488
Opinion of the Court
one or both were available they would come too late to prevent the "chilling effect" upon their First Amendment rights; the doctrine of constitutional doubt requires us to interpret § 1252(g) in such fashion as to permit immediate review of their selective-enforcement claims. We do not believe that the doctrine of constitutional doubt has any application here. As a general matter—and assuredly in the context of claims such as those put forward in the present case—an alien unlawfully in this country has no constitutional right to assert selective enforcement as a defense against his deportation.10
10 Instead of resolving this constitutional question, Justice Ginsburg chooses to resolve the constitutional question whether Congress can exclude the courts from remedying an alleged First Amendment violation with immediate effects, pending the completion of administrative proceedings. It is not clear to us that this is easier to answer than the question we address—as is evident from the fact that in resolving it Justice Ginsburg relies almost exclusively on cases dealing with the quite different question of federal-court intervention in state proceedings. (Even in that area, most of the cases she cites where we did not intervene involved no claim of present injury from the state action—and none involved what we have here: an admission by the Government that the alleged First Amendment activity was the basis for selecting the individuals for adverse action. Cf. Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 487-488, n. 4 (1965).) The one case not involving federal-state relations in fact overrode a congressional requirement for completion of administrative proceedings— even though, unlike here, no immediate harm was apparent. See Oestereich v. Selective Serv. System Local Bd. No. 11, 393 U. S. 233 (1968). Justice Ginsburg counts the case as one for her side on the basis of nothing more substantial than the Court's characterization of the agency action at issue as "blatantly lawless," id., at 238. See post, at 494 (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
Nor is it clear that the constitutional question Justice Ginsburg addresses has narrower application and effect than the one we resolve. Our holding generally deprives deportable aliens of the defense of selective prosecution. Hers allows all citizens and resident aliens to be deprived of constitutional rights (at least where the deprivation is not "blatantly lawless") pending the completion of agency proceedings.
Finally, Justice Ginsburg acknowledges that her constitutional conclusion might be different if "a court of appeals reviewing final orders of
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