(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2011 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL v. MARTINEZ 

GUTIERREZ 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

No. 10–1542. Argued January 18, 2012—Decided May 21, 2012* 

Title 8 U. S. C. §1229b(a) authorizes the Attorney General to cancel the 

removal of an alien from the United States who, among other things, 

has held the status of a lawful permanent resident (LPR) for at least

five years, §1229b(a)(1), and has lived in the United States for at

least seven continuous years after a lawful admission, §1229b(a)(2). 

These cases concern whether the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA

or Board) should impute a parent’s years of continuous residence or

LPR status to his or her child. That issue arises because a child may

enter the country lawfully, or may gain LPR status, after one of his

parents does—meaning that a parent may satisfy §1229b(a)(1) or

§1229b(a)(2), while his child, considered independently, does not. In 

In re Escobar, 24 I. & N. Dec. 231, the BIA concluded that an alien 

must meet §1229b(a)’s requirements on his own. But the Ninth Circuit found the Board’s position unreasonable, holding that 

§1229b(a)(1) and §1229b(a)(2) require imputation. See MercadoZazueta v. Holder, 580 F. 3d 1102; Cuevas-Gaspar v. Gonzales, 430 

F. 3d 1013.

 Respondent Martinez Gutierrez illegally entered the country with 

his family in 1989, when he was 5 years old. Martinez Gutierrez’s father was lawfully admitted to the country two years later as an LPR.

But Martinez Gutierrez was neither lawfully admitted nor given LPR 

status until 2003. Two years after that, he was apprehended for

smuggling undocumented aliens across the border. Admitting the offense, he sought cancellation of removal. The Immigration Judge 

—————— 

*Together with No. 10–1543, Holder, Attorney General v. Sawyers, 

also on certiorari to the same court. 
 

 

 

 

 

2 HOLDER v. MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ 

Syllabus 

concluded that Martinez Gutierrez qualified for relief because of his 

father’s immigration history, even though Martinez Gutierrez could 

not satisfy §1229b(a)(1) or §1229b(a)(2) on his own. Relying on Escobar, the BIA reversed. The Ninth Circuit then granted Martinez 

Gutierrez’s petition for review and remanded the case to the Board 

for reconsideration in light of its contrary decisions.

Respondent Sawyers was lawfully admitted as an LPR in October 

1995, when he was 15 years old. At that time, his mother had already resided in the country for six consecutive years following a lawful entry. After Sawyers was convicted of a drug offense in August 

2002, the Government began removal proceedings. The Immigration 

Judge found Sawyers ineligible for cancellation of removal because he 

could not satisfy §1229b(a)(2). The BIA affirmed, and Sawyers petitioned the Ninth Circuit for review. There, he argued that the Board

should have counted his mother’s years of residency while he was a

minor toward §1229b(a)(2)’s 7-year continuous-residency requirement. The Court of Appeals granted the petition and remanded the

case to the BIA. 

Held: The BIA’s rejection of imputation is based on a permissible construction of §1229b(a). Pp. 6–13.

(a) The Board has required each alien seeking cancellation of removal to satisfy §1229b(a)’s requirements on his own, without relying

on a parent’s years of continuous residence or immigration status.

That position prevails if it is a reasonable construction of the statute,

whether or not it is the only possible interpretation or even the one a 

court might think best. See e.g., Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843–844, and n. 11. The 

BIA’s approach satisfies this standard.

The Board’s position is consistent with the statute’s text. Section 

1229b(a) does not mention—much less require—imputation. Instead, 

it simply calls for “the alien” to meet the prerequisites for cancellation of removal. See §§1101(a)(13)(A) and (a)(33). Respondents contend that this language does not foreclose imputation, but even if so,

that is not enough to require the Board to adopt that policy. Pp. 6–7.

