56
Opinion of the Court
here, the critical language was "a determination respecting an application for adjustment of status." We said that "the reference to 'a determination' describes a single act rather than a group of decisions or a practice or procedure employed in making decisions." Id., at 492. We noted that the provision permitting judicial review only in the context of a deportation proceeding also defined its scope by reference to a single act: " 'judicial review of such a denial.'" Ibid. (emphasis in original) (quoting 8 U. S. C. § 1160(e)(3)); see § 1255a(f)(4)(A) (using identical language). We therefore decided that the language setting the limits of the jurisdictional bar "describes the denial of an individual application," 498 U. S., at 492, and thus "applies only to review of denials of individual . . . applications." Id., at 494. The INS gives us no reason to reverse course, and we reject its argument that § 1255a(f)(1) precludes district court jurisdiction over an action challenging the legality of a regulation without referring to or relying on the denial of any individual application.
Section 1255a(f)(1), however, is not the only jurisdictional hurdle in the way of the CSS and LULAC plaintiffs, whose claims still must satisfy the jurisdictional and justiciability requirements that apply in the absence of a specific congressional directive. To be sure, a statutory source of jurisdiction is not lacking, since 28 U. S. C. § 1331, generally granting federal-question jurisdiction, "confer[s] jurisdiction on federal courts to review agency action." Califano v. Sanders, 430 U. S. 99, 105 (1977). Neither is it fatal that the Reform Act is silent about the type of judicial review those plaintiffs seek. We customarily refuse to treat such silence "as a denial of authority to [an] aggrieved person to seek appropriate relief in the federal courts," Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288, 309 (1944), and this custom has been "reinforced by the enactment of the Administrative Procedure Act, which embodceeding of the United States Government." 8 U. S. C. § 1255a(f)(2). As the INS appears to concede, see Brief for Petitioners 19, the claims at issue in this case do not fall within the scope of this bar.
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