296
Opinion of the Court
In 1984, responding to the increased flow of unaccompanied juvenile aliens into California, the INS Western Regional Office adopted a policy of limiting the release of detained minors to " 'a parent or lawful guardian,' " except in " 'unusual and extraordinary cases,' " when the juvenile could be released to " 'a responsible individual who agrees to provide care and be responsible for the welfare and well being of the child.' " See Flores v. Meese, 934 F. 2d 991, 994 (CA9 1990) (quoting policy), vacated, 942 F. 2d 1352 (CA9 1991) (en banc).
In July of the following year, the four respondents filed an action in the District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of a class, later certified by the court, consisting of all aliens under the age of 18 who are detained by the INS Western Region because "a parent or legal guardian fails to personally appear to take custody of them." App. 29. The complaint raised seven claims, the first two challenging the Western Region release policy (on constitutional, statutory, and international law grounds), and the final five challenging the conditions of the juveniles' detention.
The District Court granted the INS partial summary judgment on the statutory and international law challenges to the release policy, and in late 1987 approved a consent decree that settled all claims regarding the detention conditions. The court then turned to the constitutional challenges to the release policy, and granted respondents partial summary judgment on their equal protection claim that the INS had no rational basis for treating alien minors in deportation proceedings differently from alien minors in exclusion proceedings 2 (whom INS regulations permitted to be paroled, in some circumstances, to persons other than parents and legal guardians, including other relatives and "friends," see 8 CFR § 212.5(a)(2)(ii) (1987)). This prompted the INS to initiate
2 Exclusion proceedings, which are not at issue in the present case, involve aliens apprehended before "entering" the United States, as that term is used in the immigration laws. See Leng May Ma v. Barber, 357 U. S. 185, 187 (1958).
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