(b) Neither does the statute’s history and context mandate imputation. Section 1229b(a) replaced former §212(c) of the Immigration

and Nationality Act (INA), which allowed the Attorney General to 

prevent the removal of an alien with LPR status who had maintained 

a “lawful unrelinquished domicile of seven consecutive years” in this 

country. Like §1229b(a), §212(c) was silent on imputation. But every 

Court of Appeals that confronted the question concluded that, in determining eligibility for §212(c) relief, the Board should impute a

parent’s years of domicile to his or her child. Based on this history, 

Sawyers contends that Congress would have understood §1229b(a)’s 
 

Cite as: 566 U. S. ____ (2012) 3 

Syllabus 

language to provide for imputation. But in enacting §1229b(a), Congress eliminated the very term—“domicile”—on which the appeals

courts had founded their imputation decisions. And the doctrine of 

congressional ratification applies only when Congress reenacts a 

statute without relevant change. See Jama v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 543 U. S. 335, 349. 

Nor do the INA’s purposes demand imputation. As respondents

correctly observe, many provisions of immigration law advance the

goals of promoting family unity and providing relief to aliens with

strong ties to this country. But these are not the INA’s only goals,

and Congress did not pursue them at all costs. For example, aliens

convicted of aggravated felonies are ineligible for cancellation of

removal, regardless of the strength of their family ties, see 

§1229b(a)(3). In addition, as these cases show, not every alien with

LPR status can immediately get the same for a spouse or minor child. 

A silent statute cannot be read as requiring imputation just because

that rule would be family-friendly. Pp. 7–10.

(c) Respondents advance two additional arguments for why the 

Board’s position is not entitled to Chevron deference. First, they

claim that the Board’s approach to §1229b(a) is arbitrary because it is

inconsistent with the Board’s acceptance of imputation under other,

similar provisions that are silent on the matter. See §1182(k) and 

§1181(b). But the Board’s decision in Escobar provided a reasoned

explanation for these divergent results: The Board imputes matters

involving an alien’s state of mind, while declining to impute objective

conditions or characteristics. See 24 I. & N. Dec., at 233–234, and 

n. 4. Section 1229b(a) hinges on the objective facts of immigration

status and place of residence. See id., at 233. So the Board’s 

approach to §1229b(a) largely follows from one straightforward 

distinction. 

Second, respondents claim that the BIA adopted its no-imputation

rule only because it thought Congress had left it no other choice. But 

Escobar belies this contention. The Board did explain how

§1229b(a)’s text supports its no-imputation policy. But the Board also brought its experience and expertise to bear on the matter: It noted that there was no precedent in its decisions for imputing status or

residence, and it argued that allowing imputation under §1229b(a)

would create anomalies in the statutory scheme. Escobar thus expressed the BIA’s view that statutory text, administrative practice, 

and regulatory policy all pointed toward disallowing imputation. In 

making that case, the opinion reads like a multitude of agency interpretations to which this and other courts have routinely deferred.

Pp. 10–13. 

No. 10–1542, 411 Fed. Appx. 121; No. 10–1543, 399 Fed. Appx. 313, 
 

4 HOLDER v. MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ 

Syllabus 

reversed and remanded. 

KAGAN, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. 
 

 

_________________ 

_________________ 

 

Cite as: 566 U. S. ____ (2012) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Nos. 10–1542 and 10–1543 

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

PETITIONER 

10–1542 v. 

CARLOS MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ 

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

PETITIONER 

10–1543 v. 

DAMIEN ANTONIO SAWYERS 

ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

[May 21, 2012]

 JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. 

An immigration statute, 8 U. S. C. §1229b(a), authorizes 

the Attorney General to cancel the removal of an alien

from the United States so long as the alien satisfies certain criteria. One of those criteria relates to the length of 

time an alien has lawfully resided in the United States, 

and another to the length of time he has held permanent 

resident status here. We consider whether the Board of 

Immigration Appeals (BIA or Board) could reasonably 

conclude that an alien living in this country as a child

must meet those requirements on his own, without counting a parent’s years of residence or immigration status.

