens), with Office of Policy and Planning, INS, Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: 1990 to 2000 at 10 (2003) (estimating an undocumented alien population of 3.5 million in 1990); see supra notes 5 & 15 (discussing extended voluntary departure and Congress’s implicit approval of the Family Fairness policy). This suggests that DHS’s proposed deferred action program is not, simply by virtue of its relative size, inconsistent with what Congress has previously considered a permissible exercise of enforcement discretion in the immigration context.
Finally, on page 32/33 we turn to why deferring parents of DACA Dreamers would not be permissible:
But the proposed program for parents of DACA recipients is unlike the pro- posed program for parents of U.S. citizens and LPRs in two critical respects. First, although DHS justifies the proposed program in large part based on considerations of family unity, the parents of DACA recipients are differently situated from the parents of U.S. citizens and LPRs under the family-related provisions of the immigration law. Many provisions of the INA reflect Congress’s general concern with not separating individuals who are legally entitled to live in the United States from their immediate family members. See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1151(b)(2)(A)(i) (permitting citizens to petition for parents, spouses and children); id. § 1229b(b)(1) (allowing cancellation of removal for relatives of citizens and LPRs). But the immigration laws do not express comparable concern for uniting persons who lack lawful status (or prospective lawful status) in the United States with their families. DACA recipients unquestionably lack lawful status in the United States. See DACA Toolkit at 8 (“Deferred action . . . does not provide you with a lawful status.”). Although they may presumptively remain in the United States, at least for the duration of the grant of deferred action, that grant is both time-limited and contingent, revocable at any time in the agency’s discretion. Extending deferred action to the parents of DACA recipients would therefore expand family-based immigration relief in a manner that deviates in important respects from the immigration system Congress has enacted and the policies that system embodies.
Second, as it has been described to us, the proposed deferred action program for the parents of DACA recipients would represent a significant departure from deferred action programs that Congress has implicitly approved in the past. Granting deferred action to the parents of DACA recipients would not operate as an interim measure for individuals to whom Congress has given a prospective entitlement to lawful status. Such parents have no special prospect of obtaining visas, since Congress has not enabled them to self-petition—as it has for VAWA self-petitioners and individuals eligible for T or U visas—or enabled their undocumented children to petition for visas on their behalf. Nor would granting deferred action to parents of DACA recipients, at least in the absence of other factors, serve interests that are comparable to those that have prompted implemen- tation of deferred action programs in the past. Family unity is, as we have discussed, a significant humanitarian concern that underlies many provisions of the INA. But a concern with furthering family unity alone would not justify the
proposed program, because in the absence of any family member with lawful status in the United States, it would not explain why that concern should be satisfied by permitting family members to remain in the United States. The decision to grant deferred action to DACA parents thus seems to depend critically on the earlier decision to make deferred action available to their children. But we are aware of no precedent for using deferred action in this way, to respond to humanitarian needs rooted in earlier exercises of deferred action. The logic underlying such an expansion does not have a clear stopping point: It would appear to argue in favor of extending relief not only to parents of DACA recipi- ents, but also to the close relatives of any alien granted deferred action through DACA or any other program, those relatives’ close relatives, and perhaps the relatives (and relatives’ relatives) of any alien granted any form of discretionary relief from removal by the Executive.
For these reasons, the proposed deferred action program for the parents of DACA recipients is meaningfully different from the proposed program for the parents of U.S. citizens and LPRs. It does not sound in Congress’s concern for maintaining the integrity of families of individuals legally entitled to live in the United States. And unlike prior deferred action programs in which Congress has acquiesced, it would treat the Executive’s prior decision to extend deferred action to one population as justifying the extension of deferred action to additional populations. DHS, of course, remains free to consider whether to grant deferred action to individual parents of DACA recipients on an ad hoc basis. But in the absence of clearer indications that the proposed class-based deferred action program for DACA parents would be consistent with the congressional policies and priorities embodied in the immigration laws, we conclude that it would not be permissible.