Reno v. Catholic Social Services, Inc., 509 U.S. 43, 19 (1993)

Page:   Index   Previous  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  Next

Cite as: 509 U. S. 43 (1993)

Opinion of the Court

argue that this limited scheme would afford them inadequate review of a determination based on the regulations they challenge, presumably because they would be able to obtain such review on appeal from a deportation order, if they become subject to such an order; their situation is thus different from that of the "17 unsuccessful individual SAW applicants" in McNary, 498 U. S., at 487, whose procedural objections, we concluded, could receive no practical judicial review within the scheme established by 8 U. S. C. § 1160(e), id., at 496-497.

This is not the end of the matter, however, because the plaintiffs have called our attention to an INS policy that may well have placed some of them outside the scope of § 1255a(f)(1). The INS has issued a manual detailing procedures for its offices to follow in implementing the Reform Act's legalization programs and instructing INS employees called "Legalization Assistants" to review certain applications in the presence of the applicants before accepting them for filing. See Procedures Manual for the Legalization and Special Agricultural Worker Programs of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (Legalization Manual or Manual).21 According to the Manual, "[m]inor correctable deficiencies such as incomplete responses or typographical errors may be corrected by the [Legalization Assistant]." Id., at IV-6. "[I]f the applicant is statutorily ineligible," however, the Manual provides that "the application will be rejected by the [Legalization Assistant]." Ibid. (emphasis added). Because this prefiling rejection of applications oc-21 Under the Manual's procedures, only those applications that were not prepared with the assistance of a "Qualified Designated Entity" (the Reform Act's designation for private organizations that serve as intermediaries between applicants and the INS, see 8 U. S. C. § 1255a(c)(1)) are subject to review by Legalization Assistants. The applications that were prepared with the help of Qualified Designated Entities skip this step. See Legalization Manual, at IV-5, IV-6. There is no evidence in the record indicating how many CSS and LULAC class members were assisted by Qualified Designated Entities in preparing their applications.

61

Page:   Index   Previous  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  Next

Last modified: October 4, 2007