We hold that the BIA’s approach is based on a permissible

construction of the statute. 
 

 

2 HOLDER v. MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ 

Opinion of the Court 

I 

A 

The immigration laws have long given the Attorney

General discretion to permit certain otherwise-removable 

aliens to remain in the United States. See Judulang v. 

Holder, 565 U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 2–4). The 

Attorney General formerly exercised this authority by

virtue of §212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act

(INA), 66 Stat. 187, 8 U. S. C. §1182(c) (1994 ed.), a provision with some lingering relevance here, see infra, at 7–9. 

But in 1996, Congress replaced §212(c) with §1229b(a)

(2006 ed.). That new section, applicable to the cases before us, provides as follows: 

“(a) Cancellation of removal for certain permanent residents 

“The Attorney General may cancel removal in the case 

of an alien who is inadmissible or deportable from the 

United States if the alien— 

“(1) has been an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence for not less than 5 years,

“(2) has resided in the United States continuously 

for 7 years after having been admitted in any status, and 

“(3) has not been convicted of any aggravated felony.” Ibid. 

Section 1229b(a) thus specifies the criteria that make an 

alien eligible to obtain relief from the Attorney General. 

The first paragraph requires that the alien have held the 

status of a lawful permanent resident (LPR) for at least 

five years. And the second adds that the alien must have 

lived in the United States for at least seven continuous 

years after a lawful admission, whether as an LPR or in 
 

Cite as: 566 U. S. ____ (2012) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

some other immigration status.1 (The third paragraph is

not at issue in these cases.)

The question we consider here is whether, in applying

this statutory provision, the BIA should impute a parent’s 

years of continuous residence or LPR status to his or her 

child. That question arises because a child may enter the 

country lawfully, or may gain LPR status, after one of 

his parents does. A parent may therefore satisfy the requirements of §§1229b(a)(1) and (2), while his or her 

child, considered independently, does not. In these circumstances, is the child eligible for cancellation of removal? 

The Ninth Circuit, the first court of appeals to confront

this issue, held that such an alien could obtain relief. See 

Cuevas-Gaspar v. Gonzales, 430 F. 3d 1013 (2005). Enrique Cuevas-Gaspar and his parents came to the United 

States illegally in 1985, when he was one year old. CuevasGaspar’s mother was lawfully admitted to the country

in 1990, as an LPR. But Cuevas-Gaspar was lawfully 

admitted only in 1997, when he too received LPR status.

That meant that when Cuevas-Gaspar committed a removable offense in 2002, he could not independently satisfy §1229b(a)(2)’s requirement of seven consecutive years of

residence after a lawful entry.2 (The parties agreed that

he just met §1229b(a)(1)’s 5-year status requirement.) The 

Board deemed Cuevas-Gaspar ineligible for relief on that 

account, but the Ninth Circuit found that position unrea-

—————— 

1The INA defines “admitted” as referring to “the lawful entry of 

the alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by

an immigration officer.” 8 U. S. C. §1101 (a)(13)(A). The 7-year clock of 

§1229b(a)(2) thus begins with an alien’s lawful entry. 2The 7-year clock stopped running on the date of Cuevas-Gaspar’s 

offense under a statutory provision known as the “stop-time” rule. See 

§1229b(d)(1) (“For purposes of this section, any period of continuous

residence . . . in the United States shall be deemed to end . . . when the 

alien is served a notice to appear . . . or . . . when the alien has committed an offense . . . that renders the alien . . . removable from the United 

States . . . , whichever is earliest”). 
 

4 HOLDER v. MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ 

Opinion of the Court 

sonable. According to the Court of Appeals, the Board 

should have “imputed” to Cuevas-Gaspar his mother’s 

years of continuous residence during the time he lived 

with her as an “unemancipated minor.” Id., at 1029. That 

approach, the Ninth Circuit reasoned, followed from both

the INA’s “priorit[ization]” of familial relations and the 

Board’s “consistent willingness” to make imputations from 

a parent to a child in many areas of immigration law. Id., 

at 1026. 

