Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge D.H. GINSBURG.
Opinion concurring in the judgment filed by Circuit Judge SENTELLE.
D.H. GINSBURG, Circuit Judge:
The district court ordered the Secretary of State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to give Soviet and East Bloc aliens seeking asylum in the United States a notice advising them of the offer of the Ukrainian-American Bar Association (UABA) to provide them free legal advice. See Ukrainian-American Bar Ass’n v. Shultz, 695 F.Supp. 33 (D.D.C.1988). In these cross-appeals, UABA maintains that the notice should include certain additional language and the Government maintains that the courts lack jurisdiction of this cause and, in the alternative, that the Government has no obligation to provide any information to would-be asylees about UABA’s offer of legal assistance. Finding no bar to jurisdiction, we hold that the district court erred on the merits in granting relief.
I. Background
This case arises from the dramatic attempt by a Ukrainian merchant seaman, Myroslav Medvid, to obtain political asylum in the United States. On the evening of October 24, 1985, Medvid jumped off a Soviet grain ship while it lay at anchor in the Mississippi River near New Orleans. He swam to shore, asked to be taken to the police, and was eventually brought to the local office of the U.S. Border Patrol. An official there telephoned an INS-certified Ukrainian interpreter, who translated a forty-five minute conversation between Med-vid and the authorities. In the course of that conversation, Medvid was given a standard Miranda warning, including the advice that he was entitled to an attorney and that an attorney would be provided for him if he could not afford one. Medvid did not take up the offer of legal assistance.
The agent who interviewed him reported that Medvid “claims that he jumped ship in the United States for political and moral reasons,” but the Border Patrol did not then pursue the possibility that Medvid was entitled to asylum. Instead, it returned him to Soviet custody shortly after the interpreted telephone interview. On October 28, the Coast Guard took Medvid from the Soviet ship to a U.S. Naval Base to be interviewed again. He was apparently returned to his ship the next day.
Also on October 28, Orest Jejna, an attorney and one of the plaintiffs below, learned of this incident from a news report. He contacted the State Department, the Border Patrol, and the INS that day, offering to assist Medvid in seeking political asylum. The Government rejected his offers. Plaintiff Julian Kelas likewise contacted the INS and the State Department and received the same response.
The UABA, Jejna, and Kelas filed this suit on November 1 in order to prevent Medvid’s ship from departing with him aboard. The district court denied that relief and, after a highly expedited appeal, this court affirmed. Ukrainian-American Bar Ass’n, Inc. v. Shultz, No. 85-6062, mem. op. (D.C.Cir. Nov. 5, 1985). The district court has since found that when the ship left U.S. waters on November 9, Medvid had “stated that he did not wish to seek asylum any more.”
Plaintiffs thereafter amended their complaint to allege that it is the Government’s [1377]*1377policy to deny them access to potential political asylees such as Medvid, and that that policy has “denied the plaintiffs their rights of access to Medvid and others like him under the First Amendment to counsel such individuals regarding their Constitutional and statutory right to apply for political asylum.” Plaintiffs sought, inter alia,
that the governmental defendants be ordered to notify the plaintiffs each and every time a person from the USSR seeks or appears to be seeking, or when there is a question whether such a person is seeking political asylum in the U.S. and that access to said individual be granted immediately.
The district court acknowledged the plaintiffs’ claimed first amendment right — in essence, a “right to counsel others” — but granted them only part of the relief they sought. It ordered the INS to forward plaintiffs’ offer of legal assistance to each person seeking asylum from a Soviet or East Bloc country, but it did “not require, as plaintiffs originally requested, the government to notify the UABA every time a Ukrainian seeks political asylum here or to provide access without the individual specifically requesting legal assistance.”
II. Jurisdiction
The Government argues that the district court had no jurisdiction to adjudicate the UABA’s claims because: there is no live case or controversy between the parties; the plaintiffs lack standing; and the issue plaintiffs raise is a non-justiciable political question. Alternatively, even if the courts have jurisdiction, the Government suggests that we should stay our hand because the case has become too attenuated. We address each of these threshold issues before considering the merits.
