## Facts

- Jagdish Rai Chadha, admitted to the United States as a nonimmigrant student, overstayed his visa and became deportable.
- Chadha sought suspension of deportation under a statute permitting the Attorney General to suspend deportation for certain long-term residents who would suffer “extreme hardship.”
- An Immigration Judge, acting under delegated authority, found Chadha eligible and ordered deportation suspended.
- The suspension decision was reported to Congress as required by statute.
- The House of Representatives, acting alone, adopted a resolution vetoing the suspension, without Senate participation and without presentment to the President.
- Following the House resolution, immigration authorities treated the veto as binding and ordered Chadha deported.
- Administrative appellate bodies declined to address the constitutionality of the one-house veto provision.
- The court of appeals held the one-house veto unconstitutional and barred deportation based on the House resolution; the case reached the Supreme Court with congressional intervention to defend the statute.

## Issues

1. Whether Article III jurisdiction and a justiciable case or controversy existed where the Executive agreed the challenged statute was unconstitutional and Congress intervened to defend it.
2. Whether a statute authorizing one House of Congress, by resolution, to nullify an executive decision with legal consequences for an individual violates Article I requirements of bicameralism and presentment.
3. If unconstitutional, whether the one-house veto provision was severable from the remainder of the statutory suspension-of-deportation scheme.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held it had jurisdiction to review the judgment invalidating a federal statute and that the dispute was justiciable.
- The Court held the one-house legislative veto provision unconstitutional.
- The Court reasoned that the House resolution altered the legal rights and status of a person outside Congress and therefore was legislative in purpose and effect.
- Because the House acted without bicameral passage and without presentment, the veto mechanism failed Article I’s prescribed lawmaking procedures.
- The Court treated the veto provision as severable, leaving the Attorney General’s suspension authority otherwise intact.

## Legal Principles

- When Congress (or one House) takes action that changes the legal rights, duties, or relations of persons outside the Legislative Branch, it exercises legislative power subject to Article I procedures.
- Legislative action generally must satisfy bicameralism (approval by both Houses) and presentment (submission to the President), and Congress may not avoid these requirements by using a unilateral “resolution” or similar device.
- Efficiency, convenience, or widespread governmental practice does not justify departure from the Constitution’s specified process for making law.
- After delegating discretionary authority to the Executive by statute, Congress may revise or revoke that delegation only through constitutionally valid legislation, not through ad hoc one-house disapproval.
- Congress’s case-specific reversal of an executive determination raises separation-of-powers concerns, including risks associated with legislative action that resembles adjudication without judicial constraints.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated the one-house legislative veto as an unconstitutional method for Congress to control delegated executive action, holding that measures with legal effect outside Congress must comply with Article I bicameralism and presentment, while preserving the underlying executive suspension authority through severability.


Immigr. & Naturalization Serv. v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983)