The Board responded by reiterating its opposition to

imputation under both relevant paragraphs of §1229b(a). 

In In re Escobar, 24 I. & N. Dec. 231 (2007), the Board 

considered whether a child could rely on a parent’s period

of LPR status to satisfy §1229b(a)(1)’s 5-year clock. The 

Board expressly “disagree[d] with the reasoning” of CuevasGaspar, rejecting the Ninth Circuit’s understanding of

both the statute and the Board’s prior policies. 24 I. & N. 

Dec., at 233–234, and n. 4. Accordingly, the Board announced that it would “decline to extend” Cuevas-Gaspar

to any case involving §1229b(a)(1), and that it would 

ignore the decision even as to §1229b(a)(2) outside the 

Ninth Circuit. 24 I. & N. Dec., at 235. A year later, in 

Matter of Ramirez-Vargas, 24 I. & N. Dec. 599 (2008), the 

BIA took the final step: It rejected imputation under

§1229b(a)(2) in a case arising in the Ninth Circuit, maintaining that the court should abandon Cuevas-Gaspar and 

defer to the Board’s intervening reasoned decision in 

Escobar. See Ramirez-Vargas, 24 I. & N. Dec., at 600–601 

(citing National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. v. 

Brand X Internet Services, 545 U. S. 967 (2005)). 

The BIA’s position on imputation touched off a split in

the courts of appeals. The Third and Fifth Circuits both 

deferred to the BIA’s approach as a reasonable construction of §1229b(a). See Augustin v. Attorney Gen., 520 F. 3d 

264 (CA3 2008); Deus v. Holder, 591 F. 3d 807 (CA5 2009). 

But in Mercado-Zazueta v. Holder, 580 F. 3d 1102 (2009), 
Cite as: 566 U. S. ____ (2012) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

the Ninth Circuit doubled down on its contrary view,

declaring the BIA’s position unreasonable and requiring 

imputation under both §§1229b(a)(1) and (a)(2). See id., 

at 1103 (“[T]he rationale and holding of Cuevas-Gaspar

apply equally to the five-year permanent residence and 

the seven-year continuance residence requirements” of 

§1229b(a)). 

B 

Two cases are before us. In 1989, at the age of five, 

respondent Carlos Martinez Gutierrez illegally entered 

the United States with his family. Martinez Gutierrez’s 

father was lawfully admitted to the country two years

later as an LPR. But Martinez Gutierrez himself was 

neither lawfully admitted nor given LPR status until 

2003. Two years after that, Martinez Gutierrez was apprehended for smuggling undocumented aliens across the 

border. He admitted the offense, and sought cancellation

of removal. The Immigration Judge concluded that Martinez Gutierrez qualified for relief because of his father’s

immigration history, even though Martinez Gutierrez

could not satisfy either §1229b(a)(1) or §1229b(a)(2) on his 

own. See App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 10–1542, pp. 20a–

22a (citing Cuevas-Gaspar, 430 F. 3d 1013). The BIA 

reversed, and after entry of a removal order on remand,

reaffirmed its disposition in an order relying on Escobar, 

see App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 10–1542, at 5a–6a. The 

Ninth Circuit then granted Martinez Gutierrez’s petition

for review and remanded the case to the Board for reconsideration in light of the court’s contrary decisions. See 

411 Fed. Appx. 121 (2011).

Respondent Damien Sawyers was lawfully admitted as

an LPR in October 1995, when he was 15 years old. At 

that time, his mother had already resided in the country

for six consecutive years following a lawful entry. After 

Sawyers’s conviction of a drug offense in August 2002, the 
 

 

6 HOLDER v. MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ 

Opinion of the Court 

Government initiated removal proceedings. The Immigration Judge found Sawyers ineligible for cancellation of

removal because he was a few months shy of the seven 

years of continuous residence required under §1229b(a)(2).

