IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-51449

DEEPAK BUDHATHOKI, CLESMY E. CANALES GONZALES, 

KATHERINE YURLIETH TURCIOS-PEREZ, on behalf of themselves and all 

other similarly situated persons.

 Plaintiffs - Appellants

v.

KIRSTJEN M. NIELSEN, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

HOMELAND SECURITY, Director of Department of Homeland Security, in 

his official capacity; LEON RODRIGUEZ, Director of United States 

Citizenship and Immigration Services, in his official capacity; MARIO R. 

ORTIZ, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services District Director 

for San Antonio, in his official capacity, 

 Defendants - Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Texas

Before STEWART, Chief Judge, CLEMENT and SOUTHWICK, Circuit 

Judges.

LESLIE H. SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judge:

The plaintiffs appeal the dismissal of their suit challenging a federal 

agency’s denial of their applications for a specific immigrant status. They 

argue the agency erred when it determined that orders each applicant received 

from a Texas state court did not qualify them for the status. We AFFIRM.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

August 1, 2018

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Deepak Budhathoki, born in August 1996, is a native of Nepal. Clesmy 

Gonzales, born in November 1996, is a native of Honduras. Katharine Yurlieth 

Turcios-Perez, born in June 1994, is a native of Honduras. These plaintiffs, 

who were each over the age of 18, filed what a Texas statute labels Suits 

Affecting Parent-Child Relationship (“SAPCR”). TEX. FAM. CODE § 101.032. 

Although the Texas Family Code generally defines child or minor as “a person 

under 18 years of age who is not and has not been married or who has not had 

the disabilities of minority removed for general purposes,” id. § 101.003(a), it 

also provides: “In the context of child support, ‘child’ includes a person over 18 

years of age for whom a person may be obligated to pay child support,” id. 

§ 101.003(b) (emphasis added). Thus, child support can be sought in a SAPCR 

suit for someone over 18 years old. See id. § 154.006(a). 

In the SAPCR suits, which were filed in three different Travis County

district courts,1 the state courts awarded child support and made certain

findings. First, the applicants were not yet 21 and were unmarried. Second, 

all applicants had been abandoned by their parents. Finally, returning to their 

home countries was not in their best interest. The state courts also retained

jurisdiction over the plaintiffs until certain events occurred, such as marriage, 

death, joining the army, and either graduating from high school or turning 18, 

whichever occurred later. 

 

1 The three SAPCR orders were entered by two different associate judges. Associate 

judges can be appointed by district judges in Texas if the position has been authorized by the 

Commissioners Court of the county; one such judge can assist multiple courts in the same 

county; each judge serves at the will of the appointing district judge(s). TEX. GOV’T CODE

§§ 54A.102, 54A.105. The district judge can refer all or portions of civil cases to the associate 

judge, who renders a decision with the same force of law as the referring court. Id. 

§§ 54A.106, 54A.111. There is no challenge here to the associate judges’ delegated authority 

to render final decisions.

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After the plaintiffs received the state court SAPCR orders, they filed 

Special Immigrant Juvenile (“SIJ”) status petitions with the United States 

Customs and Immigration Services (“USCIS” or “agency”). We will discuss 

that status later. The agency requested more evidence to demonstrate if “the 

dependency order is valid under Texas state law, given the applicant’s age.” 

Because each plaintiff “had reached 18 years of age prior to obtaining the 

SAPCR,” the agency needed “evidence that the court order was issued in 

compliance with state law governing juvenile court dependency” as the law

requires. 

The plaintiffs responded to the requests for evidence. Subsequently, a 

Field Officer Director denied each petition and gave notice of the right to an 

administrative appeal. Instead, plaintiffs2 filed suit in the United States 

District Court for the Western District of Texas, seeking “declaratory relief 

regarding the definition of ‘child’ under Texas state law and the proper 

interpretation and application of the terms ‘juvenile court’ and ‘dependent,’ as 

those terms are defined by federal law.”3 Concluding that the SAPCR orders 

were not proper ones to support SIJ status, the district court granted 

defendants’ motion to dismiss. The plaintiffs timely appealed. 

 

2 An original plaintiff, Ramon Soto Carias, was dismissed and Turcios-Perez added. 

3 8 C.F.R. § 103.3(a)(ii) permits the petitioner to file an appeal with the Administrative 

Appeal Office of the Agency, but it does not require it. See also 8 C.F.R. § 204.11(e). Unlike 

final orders of removal, exhaustion of administrative remedies is not required by the 

Immigration and Nationality Act for denials of special immigrant status. See 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1252(d)(2). As a result, filing suit in the district court was proper. 

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DISCUSSION

A district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss is reviewed de novo. 