A. Mootness
In asserting that no live case or controversy remains, the Government proceeds from a mistaken view of the nature of plaintiffs’ amended complaint and of the district court’s findings. The district court found, on the bases of the Medvid incident and of the affidavit of a State Department official, that it is the Government’s policy to deny lawyers access to an alien in Med-vid’s situation. The Government does not now deny the existence of such a policy; i.e., it does not assert that it would grant plaintiffs the access they request were the same incident to occur today, or if it would not, that the reason would be some different policy than the one of which plaintiffs have complained. Instead, the Government claims that because Medvid is long gone from the United States, there is no longer any subject matter over which to dispute.
That the particular situation that precipitated the constitutional challenge to the Government’s policy is no longer “live” is not determinative, however. See Super Tire Eng’g Co. v. McCorkle, 416 U.S. 115, 122, 94 S.Ct. 1694, 1698, 40 L.Ed.2d 1 (1974); Allende v. Shultz, 845 F.2d 1111, 1115 n. 7 (1st Cir.1988). The Government’s failure to contest the existence of the alleged policy precludes it from prevailing in the argument that the controversy became moot once Medvid left the country; the complaint challenges the Government’s policy, not merely the Government’s handling of the Medvid incident.
The Government argues in the alternative that the Medvid case was a fluke. It concedes that INS Operating Instruction 208.8, which establishes a procedure for dealing with “immediate action cases” involving nationals of Soviet and East Bloc countries, was violated in the Medvid case, and it tries to use that concession as evidence that the Medvid facts are unique and therefore an insufficient basis upon which to predicate generic relief. The Government does not claim, however, that plaintiffs would have been granted access to Medvid had the Operating Instruction been followed, much less that they will be granted access to similarly situated individuals in the future. Accordingly, we have no basis upon which to doubt the district court’s finding that it is the Government’s policy to deny lawyers access to a potential asylee from a Soviet or an East Bloc country.
[1378]*1378B. Attenuation
The Government argues that the court should decline to adjudicate the present dispute because it has become too attenuated with time: “The unique incident involving Seaman Medvid has long since past, and the UABA plaintiffs have failed to identify any remotely comparable occurrence.” Under the doctrine of attenuation, a court may indeed, upon prudential grounds, “refuse to entertain a suit which, while ‘not actually moot, is so attenuated that considerations of prudence and comity ... counsel the court to stay its hand, and to withhold relief it has power to grant.’ ” Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Hess (CCNV), 745 F.2d 697, 700 (D.C.Cir. 1984) (quoting Chamber of Commerce v. United States Dept. of Energy, 627 F.2d 289, 291 (D.C.Cir.1980)). This doctrine counsels abstention when “the defendant voluntarily has discontinued the challenged activity.” Id. The Government’s attempt to invoke the doctrine is unavailing here, however, because it does not assert that it will permit access to aliens such as Medvid in the future. In other words, the case is not too attenuated to command our attention for the same reason that it is not moot: the policy has not changed.
C. Standing
In order to establish his standing to challenge a particular act or policy, a litigant must “ ‘show that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant,’ and that the injury ‘fairly can be traced to the challenged action’ and ‘is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision.’ ” Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 472, 102 S.Ct. 752, 758-59, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982) (citations omitted). So our first inquiry is into the question of injury vel non.
Plaintiffs assert that the Government’s failure to provide them access to individuals in Medvid’s situation, which prevents them from counseling such persons regarding their rights — and presumably prevents such persons from engaging plaintiffs to represent them — infringes the plaintiffs’ first amendment rights and hampers their pursuit of their political agenda. The district court found that “the essentially political goal[] that [lies] near the [plaintiffs’] core purpose [is] the beneficial integration of individuals of Ukrainian descent into the American legal and political society.” The Government suggests that in so saying plaintiffs assert only a generalized grievance, not a “concrete harm to them.” We think, however, that their claim alleges a “demonstrable, particularized injury,” see Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 508, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2210, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975), albeit barely rising to the constitutional minimum.
By denying plaintiffs the opportunity to communicate their particular message to the uniquely relevant audience, the Government surely causes them a “personal and concrete” injury. Kurtz v. Baker, 829 F.2d 1133, 1142 (D.C.Cir.1987). Or in another variation of the standard, plaintiffs have shown that they are injured sufficiently to support their standing because they “personally would benefit in a tangible way from the court’s intervention,” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. at 508, 95 S.Ct. at 2210, viz. by gaming access to potential defectors, some of whom would accept their offer of legal services. The plaintiffs’ organizational purpose of furthering “the beneficial integration of individuals of Ukrainian descent [et cetera]” requires, after all, that plaintiffs have the opportunity to tender their services to Ukrainians who have reached the United States. See Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 379, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 1124-25, 71 L.Ed.2d 214 (1982); Haitian Refugee Center v. Gracey, 809 F.2d 794, 799 (D.C.Cir. 1987) (opinion of Bork, J.). Because the UABA provides such counseling as part of its political agenda, it is apparent that the inability to counsel potential asylees would interfere with the plaintiffs’ activities, which distinguishes their injury from the sort of “abstract social interest” that is insufficient to confer standing. See id. at 818 (Buckley, J., concurring).
