Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-97-05276/USCOURTS-caDC-97-05276-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Roberto De Jesus Ramirez
Appellant
Robert B. Reich
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 9, 1998 Decided October 6, 1998

No. 97-5276

Roberto De Jesus Ramirez, et al.,

Appellants

v.

Robert B. Reich, Secretary of Labor,

Appellee

Consolidated with

97-5277, 97-5278, 97,5279, 97-5280, 97-5281

---------

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(96cv02463, 96cv02740, 96cv02741, 97cv00101,

97cv00102, 97cv00103)

Michael E. McKenzie argued the cause and filed the briefs

for appellants.

Lisa H. MacPhee, Special Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief

were Wilma A. Lewis, United States Attorney, and R. Craig

Lawrence, Assistant United States Attorney.

Before: Silberman, Henderson, and Randolph, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Silberman.

Silberman, Circuit Judge: Appellants are six aliens who

challenged as arbitrary and capricious the Secretary of Labor's denial of labor certification applications filed by their

employers.1 The district court granted the Secretary's motion to dismiss on the ground that the aliens failed to exhaust

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their administrative remedies and, in the alternative, that

their claims were moot. We affirm the district court's dismissal of appellants' claims, although on different grounds

than those on which the district court relied.

I.

The Immigration and Nationality Act includes among the

classes of "excludable aliens" (i.e., aliens ineligible to receive

visas or be admitted to the United States) those aliens

seeking entrance to the United States for the purpose of

performing skilled or unskilled labor. 8 U.S.C.

s 1182(a)(5)(A)(i) (1994). An alien avoids this classification

only if the Secretary of Labor determines and certifies to the

Secretary of State and the Attorney General that "there are

not sufficient [American] workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available" and that "the employment of such alien

will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of

workers in the United States similarly employed." 8 U.S.C.

s 1182(a)(5)(A)(i)(I), (II).

The Department of Labor has promulgated a comprehensive set of regulations governing the issuance of labor certifications. See 20 C.F.R. pt. 656 (1998). The certification

__________

1 A seventh plaintiff (Rodolfo Delsid Ramirez), whose case was

consolidated with appellants' cases below, was listed as an appellant

on the appellants' brief. However, as the government points out,

this plaintiff did not file a notice of appeal and is therefore not an

appellant before this court.

process begins when an employer, on behalf of an alien that

the employer seeks to hire, files an application for labor

certification with the local Employment Service office. See

id. s 656.21(a). The regulations require the employer to

describe the alien's qualifications and the employment position on the application, see id. s 656.21(a)(1),(2), make certain

assurances related to the job offer, see id. s 656.20(c), and

submit documentation regarding the employer's efforts to

hire an American worker, see id. s 656.21(b). A "Certifying

Officer" then reviews the employer's submissions and decides

either to grant the labor certification or to issue a Notice of

Findings based on whether the employer complied with the

applicable regulations, and on whether the employer's submissions satisfy the Act's statutory requirements (no willing,

able, qualified and available American workers, and no adverse affect of alien employment on American workers). See

id. s 656.24(b)(1)-(3).

If the Certifying Officer issues a Notice of Findings, that

notice must specify the basis for not granting the certification. See id. s 656.25(c)(2). The employer may then file a

rebuttal to the Notice of Findings (the alien may also file a

rebuttal, but only if the employer does). See id. s 656.25(d).

If a rebuttal is not timely filed, the Notice of Findings

becomes the Secretary of Labor's final decision denying the

certification, the available administrative remedies are

deemed to have been not exhausted, and any further appeals

to the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (Appeals

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Board) are forfeited. See id. s 656.25(c)(3). If a rebuttal is

timely filed by the employer, the Certifying Officer reconsiders the application in light of any new evidence and makes a

"Final Determination" based on the same statutory and regulatory standards used in the initial determination. See id.

s 656.25(f). Assuming the final determination is a denial, the

last stage of the process replicates the intermediate stage:

the employer (and the alien, but not the alien alone) may

request a review by the Appeals Board, see id. s 656.26(a); if

no such review is requested, the Final Determination becomes the Secretary's final decision, see id. s 656.25(g)(2)(iv),

and the administrative remedies are deemed to have been not

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exhausted, see id. s 656.26(b)(2). If at any point in the

process the certification application is granted, the Certifying

Officer sends the certification to the employer, who in turn

submits the certification to the appropriate Immigration and

Naturalization Service office. See id. s 656.28.

