Cite as: 525 U. S. 471 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
onstrated by the text of § 1252(b)(9), which stands in stark contrast to § 1252(g).
It could be argued, perhaps, that § 1252(g) is redundant if it channels judicial review of only some decisions and actions, since § 1252(b)(9) channels judicial review of all of them anyway. But that is not so, since only § 1252(g), and not § 1252(b)(9) (except to the extent it is incorporated within § 1252(g)), applies to what § 309(c)(1) calls "transitional cases," that is, cases pending on the effective date of IIRIRA. That alone justifies its existence. It performs the function of categorically excluding from non-final-order judicial review—even as to transitional cases otherwise governed by § 1105a rather than the unmistakable "zipper" clause of § 1252(b)(9)—certain specified decisions and actions of the INS. In addition, even after all the transitional cases have passed through the system, § 1252(g) as we interpret it serves the continuing function of making it clear that those specified decisions and actions, which (as we shall discuss in detail below) some courts had held not to be included within the non-final-order review prohibition of § 1105a, are covered by the "zipper" clause of § 1252(b)(9). It is rather the Court of Appeals' and the parties' interpretation which renders § 1252(g) entirely redundant, adding to one "zipper" clause that does not apply to transitional cases, another one of equal scope that does apply to transitional cases. That makes it entirely inexplicable why the transitional provisions of § 306(c) refer to § 1252(g) instead of § 1252(b)(9)—and why § 1252(g) exists at all.
There was good reason for Congress to focus special attention upon, and make special provision for, judicial review of the Attorney General's discrete acts of "commenc[ing] proceedings, adjudicat[ing] cases, [and] execut[ing] removal orders"—which represent the initiation or prosecution of various stages in the deportation process. At each stage the Executive has discretion to abandon the endeavor, and at the time IIRIRA was enacted the INS had been engaging in a
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