Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc., 509 U.S. 155, 50 (1993)

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204

SALE v. HAITIAN CENTERS COUNCIL, INC.

Blackmun, J., dissenting

phrase "within the United States," it did not substitute any other geographical limitation. This failure is exceedingly strange in light of the majority's hypothesis that the deletion was intended solely to work the particular technical adjustment of extending protection to those physically present in, yet not legally admitted to, the United States. It is even stranger given what Congress did elsewhere in the Act. The Refugee Act revised the immigration code to establish a comprehensive, tripartite system for the protection of refugees fleeing persecution.14 Section 207 governs overseas refugee processing. Section 208, in turn, governs asylum claims by aliens "physically present in the United States, or at a land border or port of entry." Unlike these sections, however, which explicitly apply to persons present in specific locations, the amended § 243(h) includes no such limiting language. The basic prohibition against forced return to persecution applies simply to "any alien." The design of all three sections is instructive, and it undermines the majority's assertion that § 243(h) was meant to apply only to aliens physically present in the United States or at one of its borders. When Congress wanted a provision to apply only to aliens "physically present in the United States, or at a land border or port of entry," it said so. See § 208(a).15 An examination

14 For this reason, the majority is mistaken to find any significance in the fact that the ban on return is located in the part of the INA that deals as well with the deportation and exclusion hearings in which requests for asylum or for withholding of deportation "are ordinarily advanced." Ante, at 173.

15 Congress used the words "physically present within the United States" to delimit the reach not just of § 208 but of sections throughout the INA. See, e. g., 8 U. S. C. §§ 1159 (adjustment of refugee status); 1101(a)(27)(I) (defining "special immigrant" for visa purposes); 1254(a)(1)- (2) (eligibility for suspension of deportation); 1255a(a)(3) (requirements for temporary resident status); 1401(d), (e), (g) (requirements for nationality but not citizenship at birth); 1409(c) (requirements for nationality status for children born out of wedlock); 1503(b) (requirement for appeal of denial of nationality status); and 1254a(c)(1)(A)(i), (c)(3)(B) (requirements for tem-

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