Kleindienst v. Mandel

Kleindienst v. Mandel
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 18, 1972 Decided June 29, 1972
Full case name	Richard Gordon Kleindienst, Attorney General, et al. v. Ernest Mandel, et al.
Citations	408 U.S. 753 (more) 92 S.Ct. 2576; 33 L.Ed.2d 683
Prior history	Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
Holding
In the exercise of Congress' plenary power to exclude aliens or prescribe the conditions for their entry into this country, Congress in 212 (a) (28) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 has delegated conditional exercise of this power to the Executive Branch. When the Attorney General decides for a legitimate and bona fide reason not to waive the statutory exclusion of an alien, courts will not look behind his decision or weigh it against the First Amendment interests of those who would personally communicate with the alien.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan, Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell, Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	Blackmun, joined by Burger, Stewart, White, Powell, Rehnquist
Dissent	Douglas
Dissent	Marshall, joined by Brennan
Laws applied
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 212 (a) (28)

Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 (1972), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that the United States Attorney General has the right to refuse somebody's entry to the United States, as he has been empowered to do so in 212 (a) (28) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

This action was brought to compel Attorney General Richard Kleindienst to grant a temporary nonimmigrant visa to a Belgian journalist and Marxian theoretician whom the American plaintiff-appellees, Ernest Mandel et al., had invited to participate in academic conferences and discussions in the US. The alien had been found ineligible for admission under 212 (a) (28) (D) and (G) (v) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, barring those who advocate or publish "the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism." Kleindienst had declined to waive ineligibility as he has the power to do under 212 (d) of the Act, basing his decision on unscheduled activities engaged in by the alien on a previous visit to the United States, when a waiver was granted.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 408

External links

Text of Kleindienst v. Mandel is available from:  Findlaw  Justia  Allin Cottrell, Wake Forest University