In each of the cases on appeal, the employer filed a labor

certification application on behalf of an alien in compliance

with the regulations. A Certifying Officer then issued a

Notice of Findings to the employer, stating that the employer

had not sufficiently documented that the landscaping job at

issue was full-time work (the regulations define "employment" as "permanent full-time work by an employee for an

employer other than oneself," id. s 656.3), and directing the

employer to provide payroll records for the last three years

for all workers employed as landscapers. The employer then

filed a timely rebuttal to the Notice of Findings, contending

that landscaping was in fact full-time work and submitting

some documentation to that effect, but declined to provide the

payroll records that the Certifying Officer had requested.

The Certifying Officer then issued a Final Determination

that, after the employer failed to request review by the

Appeals Board, became the Secretary's final decision denying

the labor certification application.

Each alien then filed suit in district court, without his

respective employer, contending that the Secretary's decision

was arbitrary and capricious. The Secretary filed motions to

dismiss in each case, arguing that the aliens failed to exhaust

their administrative remedies and that their claims were

moot. After consolidating the cases for purposes of the

Secretary's motions to dismiss, the district court granted the

motions in each case on the ground of failure to exhaust and,

in the alternative, mootness.

II.

We begin with the threshold question of prudential standing. Although the government did not explicitly challenge

appellants' standing, appellants accuse the government of

doing so implicitly. Be that as it may, we are obliged

independently to examine the issue. See Animal Legal Defense Fund, Inc. v. Espy, 23 F.3d 496, 499 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

We specifically reserved this question in Acupuncture Ctr. of

Washington v. Dunlop, 543 F.2d 852, 858 n.66 (D.C. Cir.

1976), because the employer in that case had joined with the

alien in the district court and on appeal. Two of our sister

circuits, see Stenographic Mach., Inc. v. Regional Admin.,

577 F.2d 521, 527-28 (7th Cir. 1978); Reddy, Inc. v. United

States Dep't of Labor, 492 F.2d 538, 544 (5th Cir. 1974), and a

number of district courts, see, e.g., Gladysz v. Donovan, 595

F. Supp. 50, 53 (N.D. Ill. 1984); Mukadam v. United States

Dep't of Labor, 458 F. Supp. 164, 167 (S.D.N.Y. 1978), have

concluded that aliens have standing to sue.

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plated aliens suing to challenge a denial of a labor certification--even though aliens are obviously regulated by the statute, see Clarke v. Securities Indus. Ass'n, 479 U.S. 388, 396

(1987)--neither the statute's text, structure, nor legislative

history supplies the requisite "clear and convincing evidence"

of a preclusive purpose. Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S.

136, 141 (1967); see also Shook v. District of Columbia Fin.

Responsibility & Management Assistance Auth., 132 F.3d

775, 778-79 (D.C. Cir. 1998). Unlike in Block v. Community

Nutrition Inst., 467 U.S. 340, 348 (1984), for example, where

the statute itself set forth a regulatory regime that omitted

mention of certain parties, giving rise to an inference that

those parties were precluded from litigating in court, see

Block, 467 U.S. at 349, there is no indication here that

Congress itself considered the mechanism by which the Secretary of Labor would make labor certification decisions, or

how (and at the request of whom) such decisions would be

reviewable in the federal courts. And while the legislative

history indicates that Congress intended to restrict further

the admission of alien workers when it amended the statute in

1965, see S. Rep. No. 748, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965),

reprinted in 1965 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 3328, 3333,

that does not speak to the question whether the class of aliens

deserving of admission under the statute have standing to

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challenge in court the Secretary's decision to the contrary.

