Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a complaint challenging the USCIS's denial of jurisdiction over plaintiff's application for an adjustment of his immigration status. The court agreed with the district court that the present action constituted an indirect challenge to an outstanding removal order issued against plaintiff and thus 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(5) precluded subject matter jurisdiction. View "Singh v. USCIS" on Justia Law

The Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced steps to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program by March 2018, concluding that DACA violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Due Process Clause. The Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of challengers. The government then moved to stay the district court order requiring completion of the administrative record until after resolution of motions to dismiss and for a preliminary injunction. The court stayed its order for one month. The government petitioned the Supreme Court, which vacated. The district court’s order required the government to turn over all “emails, letters, memoranda, notes, media items, opinions and other materials ... actually seen or considered, however briefly, by Acting Secretary ... in connection with the ... decision … all DACA-related materials considered by persons (anywhere in the government) who thereafter provided … written advice or input … all DACA-related materials considered by persons (anywhere in the government) who thereafter provided … verbal input … all comments and questions propounded ... to advisors or subordinates … and their responses, and … all materials directly or indirectly considered by former Secretary of DHS John Kelly leading to his February 2017 memorandum not to rescind DACA. The court should have first resolved the government’s threshold arguments that the decision was unreviewable as “committed to agency discretion,” 5 U.S.C. 701(a)(2), and that the Immigration and Nationality Act deprives the court of jurisdiction. The court may not compel the government to disclose any document that the government believes is privileged without first providing an opportunity to argue the issue. The Court did not consider the merits of the claims or defenses. View "In Re United States" on Justia Law

The First Circuit dismissed for want of jurisdiction Petitioners’ petition for judicial review of the denial of their applications for voluntary departure to Guatemala and Mexico, holding that this court lacked jurisdiction to review the immigration judge’s (IJ) denial of voluntary departure.The IJ denied Petitioners’ applications on discretionary grounds. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed the IJ’s decision. Petitioners appealed, asserting several allegations of error. The First Circuit did not reach the merits of Petitioner’s contentions, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to do so because Petitioner’s claims of error were not at least colorable. View "de la Cruz-Orellana v. Sessions" on Justia Law

The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(U) created a new nonimmigrant visa classification that permits immigrants who are victims of serious crimes and who assist law enforcement to apply for and receive a nonimmigrant visa called a U-visa. There is a statutory cap of 10,000 U-visas each fiscal year. Since 2009, the U-Visa backlog has increased from 21,138 to 177,340 pending applications. Calderon-Ramirez, a citizen of Guatemala, entered the U.S. in 2002 and was the victim of an attack in 2014. He filed a petition for U Nonimmigrant Status in February 2015 and is waiting to be evaluated for the waiting list. In 2016, he sought a writ of mandamus, to compel Homeland Security to adjudicate his petition. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of his suit. Ramirez did not set forth any facts that differentiate himself from other petitioners waiting ahead of him for adjudication. While there are instances when the government can and will expedite a petition, Ramirez failed to present a situation appropriate to warrant such an action. The court stated that the wait Ramirez faces is not unreasonable. View "Calderon-Ramirez v. McCament" on Justia Law

Taylor, a citizen of Ireland, entered the U.S. in 2000 on a visitor’s visa. In 2008, Taylor was the victim of perjury, a qualifying crime under the Victims Protection Act., 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(U), which created the non-immigrant U-Visa program. The Act became law in 2000, but no regulations were issued for seven years. The issuance of U-Visas in large numbers began in 2009. The FBI certified that Taylor had provided the necessary assistance with the prosecution of the crime, Taylor applied for a U-visa in 2014. U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) determined that Taylor was eligible, but placed him on a waiting list because the statute prohibits the issuance of more than 10,000 U-visas per year. USCIS granted Taylor discretionary relief that defers removal and confers employment authorization benefits. Taylor filed suit, alleging that USCIS’s delay in promulgating regulations caused the backlog and asked the court to compel USCIS to immediately issue 80,000 U-visas to those on the waiting list. The court determined that Taylor lacked standing and dismissed his complaint. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The agency lacks the statutory authority to give the relief sought. The U-visa limit was reached in 2016 and 2017. Taylor lacks constitutional standing; a court cannot review his claims at all, nor determine whether there was an unreasonable delay or a non-discretionary duty under the APA to compel USCIS to issue U-visas. View "Taylor v. McCament" on Justia Law

