Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff challenged the district court's holding affirming the USCIS's denial of several of plaintiff's petitions for Q-1 visas for foreign applicants to its cultural exchange program. USCIS denied the petitions because it interpreted its regulation to require sponsors of a cultural exchange program to pay wages to the participating aliens and plaintiff admittedly did not pay its participants any wages. Given 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(Q)'s specific references to "employed," "wages," and "workers," the court agreed with USCIS that the statute was best read to require that the foreign citizens receive wages and that those wages be equivalent to the wages of domestic workers. Given 8 C.F.R. 214.2(q)(4)(i)(D)'s references to "employer," "wages," "workers," and "remunerate," the court agreed with USCIS that the regulation was best read to require that foreign citizens receive wages and that those wages be comparable to those of local workers. Finally, when USCIS denied plaintiff's petitions in 2010, the agency did not trigger the notice-and-comment procedures in the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 603(a), 604, 605(b), or the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 533(b)-(c), because the denials were not rules under either act; rather, they were informal adjudications. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Int'l Internship Program v. Napolitano, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioners, Lebanese citizens, were raised Muslim. While visiting the United States in 2005, Petitioners converted to Christianity. When they returned to the Ivory Coast, where they were living at the time, Petitioners received a number of threats, which they attributed to the Muslim population's reaction to their conversion to Christianity. Petitioners subsequently began living in the United States on expired visas, and the United States began removal proceedings against them. Petitioners filed challenged the proceedings, asserting that they had a well-founded fear of future persecution in Lebanon, based on their belief that Lebanon's majority Muslim population would carry out the threats made in the Ivory Coast. The immigration judge (IJ) rejected petitioners' claims, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) substantial evidence supported the BIA's finding that Petitioners failed to prove they had a well-founded fear of future persecution in Lebanon in order to qualify for asylum; (2) the BIA did not err in rejecting Plaintiffs' claim for withholding of removal; and (3) the Convention Against Torture did not require the BIA to forestall Petitioners' return to Lebanon. View "Darwich v. Holder" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was a Jordanian national who entered the United States illegally. Once Plaintiff was placed in removal proceedings, he married his first cousin, a marriage that lasted one year. Plaintiff subsequently married his second wife. Both marriages were to United States citizens. Plaintiff's second wife filed an I-130 petition on Plaintiff's behalf. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denied the petition, concluding that Plaintiff previously entered into his first marriage for the purpose of evading the immigration laws. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. Plaintiff and his wife filed an amended complaint in the district court seeking to set aside the BIA's decision. The district court dismissed the action for failure to state a claim. The First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the judgment of the district court without reaching the merits of the appeal, holding (1) the district court erred in invoking the plausibility standard in deciding that this case did not warrant either discovery or trial, as the plausibility standard does not apply to a complaint for judicial review of a final agency action; and (2) the methodologic error was not harmless where the parties failed to file the administrative record with the court. View "Atieh v. Riordan" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a class action challenging the constitutionality of Arizona's Proposition 100. Proposition 100 commands that Arizona state courts could not set bail for serious felony offenses as prescribed by the legislature if the person charged has entered or remained in the United States illegally and if the proof was evident or the presumption great as to the charge. After reviewing the record, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment and partial dismissal, concluding that plaintiffs have not raised triable issues of fact as to whether Proposition 100 and its implementing procedures violated the substantive and procedural due process guarantees of the United State's Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, the Excessive Bail Clause of the Eighth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, nor whether the Proposition 100 laws were preempted by federal immigration law. The court concluded that the Arizona Legislature and Arizona voters passed the Proposition 100 laws to further the state's legitimate and compelling interest in seeing that those accused of serious state-law crimes were brought to trial. View "Lopez-Valenzuela v. County of Maricopa" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Pakistani native, fled Pakistan in 1993 as a result of threats against him from a subsidiary of the ruling Pakistan Mulsim League. Petitioner entered the United States as a non-immigrant visitor in 1999 but remained in the country beyond the time authorized. In 2005, Petitioner appeared before the Immigration Judge (IJ), conceded removability, and applied for withholding of removal and Convention Against Torture (CAT) protection. In support of his applications, Petitioner testified to the threats he received, which continued even in his absence. The IJ denied Petitioner's applications. