Amicus Curiae Brief of IRLI — East Bay Sanctuary v. Trump

Record facts

N.D. Cal. · No. 3:18-cv-06810-JST · Doc. 37 · 2018-11-19 · Docket on CourtListener

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Lawrence J. Joseph (SBN 154908) 
Law Office of Lawrence J. Joseph 
1250 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 700-1A 
Washington, DC 20036 
Tel: 202-355-9452 
Fax: 202-318-2254 
Email: ljoseph@larryjoseph.com 
 
Counsel for Movant Immigration Reform Law Institute 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 
East Bay Sanctuary Covenant; Al Otro 
Lado; Innovation Law Lab; and Central 
American 
Resource 
Center 
in 
Los 
Angeles, 
Plaintiff, 
 
v. 
Donald J. Trump, President of the United 
States, in his official capacity; Matthew G. 
Whitaker, Acting Attorney General, in his 
official capacity; U.S. Dep’t of Justice; 
James McHenry, Director of the Executive 
Office for Immigration Review, in his 
official capacity; the Executive Office for 
Immigration Review; Kirstjen M. Nielsen, 
Secretary of Homeland Security, in her 
official capacity; U.S. Dep’t of Homeland 
Security; Lee Francis Cissna, Director of 
the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration 
Services, in his official capacity; U.S. 
Citizenship & Immigration Services; 
Kevin K. McAleenan, Commissioner of 
U.S. Customs & Border Protection, in his 
official capacity; U.S. Customs & Border 
Protection; Ronald D. Vitiello, Acting 
Director of Immigration & Customs 
Enforcement, in his official capacity; 
Immigration & Customs Enforcement, 
Defendants. 
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Case No. 3:18-cv-6810-JST 
AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF 
IMMIGRATION REFORM LAW 
INSTITUTE IN SUPPORT OF 
FEDERAL DEFENDANTS IN 
OPPOSITION TO INTERIM RELIEF 
Date: November 19, 2018 
Time: 9:30 a.m. 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................. i 
Table of Authorities ........................................................................................................................ ii 
Memorandum of Points and Authorities ......................................................................................... 1 
Statement of Issues ......................................................................................................................... 1 
Identity and Interest of Amicus Curiae ........................................................................................... 1 
Statement of Facts ........................................................................................................................... 1 
Argument ........................................................................................................................................ 2 
I. 
Plaintiffs lack standing. ........................................................................................................... 2 
II. The Government did not waive any of the arguments raised in this brief. .............................. 4 
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 4 
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES 
CASES 
Action Alliance of Senior Citizens v. Heckler,  
789 F.2d 931 (D.C. Cir. 1986)  ............................................................................................4 
Animal Legal Def. Fund v. USDA, 632  
F.App'x 905 (9th Cir. 2015) .................................................................................................2 
City of Los Angeles v. Cty. of Kern,  
581 F.3d 841 (9th Cir. 2009) ...............................................................................................4 
City of Los Angeles v. Lyons,  
461 U.S. 95 (1983) ...............................................................................................................2 
Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA,  
133 S.Ct. 1138 (2013) ..........................................................................................................2 
Gladstone, Realtors v. Bellwood,  
441 U.S. 91 (1979) ...............................................................................................................3 
Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman,  
455 U. S. 363 (1982) .................................................................................................... 1, 3-4 
Mountain States Legal Found. v. Glickman,  
92 F.3d 1228 (D.C. Cir. 1996) .............................................................................................3 
Pennsylvania v. New Jersey,  
426 U.S. 660 (1976) .............................................................................................................2 
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture,  
797 F.3d 1087 (D.C. Cir. 2015) ...........................................................................................2 
Sierra Club v. Morton,  
405 U.S. 727 (1972) ......................................................................................................... 2-3 
