32
Opinion of the Court
INS's practice irrelevant. Though the agency's discretion is unfettered at the outset, if it announces and follows—by rule or by settled course of adjudication—a general policy by which its exercise of discretion will be governed, an irrational departure from that policy (as opposed to an avowed alteration of it) could constitute action that must be overturned as "arbitrary, capricious, [or] an abuse of discretion" within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 706(2)(A). The INS has not, however, disregarded its general policy here; it has merely taken a narrow view of what constitutes "entry fraud" under that policy, excluding events removed in time and circumstance from respondent's entry: his preentry and postentry sham divorces, and the fraud in his 1982 application for naturalization. The "entry fraud" exception being, under the current statute, a rule of the INS's own invention, the INS is entitled, within reason, to define that exception as it pleases. The Ninth Circuit held that the acts of fraud counted against respondent can be described as "inextricably intertwined" with, or an "extension" of, the fraudulent entry itself because they were essential to its ultimate success or concealment. Perhaps so, but it is up to the Attorney General whether she will adopt an "inextricably intertwined" or "essential extension" augmentation of her "entry fraud" exception. It is assuredly rational, and therefore lawful, for her to distinguish aliens such as respondent who engage in a pattern of immigration fraud from aliens who commit a single, isolated act of misrepresentation.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.
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