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. The First Circuit Court of Appeals granted in part and denied part Petitioner's petition for review, holding (1) the Board's withholding-of-removal decision was contrary to the evidence; and(2) the IJ and BIA's CAT rulings were supported by the record. Remanded for further proceedings. View "Javed v. Holder" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a United States citizen, filed a visa petition on behalf of her husband, a citizen of Afghanistan, but the visa was denied under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(B). Section 1182(a)(3)(B) is a broad provision that excludes aliens on a variety of terrorism-related grounds. The court concluded that the Government's citation to section 1182(a)(3)(B), in the absence of any allegations of proscribed conduct, was not a facially legitimate reason to deny the visa. Because the Government had not offered a facially legitimate reason, plaintiff's claims for a writ of mandamus directing the Government to adjudicate the visa application and for a declaratory judgment survived dismissal. Accordingly, the court also concluded that plaintiff had standing to challenge 8 U.S.C. 1182(b)(3) as it had been applied to her. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Din v. Kerry" on Justia Law

Nepalese native and citizen petitioner Narendra Raj Karki petitioned the Tenth Circuit to review a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decision affirming an order of an immigration judge (IJ) that denied his application for asylum and restriction on removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT). Petitioner entered the United States in 2007 in order to present a paper at a forestry conference in Oregon. His visitor's visa authorized him to remain in the country for approximately one month. A few days after the visa expired, Petitioner filed an asylum application, which was denied by an asylum officer and referred to an immigration judge. Removal proceedings were initiated against him in early 2008. At the removal proceedings, Petitioner renewed his application for asylum and sought restriction on removal under the INA and protection under the CAT, claiming that he had suffered past persecution and feared future persecution based on his political opinion and membership in a particular social group. The IJ concluded that Petitioner had failed to establish a nexus between his alleged fear of persecution and a statutorily protected ground. On appeal, the BIA affirmed the IJ's conclusion that the incidents described by Petitioner did not rise to the level of past persecution thus concluding that Petitioner was not eligible for asylum or restriction on removal because he had not shown past persecution or a fear of future persecution based on his political opinion. Furthermore, the BIA concluded that Petitioner was not eligible for relief under the CAT because he had not shown that the government of Nepal was likely to torture him or acquiesce in his torture if he returned. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the record as a whole did not support the BIA's conclusion that Petitioner failed to show that public officials in Nepal would likely acquiesce in his torture by Maoists if he returned to Nepal. Accordingly, the Court granted the petition for review as to Petitioner's CAT claim. The Court noted that there was no agency factfinding on the likelihood that Petitioner will be tortured if he returned to Nepal, and on remand the agency could consider whether Petitioner had shown a sufficient likelihood of torture to be entitled to CAT relief. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "Karki v. Holder" on Justia Law

Pro se petitioner Lucio Salgado-Toribio sought review of a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) order denying his motion to reopen removal proceedings. Petitioner had been using the federal courts' procedures to put off removal for more than three years since an immigration judge found him removable. This appeal was his third time seeking the Tenth Circuit's review of an administrative decision over which the Court found it had no jurisdiction. "Enough is enough. We deny Petitioner's motion to proceed in forma pauperis, dismiss the petition for review, and recommend that the Department of Homeland Security enforce the order of removal immediately." View "Salgado-Toribio v. Holder" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native-born citizen of the People's Republic of China, entered the U.S. without admission or parole. Six months later, Petitioner filed an affirmative application for asylum and withholding of removal, asserting that he and his wife conceived a second child in violation of China's one-child policy, and that as a result, his wife was subjected to a forced abortion. Petitioner later modified his asylum application, asserting that he and his wife were adherents of Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that is the target of a suppression campaign by the Chinese government, and that when his wife was pregnant with their child child, Chinese officials came to his home and hit him, and that he was forced into hiding. After a merits hearing, the immigration judge (IJ) denied asylum, finding Petitioner's claim as initially presented did not entitle him to asylum, that Petitioner's later assertions lacked credibility, and that Petitioner's lack of sincere belief in his practice of Falun Gong meant he was not entitled to asylum. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed Petitioner's appeal. The First Circuit Court of Appeals denied Petitioner's petition for review, holding that substantial evidence supported the IJ's findings regarding Petitioner's credibility. View "Liu v. Holder" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a refugee immigrant, sued defendants, seeking a judgment declaring that the USCIS acted unlawfully by withholding adjudication on his application without periodically reviewing it, an injunction ordering USCIS to adjudicate his application within 30 days, and other relief. The district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment in part, holding that the delay in adjudicating plaintiff's application was neither unlawful nor unreasonable as a matter of law. After intervening action by the Secretary, USCIS approved plaintiff's application for adjustment to permanent resident status. Because the case is now moot, the court dismissed the appeal, vacated the judgment of the district court, and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss the complaint. View "Ayyoubi v. Holder, Jr., et al" on Justia Law