Nor is the injury alleged only speculatively traceable to the conduct of the [1379]*1379Government; indeed, the defendants can assert the contrary only because they mis-perceive the amended complaint as alleging a “regulatory violation.” Plaintiffs assert a violation of their own claimed constitutional right to contact and to offer counsel to a potential asylee such as Medvid, and not either a violation of the alien's right to counsel or of their own right to give counsel under the defendants’ regulations.
Thus construed, the injury is both traceable to and redressable by the Government. The elements of traceability and redressa-bility are but variations on a theme of causation: “that the injury was not only caused by the action challenged but can be alleviated by that action’s cessation.” Id. at 799 (opinion of Bork, J.). The UABA was unable to speak to Medvid — the operational aspect of the injury alleged — because the Government would not allow them to contact him while in “immediate action” status; if the plaintiffs’ case on the merits requires that the Government grant them access, the court could remedy that alleged injury prospectively. Plaintiffs therefore have standing to bring this challenge.
The problem of causation presented in Gracey was different in kind because the nature of the injury alleged there was different. Where the UABA asserts a constitutional right to contact an immediate action alien in government custody, the Haitian Refugee Center claimed only that the Government’s program of interdicting Haitians on the High Seas violated the statutory rights of the shipboard aliens. Id. at 798. The two cases would be analogous if the HRC had claimed a right (frivolous though the claim might be) to be present on board Coast Guard ships when they intercepted Haitian refugees. The HRC would then have been asserting an injury to itself distinct from the generalized injury that it actually claimed, which was no different from that felt by “any American who would enjoy meeting unidentified aliens of a particular nationality denied entry to the United States.” Id. at 800. In fact, as Judge Bork pointed out, the court in Gra-cey had before it: “a complaint in which a right of association is recited as a basis for standing but no aspect of the interdiction program is alleged to violate the first amendment. A party cannot have standing on the basis of a legal right he does not claim is violated.” Id.
Thus, we see that it was not because the HRC’s organizational purpose was to promote the well-being of Haitian refugees that it lacked standing; rather it was because the only concrete injury it alleged was a diminution in the number of such refugees arriving at its doorstep, and there was simply no indication either that the reduction in the number of aliens entering the United States “would make an appreciable difference in [the HRC’s] ability to serve the Haitian refugee community,” id. at 818-19 (Buckley, J.), or that “absent the interdiction program, at least one Haitian refugee would agree to be counseled or represented by the HRC and at least one would consent to associate with the individual appellants,” id. at 806-07 (Bork, J.). Or, to restate the matter in Judge Bork’s terms, the Government’s refusal to allow the plaintiffs to contact Medvid when he was in custody, unlike its refusal to.allow into the United States refugees who might eventually have found their way to the HRC, constitutes a “legal prohibition on [the UABA’s] relationship with a third party.” Id. at 801. The injury claimed by the UABA is thus the direct and intended result of, indeed part and parcel of, the Government’s policy of denying all civilians access to an immediate action alien who has not requested counsel, and not “merely an unintended side-effect of the [immediate action] program.” Id. at 810.
Consider, furthermore, that if an organizational plaintiff could establish its standing to challenge a Government action only by showing that the relief it seeks would further its organizational purpose — as opposed to merely vindicating its rights— then its ability to pursue a first amendment challenge would depend upon its showing that, if it were permitted to speak, others would not only hear but listen to and heed its words. The right to speak protected by the first amendment is not, however, a right to be heeded; it is abridged even when speech that we may think would not [1380]*1380make a mark in the marketplace of ideas is denied the opportunity to compete for acceptance. Cf. Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 704, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 2668, 33 L.Ed.2d 626 (1972) (“liberty of the press is the right of the lonely pamphleteer”). We may not, by denying standing under the rubric of causation, narrow the protection afforded by the first amendment.
