Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_07-cv-00241/USCOURTS-caed-2_07-cv-00241-3/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 28:2201 Declaratory Judgement

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

KYONG HWA WOLTER, et al.,

NO. CIV. S-07-241 LKK/CMK

Plaintiffs,

v.

O R D E R

PETER D. KEISLER, Acting

Attorney General, et al.,

Defendants.

 /

Plaintiffs Gary and Kyong Wolter seek an award of attorneys’

fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2412,

against defendants U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,

(then) Acting Attorney General Peter Keisler, Secretary of Homeland

Security Michael Chertoff, and Officer in Charge of the CIS at the

American Embassy in Seoul, South Korea Jose Olivares. The court

previously granted plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, finding

that defendants lacked substantial evidence to deny Mrs. Wolter an

immigrant visa petition on the grounds she had previously entered

into a fraudulent marriage for the purpose of evading immigration

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laws. Defendants argue that an award of attorneys’ fees is

inappropriate because the position of the United States was

substantially justified. Alternately, defendants argue that even

if attorneys’ fees are appropriate, the fees requested are

excessive. For the reasons explained below, the court denies the

motion.

I. Background

The court incorporates the factual background to this case

previously set forth in the court’s November 15, 2007 order. To

summarize, plaintiff Gary Wolter is a U.S. citizen who filed an

immigrant visa petition on behalf of his wife, Kyong Wolter, who

is a South Korean citizen. Defendants denied the petition on the

grounds that Mrs. Wolter had previously entered into a fraudulent

marriage for the purpose of evading immigration laws. 8 U.S.C. §

1154(c). The purportedly fraudulent marriage occurred 1984, when

Mrs. Wolter married a man named Johnny Ray Rowe. 

Defendants’ evidence of marriage fraud derives from a

statement that Mrs. Wolter purportedly made when she was taken into

custody and questioned by a Border Patrol agent in 1986. The agent

prepared a written sworn statement, which Mrs. Wolter signed,

indicating that she had offered Mr. Rowe $4,000 to marry her and

to obtain a green card of her behalf. Mrs. Wolter was then

detained and placed in deportation proceedings for having stayed

in the United States without authority. After obtaining release

on bond, she absconded, and the immigration judge issued an order

of deportation in absentia.

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The Wolters were married in 1993. Their first visa petition,

filed in 1993, was granted but subsequently revoked when it was

discovered that they had failed to disclose that Mrs. Wolter had

previously been married and ordered deported. The second and third

visa petitions, filed in 1998 and 2004, were denied on the grounds

that Mrs. Wolter had entered into a fraudulent marriage for the

purpose of evading immigration laws. The evidence relied upon was

Mrs. Wolter’s 1986 sworn statement.

Mrs. Wolter argued that her English skills were very poor at

the time that she signed the statement. This was corroborated by

two of her friends, one of whom also indicated that Mrs. Wolter did

not take English classes until after the incident with Border

Patrol. The court found that the facts of this case were roughly

analogous to those in Guzman-Guzman v. INS, 559 F.2d 1149 (9th Cir.

1977), where the court found that sworn statements obtained from

non-English speaking aliens who later disavowed the statements’

contents were insufficient to constitute substantial evidence.

Based on that authority, the court concluded that the agency could

not sustain its finding of marriage fraud.

II. Analysis

Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, a court shall award

attorney fees, costs and other expenses to a “prevailing party” in

a civil action “brought by or against the United States in any

court having jurisdiction of that action, unless the court finds

that the position of the United States was substantially justified

or that special circumstances make an award unjust.” 28 U.S.C. §

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2412(d)(1)(A).

Here, there is no dispute that plaintiffs were the prevailing

parties. Instead, the issue is whether the government’s position

was substantially justified. A position is substantially justified

if it has a reasonable basis in both law and fact. Pierce v.

Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 565 (1988). This determination turns on

a totality of the circumstances test, focusing on two questions:

first, whether the government was substantially justified in taking

its original action, and second, whether the government was

substantially justified in defending that action in court. Kali

v. Bowen, 854 F.2d 329, 332 (9th Cir. 1988). 

Even if the government was not substantially justified in

taking its original action, its position as a whole may

nevertheless be substantially justified. United States v. Marolf,

277 F.3d 1156, 1164 n.5 (9th Cir. 2002). With regard to its

litigating position, the court must examine “extraneous

circumstances” bearing upon the government's decision, the most

important of which is “the existence of precedents construing

similar statutes or similar facts.” Id.

With regard to the government’s original action, defendants

argue that their denial of the visa petition was reasonable, given

that plaintiff had signed a sworn statement admitting to marriage

fraud, absconded when placed into deportation proceedings, failed

to disclose her full immigration history when initially petitioning

for a visa, and had a history of unsuccessful marriages to American

citizens. The court’s previous order granting summary judgment to

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plaintiffs was predicated upon a finding that defendants’ actions

were unsupported by substantial evidence -- or, in essence,

unreasonable. It would therefore be inconsistent for the court to

now conclude that the defendants’ actions were reasonable for the

purpose of attorneys’ fees, but unreasonable for the purpose of the

Administrative Procedures Act. 

That said, it is fair to note that Mrs. Wolter did not

challenge the agency’s consideration of the sworn statement at the

administrative level with the force that she challenged the sworn

statement in these proceedings. In addition, while Mrs. Wolter

disavowed the “accuracy” of her sworn statement, she did not

actually affirm that her marriage to Mr. Rowe was bona fide,

whereas the witnesses in Guzman-Guzman testified that the contents

of their sworn statements were in fact false. Compare GuzmanGuzman, 559 F.2d at 1150, with AR 23 (letter from Wolters’ attorney

stating “the ‘admissions’ . . . were neither informed nor

accurate”) and AR 25 (letter from Mrs. Wolter requesting that the

agency “remove the sworn statement").

Even if the government was not substantially justified in its

original action, its position as a whole may nevertheless be

substantially justified. Marolf, 277 F.3d at 1164 n.5. In

defending the lawsuit, defendants also relied upon Eide-Kahayon v.

INS, 86 F.3d 147 (9th Cir. 1996). There, during an adjustment of

status interview, the petitioner falsely claimed that her former

husband was deceased. Id. at 148. The agency rescinded her legal

permanent resident status upon discovering the misrepresentation.

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Id. at 149. Subsequently, petitioner attempted to adjust status

based on a subsequent marriage. The agency denied her request,

given her prior false testimony. Id. On appeal, the petitioner,

like Mrs. Wolter, attempted to deny having previously given false

testimony. The Ninth Circuit held that she was collaterally

estopped from raising the issue.

This court distinguished Eide-Kahayon on the grounds that the

Ninth Circuit had previously ruled on the merits of the issue in

a separate appeal, which found that “[t]he BIA’s decision

[involving her false testimony] [was] supported by substantial

evidence.” Eide-Kahayon v. INS, 5 F.3d 535 (9th Cir. 1993). The

fact that Eide-Kahayon was distinguishable, however, does not

necessarily render the government’s litigation position

unreasonable. While Eide-Kahayon did not ultimately support the

government’s position, it was reasonable for the government to rely

upon its precedent in defending the denial of plaintiff’s visa

petition. See Kali, 854 F.2d at 331 (EAJA “requires only a showing

that the government’s case had a reasonable basis”) (internal

quotation marks omitted).

In light of all these considerations, the court finds that the

government’s position was “substantially justified” and that an

award of attorneys’ fees is inappropriate.

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III. Conclusion

For the reasons explained above, the motion for attorneys’

fees is DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: March 14, 2008.

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