See App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 10–1543, p. 13a. (No one

doubted that Sawyers had by that time held LPR status

for five years, as required under §1229b(a)(1).) The Board 

affirmed, relying on its reasoning in Escobar. See In 

re Sawyers, No. A44 852 478, 2007 WL 4711443 (Dec. 

26, 2007). Sawyers petitioned the Ninth Circuit for 

review, arguing that the Board should have counted his 

mother’s years of residency while he was a minor toward

§1229b(a)(2)’s 7-year requirement. As in Gutierrez, the 

Court of Appeals granted the petition and remanded the 

case to the BIA. See 399 Fed. Appx. 313 (2010).

We granted the Government’s petitions for certiorari,

564 U. S. ___ (2011), consolidated the cases, and now 

reverse the Ninth Circuit’s judgments. 

II 

The Board has required each alien seeking cancellation 

of removal to satisfy §1229b(a)’s requirements on his own,

without counting a parent’s years of continuous residence

or LPR status. That position prevails if it is a reasonable

construction of the statute, whether or not it is the only 

possible interpretation or even the one a court might think 

best. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources 

Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843–844, and n. 11 

(1984); see also INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U. S. 415, 

424–425 (1999) (according Chevron deference to the 

Board’s interpretations of the INA). We think the BIA’s 

view on imputation meets that standard, and so need not 

decide if the statute permits any other construction. 

The Board’s approach is consistent with the statute’s 

text, as even respondents tacitly concede. Section 

1229b(a) does not mention imputation, much less require 
Cite as: 566 U. S. ____ (2012) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

it. The provision calls for “the alien”—not, say, “the alien 

or one of his parents”—to meet the three prerequisites for 

cancellation of removal. Similarly, several of §1229b(a)’s

other terms have statutory definitions referring to only a 

single individual. See, e.g., §1101(a)(13)(A) (“The terms

‘admission’ and ‘admitted’ mean, with respect to an alien, 

the lawful entry of the alien into the United States” (emphasis added)); §1101(a)(33) (“The term ‘residence’ means 

the place of general abode; the place of general abode of 

a person means his principal, actual dwelling” (emphasis 

added)). Respondents contend that none of this language 

“forecloses” imputation: They argue that if the Board 

allowed imputation, “[t]he alien” seeking cancellation

would “still have to satisfy the provision’s durational

requirements”—just pursuant to a different computational

rule. Brief for Respondent Martinez Gutierrez in No. 10–

1542, p. 16 (hereinafter Martinez Gutierrez Brief); see 

Brief for Respondent Sawyers in No. 10–1543, pp. 11, 15

(hereinafter Sawyers Brief). And they claim that the

Board’s history of permitting imputation under similarly

“silent” statutes supports this construction. Martinez 

Gutierrez Brief 16; see Sawyers Brief 15–16; infra, at 10– 

11. But even if so—even if the Board could adopt an

imputation rule consistent with the statute’s text—that

would not avail respondents. Taken alone, the language of

§1229b(a) at least permits the Board to go the other way—

to say that “the alien” must meet the statutory conditions 

independently, without relying on a parent’s history. 

For this reason, respondents focus on §1229b(a)’s history 

and context—particularly, the provision’s relationship to

the INA’s former §212(c) and its associated imputation

rule. Section 212(c)—§1229b(a)’s predecessor—generally

allowed the Attorney General to prevent the removal of an

alien with LPR status who had maintained a “lawful 

unrelinquished domicile of seven consecutive years” in this 

country. 8 U. S. C. §1182(c) (1994 ed.). Like §1229b(a), 
 

8 HOLDER v. MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ 

Opinion of the Court 

§212(c) was silent on imputation. Yet the Second, Third, 

and Ninth Circuits (the only appellate courts to consider

the question) concluded that, in determining eligibility for

relief under §212(c), the Board should impute a parent’s

years of domicile to his or her child. See Rosario v. INS, 

962 F. 2d 220 (CA2 1992); Lepe-Guitron v. INS, 16 F. 3d 

1021, 1024–1026 (CA9 1994); Morel v. INS, 90 F. 3d 833, 

840–842 (CA3 1996). Those courts reasoned that at common law, a minor’s domicile was “the same as that of its 