The regulatory regime is completely a creation of the Labor

Department's regulations, and under the Administrative Procedure Act, it is only statutes, not agency regulations, that

can preclude otherwise available judicial review. See 5 U.S.C.

s 701(a)(1); Gladysz, 595 F. Supp. at 53-54. In light of the

presumption of judicial review, see McNary v. Haitian Refugee Ctr., Inc., 498 U.S. 479, 496 (1991); Bowen v. Michigan

Academy of Family Physicians, 476 U.S. 667, 670 (1986), we

cannot conclude (despite our suspicions) that Congress intended to preclude the alien from challenging labor certification denials without the alien's employer. See Block, 467 U.S.

at 351 (holding that, where substantial doubt about congressional intent exists, the general presumption favoring judicial

review is controlling).

* * * *

The district court held that appellants failed to exhaust

their administrative remedies because their employers failed

to participate in all stages of the required administrative

review. Since the regulations provide that the employer's

failure to appeal the Certifying Officer's Final Determination

constitutes a failure to exhaust administrative remedies, the

district court concluded that the aliens were foreclosed from

pursuing their claims in court. Although the court expressed

sympathy for the aliens, who argued that they could not be

required to exhaust administrative remedies that they had no

independent right to pursue, the court feared that a contrary

result would give employers an incentive to "short-cut" the

administrative scheme by sending aliens directly to court to

argue the merits of the labor certification applications.

It is quite true that "no one is entitled to judicial relief for a

supposed or threatened injury until the prescribed administrative remedy has been exhausted." McKart v. United

States, 395 U.S. 185, 193 (1969) (quoting Myers v. Bethlehem

Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U.S. 41, 50-51 (1938)). But surely

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that requirement pertains only to administrative remedies

actually available to a party. There is no support, in law or in

logic, for the proposition that "A" can be held to have failed to

exhaust remedies available only to "B." Although the regulations authorize the alien to appeal adverse certification decisions to the Appeals Board, that participation is conditioned

on the employer's filing of a request for review. Therefore,

where the employer makes no request for review, and the

regulations provide the alien with no opportunity to appeal an

adverse certification decision, we hold that the alien has not

failed to exhaust.

The district court also relied on the employer's withdrawal

from the administrative review process as the basis for its

alternative conclusion that the aliens' claims were moot. The

court reasoned that a labor certification application is in

essence a job offer to an alien; once an employer withdraws

from the administrative process, the Certifying Officer's decision becomes the Secretary's final decision, and the pending

application/job offer consequently ceases to exist. We doubt

that the district court can presume, as a matter of law, that

the employer abandoned the application solely because the

employer failed to appeal the Certifying Officer's Final Determination. In any event, the plaintiffs, besides seeking a

certification and a de novo hearing before the district court,

also requested any relief that the court deemed appropriate.

Hence, even assuming that some doubt existed whether the

underlying applications were still pending, the court, if it

concluded that the Secretary's denial was arbitrary and capricious, could have awarded the plaintiffs relief by remanding

to the agency. Of course, as we explain below, no such relief

ultimately could be granted because the employer's withdrawal from the administrative process bars the alien's claim on

the merits. That notwithstanding, the mere possibility of a

remand is enough to show that the district court was incorrect to dismiss appellants' claims on the ground of mootness.2

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2 However, subsequent events have rendered moot the claim of

one of the appellants, Gil Peralta. See Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83,

95 (1968); Natural Resources Defense Council v. United States

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III.

Although we disagree with the district court's jurisdictional

holding, we nevertheless affirm the district court's judgment

on the merits using somewhat related reasoning. The district

court's opinion was rooted in the court's entirely justified

view that "the employer is an essential participant in the

scheme for the granting of permanent labor certifications."