D. Political Question
The Government asks us to find that plaintiffs’ claim presents a political question because the treatment to be afforded “the delicate and sensitive area of how the United States will deal with immediate action cases” is a matter reserved to the political branches. We recognize that in dealing with aliens “the role of the judiciary ... does not extend to imposing procedures that merely displace congressional” — or, we might add, executive — “choices of policy.” Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 34-35, 103 S.Ct. 321, 330-31, 74 L.Ed.2d 21 (1982).
That a claim implicates important governmental policies, however, does not necessarily mean that the political question doctrine precludes the judiciary from hearing it. Here, plaintiffs’ claim of a right, grounded in the first amendment, to have certain potential asylees advised of their offer of services is cognizable because the court is competent to consider the strength of the governmental interests involved. See Flynn v. Shultz, 748 F.2d 1186, 1190-91 (7th Cir.1984) (finding challenge to State Department action not a political question but “proceed[ing] fully cognizant of the constitutionally committed powers of the executive in the area of foreign affairs”). If plaintiffs prevail, the political question doctrine may, to be sure, foreclose certain forms of relief; so long as there are, however, “judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving” the dispute without intruding into the realm of discretion properly reserved to the other branches of government, the underlying issue is not itself a non-justiciable political question. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217, 82 S.Ct. 691, 710, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962). And so to
III. The Merits
The district court held that the Government must “furnish each person seeking asylum who is identified as coming from a Soviet or East Bloc[ ] country information ... describing UABA’s offer to render free legal services” because such notification is necessary to further the UABA’s political agenda. The district court found the plaintiffs’ right to such governmental assistance in the reasoning of NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963). In that case, the Supreme Court, finding that litigation may be “a form of political expression” protected by the first amendment, id. at 429, 83 S.Ct. at 335-36, held unconstitutional a law the result of which was that “a person who advises another that his legal rights have been infringed and refers him to a particular attorney or group of attorneys ... for assistance has committed a crime, as has the attorney who knowingly renders assistance under such circumstances,” id. at 434, 83 S.Ct. at 338-39.
We see no theory, in Button or elsewhere, by which the Constitution guarantees the plaintiffs governmental assistance in pursuing their political objectives. To be sure, the first amendment guarantees their right to be free of governmental restraints on “political expression” and that right is violated if the Government affirmatively interferes with constitutionally protected litigation as a form of political expression. Here the Government has done no such thing. It is not surprising, therefore, that the district court did not identify any violation of plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.
The district court apparently rested its grant of relief on the non-sequitur that because the UABA needs access to asylum-seekers in order to represent them, the Government is obligated affirmatively to [1381]*1381provide aliens with notice of plaintiffs’ availability. Charitably viewed, this may mean that the Government interferes with the exercise of plaintiffs’ first amendment rights because it exerts exclusive control over an alien while he is in custody. We will therefore consider whether the Government, once having acted to place the alien in custody, violates the first amendment rights of third parties when it declines to make provision for them to contact him.
From cases concerning a lawyer’s right to advertise for and to solicit clients, see, e.g., Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Ass’n, 486 U.S. 466, 108 S.Ct. 1916, 100 L.Ed.2d 475 (1988); In re Primus, 436 U.S. 412, 98 S.Ct. 1893, 56 L.Ed.2d 417 (1978), plaintiffs argue that their right of access to potential clients outweighs any countervailing governmental interest. Those cases, however, protect only the first amendment right to engage in such activities free from governmental interference; they do not establish an affirmative right to the Government’s assistance in identifying and furnishing information to potential clients. Nor do they allow that lawyers have any right in the first amendment that is not the common legacy of every citizen. Thus, when an unadmitted alien is taken into custody for interrogation and “immediate action," his entrance into custody does not infringe the right of any third party — whether a lawyer or another with an interest in getting a message through to the alien — to engage in constitutionally protected political expression. Insofar as a dictum in Jean v. Nelson, 727 F.2d 957, 983-84 (11th Cir.1984) (en banc), aff'd, 472 U.S. 846, 105 S.Ct. 2992, 86 L.Ed.2d 664 (1985), suggests that “counsel have a first amendment right to inform [detained aliens] of their rights, at least when they do so as an exercise of political speech without expectation of remuneration,” we respectfully disagree.
