Interim Decision #2271 

MATTER OF SAMEDI 

In Section 246 Proceedings 

A-11186335 

Decided by Board March 19, 1974 

Where respondent's marriage to a United States citizen, which served as a basis 

for visa availability for adjustment of status under section 245 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, was subsequently annulled in 

California, adjustment of status is rescinded under section 246 of the Act 

notwithstanding the fraud for which the marriage was annulled was unrelated to the immigration laws, since, under California law, the annulment 

decree renders the marriage void ab initio, irrespective of the ground of 

annulment. 

ON BEHALF OF RESPONDENT: Seymour Mandel, Esquire 

3440 Wilshire Boulevard, #608 

Los Angeles, California 90010 

This is an appeal from the immigration judge's order of 

November 4, 1970, rescinding the adjustment of status which had 

been granted the respondent on April 24, 1969 pursuant to the 

provisions of section 245 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. 

The respondent obtained visa availability as an immediate relative, pursuant to section 201(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as the spouse of a United States citizen. The appeal will be 

dismissed. 

The record relates to a 36-year-old unmarried male alien, a 

native and citizen of Iran. The marriage which entitled him to 

immediate relative status was annulled in California on October 3, 

1969. The annulment action was brought by his wife on the ground 

of his fraud in representing falsely that he would have children 

with her. He defaulted in the action. 

In California, judgments of annulment relate back to the date of 

the marriage and constitute a finding that no marriage ever existed, irrespective of whether they be voidable or void marriages, 

Matter of V—, 6 I. & N. Dec. 153 (B IA 1954). Counsel seeks to 

distinguish the annulment in Matter of V—, supra, on the ground 

that the fraud there involved related to the immigration laws and 

was a fraud on the United States Government, whereas the fraud 

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for which the respondent's marriage was annulled (refusal to have 

children) was unrelated to the immigration laws and was upon his 

spouse only. 

We see no basis for distinguishing Matter of V—, supra, on the 

grounds suggested. The relation-back doctrine applies to all annulments in California, irrespective of the ground. The result of 

the decree is a judicial determination that no marriage ever existed. Because the respondent's status was based on a marriage 

which has been decreed never to have existed, the respondent was 

not in fact eligible for the adjustment of status which he was 

granted. Accordingly, the immigration judge was correct. 

ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 

Maurice A. Roberts, Chairman, Dissenting: 

I respectfully dissent from the decision of the Board. I would 

reverse and remand for further proceedings. 

The facts of record are not in substantial dispute. The respondent is a 36-year-old alien, a native and citizen of Iran, who was 

admitted to the United States on August 31, 1960 as a nonimmigrant student and remained longer than permitted. On April 12, 

1968, during the pendency of deportation proceedings against him, 

he married Patty Gale Terry, a United States citizen, on whose 

visa petition he was accorded immediate relative status on October 17, 1968 under section 201(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. On April 24, 1969, the immigration judge granted respondent's application for adjustment of status under section 245 of the 

Act. His wife thereafter filed a complaint for annulment in a 

California court, alleging that the marriage had been induced by 

the respondent's fraudulent concealment of his intention not to 

have children. A default judgment of annulment was entered by 

the court on October 3, 1969. Rescission proceedings under section 

246 of the Act were initiated on March 30, 1970 by the filing of a 

notice of intention to rescind, based on a series of factual allegations (Ex. 1). Respondent contested the action and demanded a 

hearing. 

At the hearing, the Service relied exclusively on the record of 

the annulment to prove its charge that the respondent was not in 

fact eligible for the section 245 adjustment. Counsel for the 

respondent sought a continuance in order to determine what 

evidence to present. The immigration judge denied the continuance, concluding that under Matter of V—, 6 I. & N. Dec. 153 (BIA 

19M), the California annulment decree made out a ease which 

could not be challenged by evidence. In his order before us on 

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appeal, the immigration judge held that under Califronia law the 

annulment decree rendered the marriage void ab initio, thereby 

retroactively undermining the visa petition approval based on that 

marriage and rendering the respondent ineligible for a visa and 

hence ineligible for section 245 adjustment. Rescission was ordered. The Board today endorses that action, relying on the 

rationale of Matter of V—, supra. In my view, that decision is 

distinguishable and does not compel the result reached by the 

Board. 

A rescission order under section 246 divests the alien of his 

previously granted status as a lawful permanent resident and 

paves the way for his deportation if he does not depart from this 

country. To support rescission, the administrative fact findings 

must be based on evidence which is clear, convincing and unequivocal, Waziri v. INS, 392 F. 2d 55 (CA. 9, 1968); Rodrigues v. INS, 

389 F.2d 129 (CA. 3, 1968); Yaido v. INS, 424 F.2d 501 (CA. 6, 1970). 

By analogy to the rule of construction laid down for deportation 

statutes, section 246 should be narrowly construed. "[S]ince the 

stakes are considerable for the individual, we will not assume that 

Congress meant to trench on his freedom beyond that which is 

required by the narrowest of several possible meanings of the words 

used." Fong Hate Tan v. Phelan, 333 U.S. 6 at p. 10 (1948). 

Matter of V—, supra, was not a rescission case. It arose under 

section 3 of the Gigolo Act of May 14, 1937, which provided for the 

deportation of "any alien who at any time after entering the 

United Sates is found to have secured either a nonquota or 

preference-quota visa through fraud, by contracting a marriage 

which, subsequent to entry into the United States, has been 

judicially annulled retroactively to date of marriage." The question there presented was whether the California annulment had 

such retroactive effect. We held that it had .l. The statute there 

involved was geared, in terms, to a marriage "judicially annulled 

retroactively to date of marriage." The rescission statute now 

confronting us contains no such provision. Matter of V—, supra, is 

inapposite to the present case, in my view. 