parents, since most children are presumed not legally

capable of forming the requisite intent to establish their

own domicile.” Rosario, 962 F. 2d, at 224; see Mississippi 

Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield, 490 U. S. 30, 48 

(1989) (defining “domicile” as “physical presence in a place

in connection with a certain state of mind concerning one’s

intent to remain there”). So by the time Congress replaced

§212(c) with §1229b(a), the BIA often imputed a parent’s 

years of domicile to a child in determining eligibility for 

cancellation of removal. Sawyers argues that against this

backdrop, Congress “would have understood the language 

it chose [in §1229b(a)] to provide for imputation.” Sawyers

Brief 10. 

But we cannot conclude that Congress ratified an imputation requirement when it passed §1229b(a). As all parties

agree, Congress enacted §§1229b(a)(1) and (a)(2) to resolve 

an unrelated question about §212(c)’s meaning. See id., 

at 17; Martinez Gutierrez Brief 28; Brief for Petitioner 

25. Courts had differed on whether an alien’s “seven 

consecutive years” of domicile under §212(c) all had to

post-date the alien’s obtaining LPR status. See CuevasGaspar, 430 F. 3d, at 1027–1028 (canvassing split). Congress addressed that split by creating two distinct durational conditions: the 5-year status requirement of subsection (a)(1), which runs from the time an alien becomes an

LPR, and the 7-year continuous-residency requirement of

subsection (a)(2), which can include years preceding the 
 

 

Cite as: 566 U. S. ____ (2012) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

acquisition of LPR status. In doing so, Congress eliminated the very term—“domicile”—on which the appeals courts 

had founded their imputation decisions. See supra, at 8. 

That alteration dooms respondents’ position, because the

doctrine of congressional ratification applies only when

Congress reenacts a statute without relevant change. See 

Jama v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 543 U. S. 

335, 349 (2005).3 So the statutory history here provides no 

basis for holding that the BIA flouted a congressional

command in adopting its no-imputation policy.

Nor do the INA’s purposes demand imputation here, as 

both respondents claim. According to Martinez Gutierrez,

the BIA’s approach contradicts that statute’s objectives of 

“providing relief to aliens with strong ties to the United

States” and “promoting family unity.” Martinez Gutierrez 

Brief 40, 44; see Sawyers Brief 37. We agree—indeed, we

have stated—that the goals respondents identify underlie 

or inform many provisions of immigration law. See Fiallo 

v. Bell, 430 U. S. 787, 795, n. 6 (1977); INS v. Errico, 385 

U. S. 214, 220 (1966). But they are not the INA’s only

goals, and Congress did not pursue them to the nth degree. To take one example, §1229b(a)’s third paragraph 

makes aliens convicted of aggravated felonies ineligible for 

—————— 

3Sawyers contends that §1229b(a)(2)’s replacement term—“resided

continuously”—is a “term of art” in the immigration context which

incorporates “an intent component” and so means the same thing as

“domiciled.” Sawyers Brief 25–26 (emphasis deleted). Thus, Sawyers 

argues, we should read §1229b(a) as reenacting §212(c) without meaningful change. See id., at 25. But even assuming that Congress could 

ratify judicial decisions based on the term “domicile” through a new

statute using a synonym for that term, we do not think “resided continuously” qualifies. The INA defines “residence” as a person’s “principal, actual dwelling place in fact, without regard to intent,” 8 U. S. C. 

§1101(a)(33) (emphasis added), and we find nothing to suggest that

Congress added an intent element, inconsistent with that definition, by

requiring that the residence have been maintained “continuously for 7

years.” 
 

