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INS v. NATIONAL CENTER FOR IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS, INC. Opinion of the Court

sanctioned in Carlson was wholly consistent with Congress’ intent: “Detention [was] part of [the Internal Security Act]. Otherwise aliens arrested for deportation would have opportunities to hurt the United States during the pendency of deportation proceedings.” 342 U. S., at 538. Thus, the statutory policy that justified the detention was the congressional determination that the presence of alien Communists constituted an unacceptable threat to the Nation. In this case, the stated and actual purpose of no-work bond conditions was “ ‘to protect against the displacement of workers in the United States.’ ” 48 Fed. Reg. 51142 (1983) (citation omitted). We have often recognized that a “primary purpose in restricting immigration is to preserve jobs for American workers.” Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 U. S. 883, 893 (1984); see also 8 U. S. C. § 1182(a)(14) (defining as a class of excludable aliens those “seeking to enter the United States, for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor” without the appropriate authorization).8 The contested regulation is wholly consistent with this established concern of immigration law and thus squarely within the scope of the Attorney General’s statutory authority. V As a related ground supporting invalidation of the regulation, the Court of Appeals ruled that the regulation did not provide for “individualized decisions” as required by the Act. We agree that the lawful exercise of the Attorney General’s discretion to impose a no-work condition under § 1252(a) requires some level of individualized determination. Indeed in the absence of such judgments, the legitimate exercise of 8 For an early statement of this policy, see H. R. Rep. No. 1365, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 50–51 (1952) (discussing the INA’s “safeguards for American labor”). This policy of immigration law was forcefully recognized most recently in the IRCA.