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Opinion of the Court
Other provisions of the Act expressly confer certain responsibilities on the Secretary of State,24 the President,25 and, indeed, on certain other officers as well.26 The 1981 and 1992 Executive Orders expressly relied on statutory provisions that confer authority on the President to suspend the entry of "any class of aliens" or to "impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate." 27
We cannot say that the interdiction program created by the President, which the Coast Guard was ordered to enforce, usurped authority that Congress had delegated to, or implicated responsibilities that it had imposed on, the Attorney General alone.28
24 See 8 U. S. C. §§ 1104, 1105, 1153, 1201, and 1202 (1988 ed. and Supp. IV).
25 See 8 U. S. C. §§ 1157(a), (b), and (d); § 1182(f); §§ 1185(a) and (b); and § 1324a(d) (1988 ed. and Supp. IV).
26 See §§ 1161(a), (b), and (c) (Secretaries of Agriculture and Labor); § 1188 (Secretary of Labor); § 1421 (federal courts).
27 Title 8 U. S. C. § 1182(f) provides: "Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrant or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."
28 It is true that Executive Order No. 12807, 57 Fed. Reg. 23133, 23134 (1992), grants the Attorney General certain authority under the interdiction program ("The Secretary of the Department in which the Coast Guard is operating, in consultation, where appropriate, with the . . . Attorney General . . . shall issue appropriate instructions to the Coast Guard," and "the Attorney General, in his unreviewable discretion, may decide that a person who is a refugee will not be returned without his consent"). Under the first phrase, however, any authority the Attorney General retains is subsidiary to that of the Coast Guard's leaders, who give the appropriate commands, and of the Coast Guard itself, which carries them out. As for the second phrase, under neither President Bush nor President Clinton has the Attorney General chosen to exercise those discretionary powers. Even if she had, she would have been carrying out an executive, rather than a legislative, command, and therefore would not necessarily have
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