 

 

10 HOLDER v. MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ 

Opinion of the Court 

cancellation of removal, regardless of the strength of their

family ties. See §1229b(a)(3). And more generally—as

these very cases show—not every alien who obtains LPR 

status can immediately get the same for her spouse or

minor children. See Brief for Petitioner 31–32, and n. 9 

(providing program-specific examples). We cannot read a 

silent statute as requiring (not merely allowing) imputation just because that rule would be family-friendly. 

Respondents’ stronger arguments take a different 

tack—that we should refuse to defer to the Board’s decision even assuming Congress placed the question of imputation in its hands. Respondents offer two main reasons. 

First, they contend that the Board’s approach to §1229b(a) 

cannot be squared with its acceptance of imputation under

other, similar statutory provisions. This “wil[d]” and “‘[u]nexplained inconsistency,’” Sawyers asserts, is the very

“paradigm of arbitrary agency action.” Sawyers Brief

13, 41 (emphasis deleted); see Martinez Gutierrez Brief 

52–54. Second, they argue that the Board did not appreciate its own discretion over whether to allow imputation.

The Board, they say, thought Congress had forbidden 

imputation, and so did not bring its “‘experience and 

expertise to bear’” on the issue. Id., at 31 (quoting PDK 

Labs. Inc. v. DEA, 362 F. 3d 786, 797 (CADC 2004)); see 

Sawyers Brief 38–39. These arguments are not insubstantial, but in the end neither persuades us to deny the Board

the usual deference we accord to agency interpretations. 

Start with the claim of inconsistency. The BIA has 

indeed imputed parental attributes to children under

other INA provisions that do not mention the matter.

Section 1182(k), for example, enables the Attorney General to let certain inadmissible aliens into the country if he 

finds “that inadmissibility was not known to, and could 

not have been ascertained by the exercise of reasonable 

diligence by, the immigrant before the time of departure.” 

Like §1229b(a), that provision refers to a single person 
Cite as: 566 U. S. ____ (2012) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

(“the immigrant”) and says nothing about imputation. But 

the BIA has consistently imputed a parent’s knowledge 

of inadmissibility (or lack thereof ) to a child. See, e.g., 

Senica v. INS, 16 F. 3d 1013, 1015 (CA9 1994) (“Therefore,

the BIA reasoned, the children were not entitled to relief 

under [§1182(k)] because [their mother’s] knowledge was

imputed to them”); In re Mushtaq, No. A43 968 082, 2007 

WL 4707539 (BIA, Dec. 10, 2007) (per curiam); In re Ahmed, No. A41 982 631, 2006 WL 448156 (BIA, Jan. 17,

2006) (per curiam).

Similarly, the Board imputes a parent’s abandonment

(or non-abandonment) of LPR status to her child when

determining whether that child can reenter the country as 

a “returning resident immigran[t]” under §1181(b). See 

Matter of Zamora, 17 I. & N. Dec. 395, 396 (1980) (holding that a “voluntary and intended abandonment by the

mother is imputed” to an unemancipated minor child for 

purposes of applying §1181(b)); Matter of Huang, 19 I. 

& N. Dec. 749, 755–756 (1988) (concluding that a mother 

and her children abandoned their LPR status based 

solely on the mother’s intent); In re Ali, No. A44 143 723, 

2006 WL 3088820 (BIA, Sept. 11, 2006) (holding that a

child could not have abandoned his LPR status if his 

mother had not abandoned hers). And once again, that is

so even though neither §1181(b) nor any other statutory 

provision says that the BIA should look to the parent in 

assessing the child’s eligibility for reentry. 

But Escobar provided a reasoned explanation for these 

divergent results: The Board imputes matters involving an

alien’s state of mind, while declining to impute objective

conditions or characteristics. See 24 I. & N. Dec., at 233– 

234, and n. 4. On one side of the line, knowledge of inadmissibility is all and only about a mental state. See, e.g., 

Senica, 16 F. 3d, at 1015; In re Ahmed, 2006 WL 448156. 

