Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-01256/USCOURTS-ca8-04-01256-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
John Ashcroft
Respondent
Dimpal V. Patel
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

Nos. 02-4143/04-1256

___________

Dimpal V. Patel, *

*

Petitioner, *

* Petitions for Review of an 

v. * Order of the Board of

* Immigration Appeals.

John Ashcroft, Attorney General of *

the United States, *

*

Respondent. *

___________

Submitted: January 16, 2004

Filed: July 13, 2004

___________

Before BYE, HEANEY, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

___________

BYE, Circuit Judge.

Dimpal V. Patel, a citizen of India, petitions for review of the Board of

Immigration Appeals' (BIA's) order dismissing her asylum application and denying

her motion to remand her case to consider her application for an adjustment of status.

Ms. Patel sought the adjustment pursuant to the approved visa petition filed by her

husband, whom she married while removal proceedings were pending. We grant the

petition for review, vacate the BIA's order, and remand for proceedings consistent

with this opinion.

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The Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferred INS functions to the new

Department of Homeland Security, where immigration enforcement functions fall

within the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security, while immigration

services fall within the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. On March

1, 2003, the INS ceased to exist as an independent agency within the Department of

Justice, and its functions were fully transferred to the new Department of Homeland

Security. For ease of reference, this opinion will refer to the agency as the INS.

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I

We start with an excursion through the labyrinthine procedural history of this

case. In 1997, three years after Ms. Patel entered the United States illegally, her

father filed a visa petition on her behalf, and on March 31, 1998, Ms. Patel filed an

application for political asylum while the visa petition was pending. In 1999, with

the petition still pending, the Immigration and Naturalization Service1

 (INS) denied

her asylum application, and she was ordered removed from the United States in

March 2000. After she appealed the removal order to the BIA, the case took several

unexpected turns.

On April 18, 2000, before the BIA considered her appeal, the INS finally

approved the visa petition. Consequently, on April 12, 2001, Ms. Patel moved the

BIA to remand her case for the Immigration Judge (IJ) to consider her application for

adjustment of status pursuant to the approved petition. On August 17, 2001, the BIA

granted the motion, and the IJ later set a hearing date of November 20, 2001. The

case might have come to an auspicious ending then had Patel's father himself not been

ordered removed from the United States in the interim, thus extinguishing the

approved visa petition. 

Happily for Ms. Patel, another event also occurred before the November 20

hearing. On August 15, 2001, two days before the BIA granted her first motion to

remand the case, she married Ketan Patel, a United States citizen, who filed his own

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While this petition was pending, Ms. Patel moved the BIA to reconsider its

decision and reopen her case. The BIA denied this new motion, and she brought a

second petition, this time seeking review of the BIA's denial of her motion to

reconsider and reopen. Because we grant relief on her first petition, we dismiss the

second petition as being moot. See Ramirez-Alejandre v. Ashcroft, 319 F.3d 365,

382 (9th Cir. 2003) (stating a motion to reopen and a motion to remand are functional

equivalents under BIA procedure). 

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visa petition on her behalf. The race was on again. Would one arm of the

government, the INS, approve her visa petition before another arm, the BIA, took her

case under submission and likely ordered her removal?

When the November 20 hearing date arrived, Ms. Patel predictably moved for

a continuance to give the INS the opportunity to adjudicate her husband's visa

petition. The IJ properly denied Patel's motion and sent the underlying appeal of the

original removal order back to the BIA. Facing an administrative appeal for the

second time, Ms. Patel now challenged both the removal order and the denial of her

motion to continue. 

Ms. Patel's timing was again felicitous, for the INS approved her husband's visa

petition in January 2002, before the BIA considered her appeal. As a result, Ms. Patel

withdrew as moot her appeal of the denial of her motion to continue, and she moved

the BIA to remand the case again, this time to permit her to apply for adjustment of

status pursuant to her husband's now-approved visa petition.

 

In support of her motion, Ms. Patel submitted the notice of her husband's

approved visa petition as evidence she had entered the marriage in good faith. The

BIA found the evidence insufficient, denied the motion, dismissed the appeal of the

removal order, and granted Ms. Patel's motion for a voluntary departure. The present

petition to this court followed.2

 The parties agree that the question presented is

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whether the approved visa petition constitutes clear and convincing evidence Ms.

Patel's marriage was bona fide, thus making her eligible for an adjustment of status.

II

A. Standard of Review

The parties first dispute the applicable standard of review. On the one hand,

the government maintains we review the BIA's denial of a motion to remand for abuse

of discretion. See Margalli-Olvera v. INS, 43 F.3d 345, 355 (8th Cir. 1995). On the

other hand, because the BIA's decision rested on a legal interpretation of the

administrative law, Ms. Patel urges us to review the decision de novo, a standard

under which we accord substantial deference to the agency's interpretation of the

statutes and regulations it administers, see Regalado-Garcia v. INS, 305 F.3d 784,

787 (8th Cir. 2002), but do not defer to legal interpretations that are arbitrary,

capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statutory law. Shaar v. INS, 141 F.3d 953,

955-56 (9th Cir. 1998). See also Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense

Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 843-845 (1984). 

