478
Opinion of the Court
diction to hear any cause or claim by or on behalf of any alien arising from the decision or action by the Attorney General to commence proceedings, adjudicate cases, or execute removal orders against any alien under this Act."
This provision seemingly governs here, depriving the federal courts of jurisdiction "[e]xcept as provided in this section." But whether it is as straightforward as that depends upon the scope of the quoted text. Here, and in the courts below, both petitioners and respondents have treated § 1252(g) as covering all or nearly all deportation claims. The Attorney General has characterized it as "a channeling provision, requiring aliens to bring all deportation-related claims in the context of a petition for review of a final order of deportation filed in the court of appeals." Supplemental Brief for Appellants in No. 96-55929 (CA9), p. 2. Respondents have described it as applying to "most of what INS does." Corrected Supplemental Brief for Appellees in No. 96-55929 (CA9), p. 7. This broad understanding of § 1252(g), combined with IIRIRA's effective-date provisions, creates an interpretive anomaly. If the jurisdiction-excluding provision of § 1252(g) eliminates other sources of jurisdiction in all deportation-related cases, and if the phrase in § 1252(g) "[e]xcept as provided in this section" incorporates (as one would suppose) all the other jurisdiction-related provisions of § 1252, then § 309(c)(1) would be rendered a virtual nullity. To say that there is no jurisdiction in pending INS cases "except as" § 1252 provides jurisdiction is simply to say that § 1252's jurisdictional limitations apply to pending cases as well as future cases—which seems hardly what § 309(c)(1) is about. If, on the other hand, the phrase "[e]xcept as provided in this section" were (somehow) interpreted not to incorporate the other jurisdictional provisions of § 1252—if § 1252(g) stood alone, so to speak—judicial review would be foreclosed for all deportation claims in all pending deportation cases, even after entry of a final order.
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