Mullin v. Doe · ¶18

Under this regime, the grant and termination of humanitarian relief was purely a matter of executive discretion, and judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the Executive’s decision to withhold such relief was an unreviewable exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union, Local 25 v. Smith, 846 F. 2d 1499, 1519–1520 (CADC 1988) (opinion of Silberman, J.); see also id., at 1510 (opinion of Mikva, J.) (“[T]he court has no meaningful standard against which to judge the agency’s exercise of discretion to deny EVD status in this case”). Judge Silberman, joined by three other judges, observed that review of an EVD decision would raise separation-of-powers concerns because “[c]ontrol of the country’s policy toward aliens is ‘inherent in the executive power to control the foreign affairs of the nation,’” id., at 1520 (quoting…

slip opinion
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.