Rafeedie v. Immigration & Naturalization Service

Washington, D.C. is the seat of the United States Government. It also has over 30,000 lawyers, a higher per capita percentage of lawyers than any other city in the United States — or, for that matter, the world. Not surprisingly, the federal courts in the District encounter an extraordinary number of cases that Congress meant to be brought at a different time in a different place. This is one such case.

I

Like my colleagues, I find the government’s basic position — that it may issue an exclusion order against a permanent resident alien “returning” to this country based on secret information in…