Immigration and Presidential Powers
Executive Authority Under the Immigration and Nationality Act
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides that individual aliens outside the United States are “inadmissible” — or barred from admission to the country — on health, criminal, security, and other grounds set forth in the INA. However, the INA also grants the Executive several broader authorities that could be used to exclude certain individual aliens or classes of aliens for reasons that are not specifically prescribed in the INA. Section 212(f) of the INA is arguably the broadest and best known of these authorities. It provides, in relevant part, that whenever the President finds that the entry of any…
