OPINIONS OF INDIVIDUAL JUSTICES
IN CHAMBERS
on application for stay
No. A-426. Decided November 26, 1993
The application for a stay of a District Court order—which requires applicant Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to, among other things, identify and adjudicate legalization applications filed by certain categories of applicants, not arrest or deport certain immigrant classes, and temporarily grant certain immigrant classes stays of deportation and employment authorization—is granted. If presented with the question, this Court would grant certiorari and conclude that respondents, organizations providing legal help to immigrants, have no standing to seek the order granted by the District Court because they are outside the zone of interests that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) seeks to protect. See Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U. S. 871, 883. IRCA was clearly meant to protect the interests of undocumented aliens, not organizations such as respondents. Although respondents were entities designated to assist legalization efforts during IRCA's amnesty period, the fact that an INS regulation may have affected the way they allocated their resources does not give them standing. The balance of equities also tips in the INS' favor. The order would impose a considerable administrative burden on the INS and would delay the deportation of at least those aliens who are deportable and who could not seek relief on their own behalf under Reno v. Catholic Social Services, 509 U. S. 43. If respondents lack standing, the order would also be an improper intrusion by a federal court into the workings of a coordinate branch of Government. On the other hand, those aliens whose deportation claims are ripe may still sue in their own right, as may organizations whose members' claims are ripe, assuming those organizations meet organizational standing criteria.
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