Furthermore, the Government does not infringe a third party’s first amendment right to associate with an alien by holding the alien for a period of time during which the third party is unable to contact him. The loss of the right of association while the alien is held incommunicado by the Government is not of constitutional significance; it is but an indirect consequence of the Government’s pursuit of an important task, viz. resolving “immediate action” cases. The ultimate source of plaintiffs’ concern — that upon the alien’s return to Soviet or East Bloc authorities he may be effectively unavailable to them — is an unfortunate consequence of international politics but not an infringement of plaintiffs’ first amendment right of association.
Plaintiffs' assertion that the first amendment guarantees them access to “immediate action” aliens is analogous to a claim that the Government’s interview of a potential defector constitutes a public forum, wherein all persons have a right to express their views. In Perry Education Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 103 S.Ct. 948, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983), the Supreme Court recognized that, with respect to a place “which is not by tradition or designation a forum for public communication,” the Government “may reserve the forum for its intended purpose, communicative or otherwise, as long as the regulation on speech is reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker’s view.” Id. at 46, 103 S.Ct. at 955-56. See also Adderley v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 41-42, 87 S.Ct. 242, 244-45, 17 L.Ed.2d 149 (1966) (jailhouse not a public forum). The interview of an “immediate action” alien is a non-public forum with a specific and important governmental purpose. The Government's exclusion of private citizens, so long as it is not selective and based upon the content of their views, is not a violation of the public forum doctrine.
If there were a first amendment right to speak in such a forum, the Government might find it very difficult to get on with the business of governing. To admit everyone who would like to advise the alien, each in accordance with his own view of the good life, and to communicate their offers of assistance would impose a substantial burden upon the Government. Religious counselors, doctors, political activists, journalists, and a host of others might want to speak with a potential defector in [1382]*1382order to offer their services or advice. The multiplicity of requests for access to a single alien or to different categories of aliens would divert the Government from its priority of resolving the issue requiring “immediate action.” Plaintiffs ask that we distinguish pro bono lawyers from all others who might wish to contact an “immediate action” alien because, in their view, the Government can provide all services but legal advice. Even if this were true, however (and it hardly seems true that the Government could provide a spiritual but not a legal adviser), it would not provide a justification to deny access to the others if there is a first amendment right of access — recall that lawyers have no special first amendment status — that is independent of the alien’s right to counsel.
Plaintiffs wisely do not assert that they have a right to contact Medvid that is somehow derivative of his right to counsel. Medvid was given a Miranda warning, which included the advice that he had the right to an attorney. It is doubtful that the Government was constitutionally obliged to give even that warning, since an alien coming ashore inside the United States is “treated as if stopped at the border,” Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 215, 73 S.Ct. 625, 631, 97 L.Ed. 956 (1953), and “[the Supreme] Court has long held that an alien seeking initial admission to the United States requests a privilege and has no constitutional rights regarding his application, for the power to admit or exclude aliens is a sovereign prerogative.” London v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. at 32, 103 S.Ct. at 329. While this court has not addressed the question, other circuits have held that an unadmitted alien has no sixth amendment right to counsel even in the civil deportation process. Lozada v. INS, 857 F.2d 10, 13 (1st Cir.1988); Baires v. INS, 856 F.2d 89, 90 (9th Cir. 1988); cf. id. at 90-91 (statutory right to counsel at own expense in deportation proceedings).
Even if Medvid had a right to counsel, the Government would not have to permit a lawyer to speak with him unless he asserted that right. In Moran v. Bur-bine, 475 U.S. 412, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986), in which a police department failed to inform a criminal suspect that a lawyer had attempted to contact him by telephone, the Supreme Court found that the sixth amendment “becomes applicable only when the government’s role shifts from investigation to accusation.” Id. at 430, 106 S.Ct. at 1145. The Court found “untenable as a matter of both logic and precedent” the proposition that the failure to inform the defendant of the telephone call affected his rights, and stated that it was not “prepared to adopt a rule requiring that the police inform a suspect of an attorney’s efforts to reach him.” Id. at 422, 425, 106 S.Ct. at 1141, 1143. It would seem to follow that in the non-criminal context of an asylum interview, in which the sixth amendment does not give the interviewee a right to counsel, the Government is under no obligation to advise him that a volunteer could be engaged for him. Where it is the attorney who claims the right to have such advice conveyed, we should be even less prepared to rule that the first amendment requires the Government to lend its assistance.
The decision of the district court is therefore
Reversed.
Since the UABA asserts only the constitutional right to contact immediate action detainees, and makes no claim under any statute either on its own behalf or that of any alien, there is no question of prudential standing in this case.