The question presented in this appeal for the Tenth Circuit's review was whether Petitioner Juan Lucio-Rayos’s municipal theft conviction qualified as a crime involving moral turpitude (“CIMT”), which would have made him ineligible for cancellation of removal. Lucio-Rayos was convicted under a divisible municipal code provision that set forth several different theft offenses, some of which qualified as CIMTs and some of which did not. Applying a modified categorical approach, the Tenth Circuit determined it was not possible to tell which theft offense was the basis of Lucio-Rayos’s conviction. The Court held it was Lucio-Rayos’s burden to establish his eligibility for cancellation of removal, and because the record was inconclusive to this end, the Court upheld the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”)’s determination that Lucio-Rayos did not show that he was eligible for cancellation of removal. Furthermore, the immigration judge (“IJ”) did not deprive Lucio-Rayos of due process by refusing to recuse from hearing his case. View "Lucio-Rayos v. Sessions" on Justia Law

The First Circuit vacated the order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) rejecting Petitioner’s claim for withholding of removal. In her application for relief, Petitioner, a native and citizen of Honduras, alleged that she had an abusive relationship with her ex-husband. An immigration judge (IJ) concluded that Petitioner’s testimony was not credible and that the abuse compiled in documentary evidence was not sufficiently serious and persistent to warrant relief. The BIA dismissed Petitioner’s appeal based solely on its ruling that the IJ did not commit clear error in her adverse credibility determination. The First Circuit remanded the matter for further proceedings, holding that, irrespective of the supportability of the adverse credibility finding, remand was required for the BIA to consider Petitioner’s potentially significant documentary evidence. View "Aguilar-Escoto v. Sessions" on Justia Law

In 2014, the Seventh Circuit held that the Attorney General has authority under 8 U.S.C. 1182(d)(3)(A)(ii) to waive an alien’s inadmissibility and to halt removal temporarily while the alien requests a U visa. In Sanchez’s case, the Board of Immigration Appeals held that IJs lack authority to grant such requests. The Seventh Circuit vacated and remanded. Delegation from the Attorney General to immigration judges is a matter of regulation; 8 C.F.R. 1003.10(a) states that “[i]mmigration judges shall act as the Attorney General’s delegates in the cases that come before them.” Disagreeing with the Third Circuit and the Attorney General, the Seventh Circuit held that IJs may exercise the Attorney General’s powers over immigration. On remand, the Board may consider whether 6 U.S.C. 271(b) and 557 transfer to the Secretary of Homeland Security all of the Attorney General’s discretionary powers under the immigration laws and may also address whether the power to grant a waiver of inadmissibility may be exercised only in favor of an alien who has yet to enter the United States. The Board must address and resolve those essential issues before the court can consider whether the disposition lies within the scope of the agency’s discretion. View "Baez-Sanchez v. Sessions" on Justia Law

Petitioner Liying Qiu, a native and citizen of the People’s Republic of China, sought asylum and withholding of removal based on her status as a Christian who did not agree with China’s state-sanctioned version of Christianity, and as a woman who violated China’s one-child policy by having three children. Her application was denied by the immigration court in 2011, and the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed that decision in March 2013. In December 2015, Petitioner filed a motion to reopen based on the significantly increased persecution of Christians in China in 2014 and 2015. The BIA denied her motion to reopen as untimely. Amongst the evidence submitted in support of her application, Petitioner submitted a portion of the 2015 annual report issued by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan U.S. government entity that monitored religious freedom violations globally and made policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress. The BIA held that Petitioner had not submitted sufficient evidence to show a change in country conditions, and thus that her motion to reopen was untimely under 8 U.S.C. 1229a(c)(7)(C). The Tenth Circuit found the BIA abused its discretion in denying Petitioner's application: "surely Congress did not intend for 8 U.S.C. 1229a(c)(7)(C) to protect only petitioners who file frivolous asylum applications under no threat of persecution, while extending no help to petitioners who seek reopening after an existing pattern of persecution becomes dramatically worse. The BIA’s reasoning would lead to an absurd result, one we cannot condone." The Court held that a significant increase in the level of persecution constituted a material change in country conditions for purposes of 8 U.S.C. 1229a(c)(7)(C) and that the BIA abuses its discretion when it fails to assess and consider a petitioner’s evidence that the persecution of others in his protected category has substantially worsened since the initial application. The Court concluded the BIA provided no rational, factually supported reason for denying Petitioner’s motion to reopen, and accordingly remanded this case back to the BIA for further consideration. View "Qiu v. Sessions" on Justia Law

The First Circuit sidestepped the government’s challenge to its jurisdiction in this immigration case and held that, even if it did have jurisdiction to consider Petitioner’s appeal challenging the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (BIA) denial of his motion to exercise its sua sponte authority to reopen Petitioner’s case and grant his request for cancellation of removal, it must still deny the petition. Specifically, the court held (1) Petitioner’s translation-based due process claim failed because Petitioner did not show that “a more proficient or more accurate interpretation would likely have made a dispositive difference in the outcome of the proceedinng” and because the claim found next to no support in the record; and (2) Petitioner failed to state a colorable due process claim as to his second allegation of error. View "Ramirez Matias v. Sessions" on Justia Law