Likewise, abandonment of status turns on an alien’s “intention of . . . returning to the United States” to live as a 
 

 

 

12 HOLDER v. MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ 

Opinion of the Court 

permanent resident, Zamora, 17 I. & N. Dec., at 396; the 

Board thus explained that imputing abandonment is 

“consistent with the . . . longstanding policy that a child 

cannot form the intent necessary to establish his or her 

own domicile,” Escobar, 24 I. & N. Dec., at 234, n. 4. And 

as that analogy recalls, the 7-year domicile requirement of 

the former §212(c) also involved intent and so lent itself to 

imputation. See Rosario, 962 F. 2d, at 224; supra, at 8. 

But the 5- and 7-year clocks of §1229b(a) fall on the other 

side of the line, because they hinge not on any state of 

mind but on the objective facts of immigration status and 

place of residence. See Escobar, 24 I. & N. Dec., at 233 

(“[W]e find that residence is different from domicile because it ‘contains no element of subjective intent’” (quoting Cuevas-Gaspar, 430 F. 3d, at 1031 (Fernandez, J., 

dissenting))). The BIA’s varied rulings on imputation thus

largely follow from one straightforward distinction.4

 Similarly, Escobar belies respondents’ claim that the

BIA adopted its no-imputation rule only because it

thought Congress had left it no other choice. The Board, 

to be sure, did not highlight the statute’s gaps or ambiguity;

rather, it read §1229b(a)’s text to support its conclusion 

that each alien must personally meet that section’s dura-

—————— 

4Respondents aver that the BIA deviates from this principle in imputing to a child his parent’s “ ‘firm resettlement’” in another country, 

which renders an alien ineligible for asylum without regard to intent.

See Sawyers Brief 39; Martinez Gutierrez Brief 52. But the Government denies that it has a “settled imputation rule” in that context. 

Reply Brief for Petitioner 13. And the sources on which respondents

rely are slender reeds: a 40-year old ruling by a regional commissioner

(not the Board itself) that considered the conduct of both the parents 

and the child, see Matter of Ng, 12 I. & N. Dec. 411 (1967), and a Ninth 

Circuit decision imputing a parent’s resettlement even though the 

Board had focused only on the child’s actions, see Vang v. INS, 146 

F. 3d 1114, 1117 (1998). Based on these scant decisions, we cannot 

conclude that the Board has any policy on imputing resettlement, let

alone one inconsistent with Escobar. 
 

 

Cite as: 566 U. S. ____ (2012) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

tional requirements. See 24 I. & N. Dec., at 235. But the 

Board also explained that “there [was] no precedent” in its 

decisions for imputing status or residence, and distinguished those statutory terms, on the ground just explained, from domicile or abandonment of LPR status. Id., 

at 234; see id., at 233–234, and n. 4. And the Board argued that allowing imputation under §1229b(a) would 

create anomalies in administration of the statutory 

scheme by permitting even those who had not obtained 

LPR status—or could not do so because of a criminal 

history—to become eligible for cancellation of removal. 

See id., at 234–235, and n. 5. The Board therefore saw 

neither a “logical” nor a “legal” basis for adopting a policy 

of imputation. Id., at 233. We see nothing in this decision 

to suggest that the Board thought its hands tied, or that it

might have reached a different result if assured it could do 

so. To the contrary, the decision expressed the BIA’s view,

based on its experience implementing the INA, that statutory text, administrative practice, and regulatory policy all 

pointed in one direction: toward disallowing imputation.

In making that case, the decision reads like a multitude

of agency interpretations—not the best example, but far

from the worst—to which we and other courts have routinely deferred. We see no reason not to do so here. 

Because the Board’s rejection of imputation under

§1229b(a) is “based on a permissible construction of the

statute,” Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843, we reverse the Ninth 

Circuit’s judgments and remand the cases for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

It is so ordered.