It is interesting to note that the 1937 Gigolo Act's counterpart in 

the present Act contains no similar provision. Under section 

241(cX1) of the present Act, a judicial annulment or divorce within 

two years after entry on documents based on marriage within the 

prior two years creates merely a rebuttable presumption of fraud, 

which leaves the way open for the alien to show that the marrige 

was not in fact "contracted for the purpose of evading any 

1A contrary view was expressed in Ciam v. Adkins, 126 F. Supp. 828 (N.D. 

Texas 1954). 

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provisions of the immigration laws." Had the respondent obtained 

a visa, rather than section 245 adjustment, on the basis of his 

marriage to Patty Gale Terry, her annulment decree would not 

have had conclusive effect. Section 241(c) is designed to deal 

specifically with immigration status obtained by fraudulent marriages contracted for the purpose of evading the provisions of our 

immigration laws. In applying the provisions of section 246, which 

are general in nature, we should not assume that Congress 

intended an annulment decree to have conclusive effect beyond 

that which it would have in the provisions of section 241(c), which 

were specifically tailored to deal with sham immigration marriages. 

Even taken at face value, the annulment decree entered against 

the respondent does not make out a fraud against the United 

States. At most it makes out a case of fraud against Patty Gale 

Terry. Insofar as concerns the United States, there is nothing to 

indicate that respondent's marriage to Miss Terry was a sham, 

entered into without marital intent for the purpose of evading our 

immigration laws. There is nothing in this record to show that on 

April 24, 1969, when respondent's status was adjusted under 

section 245, he "was not in fact eligible for such adjustment of 

status" within the meaning of section 246 (emphasis supplied). 

Quite the contrary, he was then clearly in fact married to Miss 

Terry and eligible for adjustment of status. The most that can be 

said is that he was not then "in law" eligible for such adjustment. 

That conclusion can be reached only by resort to the legal fiction 

of "relation back" which would render the marriage void ab 

In my view, we should not indulge in that fiction here. 

While it may be true, as we concluded in Matter of V—, supra, 

that in California an annulment decree has such retroactive effect, 

the same cannot be said with respect to similar judgments in other 

states. See Matter of M—, 3 I. & N. Dec. 25 (BIA 1947) (New York); 

Matter of B—, 3 L & N. Dec. 102 (BIA 1947) (New York); Matter of 

T—, 3 L & N. Dee. 528 (BIA 1949) (Texas); Matter of R—, 4 L & N. 

Dec. 345 (Central Office 1951) (District of Columbia). 

Section 246, which is restrictive of the rights of resident aliens, 

should be narrowly construed. Rescission thereunder should not 

be made to depend on the vagaries of the laws of the different 

states with respect to whether or not an annulment decree makes 

the marriage void ab initio. Cf. Matter of A— F—, 8 L & N. Dec. 

429, 446 (A.G. 1959). 

It seems to me that the Board's decision in this case is inconsistent with the position it announced in Matter of Yaldo, 12 I. & N. 

Dec. 830 (BIA 1968), affirmed Yaldo v. INS, 424 F.2d 501 (C.A. 6, 

1970). In that case, the alien's wife had obtained an annulment on 

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charges that he married her without marital intent but solely to 

obtain permanent residence. At the rescission proceedings under 

section 246, the Service did not rely exclusively on the annulment 

decree but also presented the testimony of the former wife. In 

sustaining the rescission order, we gave prima facie rather than 

conclusive effect to the annulment decree, pointing out (footnote 1) 

that "This Board has held that the relation back theory of an 

annulment decree is not followed blindly where to do so would 

result in an injustice to an innocent respondent. Matter of B—, 3 I. 

& N. Dee. 102, BIA, 1947." 

Here, the Service tried the charge on the theory that the 

annulment decree was conclusive and it made no effort to prove by 

other evidence that the marriage was entered into by the respondent in bad faith for the purpose of evading the immigration laws. 

The immigration judge accepted that theory and refused to afford 

counsel for respondent an opportunity to present evidence. In my 

view, the hearing should be reopened and the record remanded to 

the immigration judge for further hearing, at which both sides 

would have the opportunity to present evidence as to the bona 

fides of the marriage. The immigration judge should then make 

his findings as to whether the respondent was in fact eligible for 

his section 245 adjustment, without giving the annulment decree 

conclusive effect as voiding the marriage ab initio. 

Warren R. Torrington, Member, Concurring: 

The dissenting opinion requires a few comments. 

Section 241(c)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, to 

which the dissenting opinion so extensively refers, is not pertinent. 

It deals with the procurement of visas or other documentation by 

fraud, an issue not involved in this case. The comparisons attempted in the dissenting opinion are, at best, interesting speculations. 

The validity of a marriage does indeed depend on the laws of the 

particular jurisdiction. That fact does not make the decision 

vagarious or freakish. There is no federal law of marriage, divorce 

or annulment in the United States. 

Matter of Yaldo, 12 I. & N. Dec. 830 (B IA 1968), cited in the 

dissenting opinion, is inapposite. There the issues were whether it 

had been proper to permit the ex-wife, a party to a sham marriage, 

to testify to confidential communications made during the course 

of the marriage, and whether the government had sustained its 

burden of proof. Matter of B—, 3 I. & N. Dec. 102 (BIA. 1947) which 

had been mentioned in a footnote, in Matter of Yaldo, supra, had 

dealt with a special, sympathetic situation, and had misinterpreted the law of New York. 

I concur in the dismissal of the appeal. 

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