We fully agree with this conclusion notwithstanding our disagreement with the district court over the appropriate doctrinal label through which to express it. The jurisdictional and

merits issues in these cases are inextricably linked because

the certification process, as a matter of administrative procedure and substantive law, depends upon the employer's participation. We read the Labor Department regulations to say

that an alien's employer is an indispensable party at each and

every stage of the administrative process, without whom the

employer cannot obtain the labor certification that the alien

seeks.

The applicable regulations presuppose the presence and

active participation of the alien's employer, from the initiation

of the process, see 20 C.F.R. s 656.21(a), to the required

documentation relating to facts particular to the employer's

__________

Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 680 F.2d 810, 813-14 (D.C. Cir. 1982).

Appellants inform us in their reply brief, and the government does

not dispute in its supplemental memorandum filed with the court,

that Mr. Peralta has been granted a labor certification pursuant to

a subsequent application filed by his employer. He has been

awarded all of the relief that he sought, and there is consequently

no live controversy concerning the original denial of his application

for the same position with the same employer. As to the appellants

whose employers have re-filed new certification applications that

are currently pending, we do not think their claims are mooted. In

contrast to Mr. Peralta, these parties have not yet received the

relief originally sought and thus their original claim that the denial

of their first certification application was arbitrary remains a live

controversy. See County of Los Angeles v. Davis, 440 U.S. 625, 631

(1979) (holding that a previously live case can become moot only if

"interim relief or events have completely and irrevocably eradicated

the effects of the alleged violation").

employment and hiring practices, see id. s 656.21(b), to the

fact that the employer's appeal of an adverse decision within

the agency is a prerequisite to the alien's ability to appeal, see

id. ss 656.25(d), 656.26(a), to the ultimate issuance of the

certification (if at all) to the employer, see id. s 656.28.3 The

regulations simply do not authorize the issuance of a labor

certification without the employer's compliance with the applicable regulations and availability to receive the certification.

Only if the regulations explicitly stated that "no labor certification shall be issued if an employer withdraws from the

administrative process" could the regulations be any clearer

as to the indispensability of the employer to the process. We

think the structure of the administrative process succeeds by

clear implication in bringing about the same end.

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In these cases, the agency followed its regulations and

treated the Certifying Officer's Final Determination as the

Secretary's final decision once the employer failed to request

review of that determination before the Appeals Board. See

20 C.F.R. s 656.25(g)(2)(iv). Appellants do not challenge the

validity of these regulations on appeal, and so we have no

occasion to examine whether the regulations' requirement

that the employer be present at each stage of the process is

valid. Compare Sieminski v. Donovan, 589 F. Supp. 790,

793-94 (N.D. Ill. 1984) (rejecting due process challenge to the

certification regulations). The employer's withdrawal from

the administrative process is, under the applicable and presumptively valid regulations, sufficient to uphold the agency's

refusal to grant certifications for these aliens. See id. at 792.

We conclude that the Secretary of Labor is always justified

(assuming the regulations are valid) in denying an application

for labor certification where the employer withdraws from the

administrative review process and fails to request review of

__________

3 Actually, even after a certification is granted, the employer's

participation is required. See 20 C.F.R. s 656.28; Kooritzky v.

Reich, 17 F.3d 1509, 1511 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (discussing regulations

governing post-certification filings by the employer).

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an adverse decision by the Certifying Officer.4 In other

words, no alien's claim challenging a labor certification denial

in federal court can ever succeed on the merits if the employer has abandoned the administrative process before its completion. This conclusion is implicit both in the regulatory

scheme in general, and in the Secretary's decision in these

cases to allow the Certifying Officer's determination to become the agency's final decision simply because the employer

failed to seek administrative review. We think our resolution

of the case--that the regulations make the employer an

indispensable party to the certification process--is the more

appropriate means of expressing the conclusion underlying

the district court's exhaustion and mootness analysis. At the

end of the day, the result is the same: the aliens' claims must

be dismissed. The decision of the district court is

Affirmed.

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4 We do not decide whether a different result might obtain

where an employer completes the entire administrative process, but

leaves the alien to file suit in court alone.

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