Warth v. Seldin,  
422 U.S. 490 (1975) .............................................................................................................3 
Yee v. Escondido,  
503 U.S. 519 (1992) .............................................................................................................4 
STATUTES 
U.S. CONST. art. III ...................................................................................................................... 2-3 
Administrative Procedure Act,  
5 U.S.C. §§551-706 .............................................................................................................1 
Immigration and Naturalization Act,  
8 U.S.C. §§1101-1537 .........................................................................................................1 
Fair Housing Act,  
PUB. L. NO. 90-284, Title VIII, 82 Stat. 83 (1968) ..............................................................3 
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MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES 
Several groups concerned about immigration issues (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) have sued 
various federal officials and offices (collectively, the “Government”) to enjoin the Government’s 
actions regarding immigration matters under the Immigration and Naturalization Act, 8 U.S.C. 
§§1101-1537 (“INA”) and Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§551-706 (“APA”). 
STATEMENT OF ISSUES 
In addition to the issues raised by the parties, this Court should consider whether groups 
such as Plaintiffs can premise their standing on diverted resources under Havens Realty Corp. v. 
Coleman, 455 U. S. 363, 373 (1982), and its progeny when the statute that the groups seek to 
enforce either does not remove prudential concerns from the standing analysis (as the Havens 
Realty statute did) or does not include such groups’ expenditures within the zone of interests that 
the statute protects. 
IDENTITY AND INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE 
Amicus curiae Immigration Law Reform Institute (“IRLI”) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) 
public-interest law firm incorporated in the District of Columbia. IRLI is dedicated to litigating 
immigration-related cases on behalf of, and in the interests of, United States citizens and legal 
permanent residents and to assisting courts in understanding and accurately applying federal 
immigration law. IRLI has litigated or filed amicus briefs in many important immigration cases. 
For more than twenty years, the Board of Immigration Appeals has solicited amicus briefs drafted 
by IRLI staff from IRLI’s affiliate, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, because 
the Board considers IRLI an expert in immigration law. For these reasons, IRLI has direct 
interests in the issues here. 
STATEMENT OF FACTS 
In the interest of brevity, IRLI adopts the facts as stated by the Government. Gov’t Memo. 
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at 1-7. 
ARGUMENT 
I. 
PLAINTIFFS LACK STANDING. 
Before a federal court can even consider the underlying merits, plaintiffs must establish 
their standing to obtain a preliminary injunction. City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 103 
(1983). As the Government argues, Plaintiffs lack constitutional and prudential standing. Gov’t 
Memo. at 7-9 (Article III standing), 9-11 (zone of interests). 
Plaintiffs premise their organizational standing on the theory that the Government’s 
actions will cause Plaintiffs to expend additional resources to combat the Government’s rule. 
Compl. ¶¶ 78-99. Because such diverted-resource injuries are entirely self-inflicted and outside 
the INA’s zone of interests, amicus IRLI respectfully submits that such injuries do not suffice. 
This type of diverted-resources standing derives from Havens Realty; as Judge Millett of 
the U.S. Court of Appeals and Judge Chhabria of this Court have explained, “[t]he problem is 
not Havens[; the] problem is what our precedent has done with Havens.” People for the Ethical 
Treatment of Animals v. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 797 F.3d 1087, 1100-01 (D.C. Cir. 2015) 
(Millett, J., dissenting); accord Animal Legal Def. Fund v. USDA, 632 F. App'x 905, 909 (9th 
Cir. 2015) (Chhabria, J., concurring3). Under the unique statutory and factual situation in Havens 
Realty, a housing-rights organization’s diverted resources provided it standing, but in most other 
settings such diverted resources are mere self-inflicted injuries. Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 
133 S.Ct. 1138, 1152-53 (2013); Pennsylvania v. New Jersey, 426 U.S. 660, 664 (1976). 
Moreover, if mere spending could manufacture standing, any private advocacy group could 
establish standing against any government action. But that clearly is not the law. Sierra Club v. 
                                                 