 

Each party, of course, is partially right, as appellate review of this matter

involves both standards: First, de novo review of the BIA's interpretation of the

relevant statutes and regulations, and then abuse-of-discretion review of the remand

decision grounded on that interpretation. See Regalado-Garcia, 305 F.3d at 787

(reviewing statutory construction de novo and denial of motion to reopen for abuse

of discretion). 

B. Analysis

We conduct our analysis by connecting the dots between the applicable

statutory and regulatory provisions. The starting point, 8 U.S.C. § 1255(e)(1),

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generally bars the Attorney General from adjusting the status of an alien seeking an

immigrant visa on the basis of a marriage entered into while removal proceedings

were pending against the alien. The statute, however, carves out an exception for an

alien who establishes by clear and convincing evidence, to the satisfaction of the

Attorney General, that he or she entered into a lawful marriage in good faith and not

to procure admission as an immigrant. 8 U.S.C. § 1255(e)(3); 8 C.F.R. §

245.1(c)(9)(iii)(F). Importantly, an approved visa petition constitutes primary

evidence of eligibility for the § 1255(e)(3) bona-fide marriage exemption. See 8

C.F.R. § 245.1(c)(9)(v).

In its brief, the government acknowledges this statutory framework but also

omits the critical language in § 245.1(c)(9)(v): Other than the approved visa petition,

"[t]he applicant will not be required to submit additional evidence to qualify for the

bona fide marriage exemption . . . unless the district director [who approves the

petition] determines that such additional evidence is needed . . . ." That is, the

approved visa petition normally suffices to qualify for the exemption. 

Here, the district director interviewed the Patels, and after considering other

evidence they submitted, the director approved the visa petition without more,

implicitly concluding they had demonstrated the bona fides of their marriage. See 8

C.F.R. § 245.1(c)(9)(v). The notice of the approved visa petition, therefore, should

have sufficed to bring this case under the bona-fide marriage exception of §

1255(e)(3). 

Relying on its decision in Matter of Velarde-Pacheco, 23 I. & N. Dec. 253

(BIA 2002), 2002 WL 393173 (BIA), the BIA held that Ms. Patel was obligated to

introduce evidence of her courtship, wedding, and married life. The BIA, however,

misapplied Velarde by reading it to demand a greater degree of proof than the statute

and regulations require. In Velarde, the BIA required other clear and convincing

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Indeed, the point of Velarde was to prevent the deportation of the category of

aliens who had entered into a bona fide marriage during their removal proceedings.

Precisely because aliens so-classified did not have an approved visa petition as prima

facie evidence of the bona fides of their marriage, the BIA gave them the opportunity

to submit other clear and convincing evidence to support their claims. Thus, Velarde

expands, rather than contracts, the number of aliens who may benefit from the bonafide marriage exception. 

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evidence because the visa petition was pending.

3

 Id. at 254. In contrast, where the

agency has already adjudicated and approved the petition, the notice of approval

suffices under the statutory framework to prove the bona fides of the marriage. 

The government also cites various Ninth Circuit cases for the proposition that

"an approved visa petition alone does not automatically entitle an alien to adjustment

of status." See, e.g., Agyeman v. INS, 296 F.3d 871, 879 (9th Cir. 2002). That

proposition, however, refers to the IJ's ultimate discretionary decision to accord or

deny the status after examining the merits of an eligible alien's application. Here, that

would occur after the BIA remands the case to the IJ, who has exclusive jurisdiction

to decide the adjustment of status application. Id. As Agyeman itself states, the

approved petition does establish the alien's eligibility for adjustment of status. Id.

Alleging Ms. Patel's asylum application was frivolous, the government finally

argues the purpose of the application, and the subsequent appeal, was to delay until

Ms. Patel could reach another method for deriving lawful status in the United States.

The government essentially contends a reversal by this court would reward frivolous

applications and other delay tactics. Needless to say, this court would be loath to

condone, much less encourage, frivolous claims of any sort. 

The record in this case, however, does not support the government's allegation

Ms. Patel filed a frivolous application. While the IJ who presided over the November

2001 hearing remarked that the asylum application was frivolous, the BIA expressly

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found that the IJ who actually adjudicated and denied the asylum application on

March 9, 2000 "concluded the application was not frivolous." Joint Appendix at 3.

Moreover, the same asylum application undergirded the two approved visa

petitions in this case. Pursuant to the first petition, the father's, the government

remanded the case for an adjustment of status without any complaint regarding the

underlying asylum application. If the asylum claim did not represent an impediment

the first time the BIA remanded the case, we see no reason why the claim would

inhibit remand to the IJ where the statutory framework so plainly supports Ms. Patel's

position. As far as we can tell, therefore, Ms. Patel acted within her legal right to

pursue her asylum application, even if she perhaps also harbored the understandable

hope that the proceedings would delay her deportation for a better day. 

Finally, in the sound exercise of his discretion, the Attorney General may still

deny Ms. Patel the adjustment, should other evidence belie the legitimacy of her

marriage on remand. Here, we only determine the approved visa petition makes Ms.

Patel facially eligible for the adjustment of status. 

III

Because the BIA denied Ms. Patel's motion on the basis of a legal interpretation

manifestly contrary to the plain meaning of the statute and its regulations, the BIA

abused its discretion when it denied the motion and dismissed her appeal.

Accordingly, we grant the petition for review, vacate the BIA's order, and remand for

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

______________________________

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