3  
Judge Chhabria was sitting on the Ninth Circuit panel by designation. 
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Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 739 (1972) (organizations lack standing to defend “abstract social 
interests”). To avoid overstepping its constitutional authority, this Court should not count the 
diverted-resources rationale for Article III standing. 
Relying on Gladstone, Realtors v. Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 102-09 (1979), Havens Realty 
held that the Fair Housing Act at issue there extends “standing under § 812 … to the full limits 
of Art. III,” so that “courts accordingly lack the authority to create prudential barriers to standing 
in suits brought under that section,” 455 U.S. at 372, thereby collapsing the standing inquiry into 
the question of whether the alleged injuries met the Article III minimum of injury in fact. Id. The 
typical organizational plaintiff and typical statute lack several critical criteria from Havens 
Realty. 
First, the Havens Realty organization had a statutory right (backed by a statutory cause 
of action) to truthful information that the defendants denied to it. Because “Congress may create 
a statutory right[,] 
 … the alleged deprivation of [such rights] can confer standing.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 
U.S. 490, 514 (1975). Under a typical statute, a typical organizational plaintiff has no claim to 
any rights related to its own voluntarily diverted resources.  
Second, and related to the first issue, the injury that an organizational plaintiff claims 
must align with the other components of its standing, Mountain States Legal Found. v. Glickman, 
92 F.3d 1228, 1232 (D.C. Cir. 1996), including the allegedly cognizable right. In Havens Realty, 
the statutorily protected right to truthful housing information aligned with the alleged injury 
(costs to counteract false information, in violation of the statute). By contrast, under INA (or any 
typical statute), there will be no rights even remotely related to a third-party organization’s 
discretionary spending. 
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Third, and most critically, the Havens Realty statute eliminated prudential standing, so 
the zone-of-interest test did not apply. When a plaintiff — whether individual or 
organizational — sues under a statute that does not eliminate prudential standing, that plaintiff 
cannot bypass the zone-of-interest test or other prudential limits on standing.4 Typically, it would 
be fanciful to suggest that a statute has private, third-party spending in its zone of interests. 
Certainly that is the case for the INA.  
II. 
THE GOVERNMENT DID NOT WAIVE ANY OF THE ARGUMENTS RAISED 
IN THIS BRIEF. 
Although the zone-of-interests test is a prudential doctrine that a defendant can waive by 
failing to raise it, City of Los Angeles v. Cty. of Kern, 581 F.3d 841, 845 (9th Cir. 2009), the 
Government’s memorandum of law not only argues that Plaintiffs fall outside the INA’s zone of 
interests but also distinguishes Havens Realty. Accordingly, the Government has not waived any 
of the arguments that IRLI makes because IRLI’s brief supports issues that the Government 
already has raised. As such, the Government could raise these arguments on appeal, Yee v. 
Escondido, 503 U.S. 519, 534-35 (1992), so it would be passing strange if this Court cannot 
consider them here. 
CONCLUSION 
This Court should deny the request for interim relief because Plaintiffs lack standing. 
                                                 
4  
For example, applying Havens to diverted resources in Action Alliance of Senior Citizens 
v. Heckler, 789 F.2d 931, 939 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (R.B. Ginsburg, J.), then-Judge Ginsburg correctly 
recognized the need to ask whether those diverted resources fell within the zone of interests of the 
Age Discrimination Act. 789 F.2d at 939. There was no such inquiry here or in most diverted-
resource decisions. 
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Dated: November 16, 2018 
Respectfully submitted, 
Lawrence J. Joseph (SBN 154908) 
Law Office of Lawrence J. Joseph 
1250 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 700-1A 
Washington, DC 20036 
Tel: 202-355-9452 
Fax: 202-318-2254 
Email: ljoseph@larryjoseph.com 
Counsel for Amicus Curiae 
/s/ Lawrence J. Joseph
Case 3:18-cv-06810-JST   Document 37   Filed 11/16/18   Page 9 of 9

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