Wampler v. Sw. Bell Tel. Co., 597 F.3d 741, 744 (5th Cir. 2010). Review of an 

agency’s “administrative decision is conducted according to the deferential 

standards of the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”), which permits the 

setting aside of agency actions, findings, and conclusions that are ‘arbitrary, 

capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law’ 

or ‘unsupported by substantial evidence.’” Cedar Lake Nursing Home v. U.S. 

Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 619 F.3d 453, 456 (5th Cir. 2010) (quoting 5 

U.S.C. §§ 706(2)(A)–(E)).

The plaintiffs make these arguments: (1) both the agency and the district 

court ignored limitations on their actions imposed by the APA and by federal 

common law rules of preclusion; (2) the district court did not have the full 

administrative record, so remand is warranted; and (3) this court should 

consider certain documents that were not before the district court. We will 

take those arguments in order after first providing context for SIJ status.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 included a new form of 

immigration relief for non-citizen children. SIJ status provides a path for 

certain children to become lawful residents of the United States. The statute 

has been amended several times since 1990. To understand what the statute 

requires now, it is useful to know about the initial concept of SIJ status and 

how it has evolved. For an overview, we refer to the USCIS Policy Manual, 

“which is the agency’s centralized online repository for USCIS’s immigration 

policies.” U.S. CITIZEN AND IMMIGRATION SERV., POLICY MANUAL, “About the 

Policy Manual” (2017), 2014 WL 10102392. The Manual governs the USCIS 

in the following ways:

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The USCIS Policy Manual contains the official policies of USCIS 

and must be followed by all USCIS officers in the performance of 

their duties. The Policy Manual does not create any substantive or 

procedural right or benefit that is legally enforceable by any party 

against the United States or its agencies or officers or any other 

person.

Id.

The 1990 enactment “[e]stablished an SIJ classification for children 

declared dependent upon a juvenile court in the United States, eligible for longterm foster care, and for whom it would not be in their best interest to return 

to their country of origin.” 6 U.S. CITIZEN AND IMMIGRATION SERV., POLICY 

MANUAL J.1, “Purpose and Background” (2017), 2017 WL 443002. The statute

initially required the child to be declared dependent upon the court and to be 

eligible for foster care. Id. Then, the 1994 amendments “[e]xpanded eligibility 

from those declared dependent on a juvenile court to children whom such a 

court has legally committed to, or placed under the custody of, a state agency 

or department.” Id. In 1998, the statute was amended again in order to 

“[l]imit[] eligibility to children declared dependent on the court because of 

abuse, neglect, or abandonment.” Id. 

In 2008, the most recent statutory amendments “[e]xpanded eligibility 

to include children whom a juvenile court has placed under the custody of a 

person or entity appointed by a state or juvenile court.” Id. Now, SIJ status is 

available to 

an immigrant who is present in the United States –

(i) who has been declared dependent on a juvenile court 

located in the United States or whom such a court has legally 

committed to, or placed under the custody of, an agency or 

department of a State, or an individual or entity appointed by a 

State or juvenile court located in the United States, and whose 

reunification with 1 or both of the immigrant’s parents is not viable 

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due to abuse, neglect, abandonment, or a similar basis found under 

State law.

8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J). By regulation, a juvenile court is “a court located in 

the United States having jurisdiction under State law to make judicial 

determinations about the custody and care of juveniles.” 8 C.F.R. § 204.11(a).

Once the applicant has the necessary predicate order, he must submit 

his application to the agency, attaching the state court order. See id.

§ 204.11(d).4 The petitioner bears the burden of establishing eligibility. 8 

U.S.C. § 1361. A successful application also requires the consent of the 

Secretary of Homeland Security to the grant of the SIJ status, which can be 

given through directors of USCIS. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J)(iii).

Thus, a state court must make initial determinations, and the USCIS 

then considers if they match the requirements for SIJ status. See David B. 

Thronson, Kids Will Be Kids? Reconsidering Conceptions of Children’s Rights 

Underlying Immigration Law, 63 OHIO ST. L.J. 979, 1004 (2002). Our 

questions are whether the right kind of court issued the right kind of order.

1. Review under the Administrative Procedures Act

The plaintiffs make several arguments that are based on constraints 

imposed on agencies themselves and on courts when reviewing agency 

decisions. Though the plaintiffs did not break their arguments into quite these 

segments, the following identifies the administrative law issues in the order in 

 

4 A regulation details the documentation to be submitted when seeking SIJ status, but 

it has not been updated to reflect statutory changes. For example, proof is required that a 

juvenile court “found the beneficiary eligible for long-term foster care,” but that is no longer 

a statutory requirement. Compare 8 C.F.R. § 204.11(d)(2)(ii), with 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J). 

Changes to the rules have been proposed but not finalized. Special Immigrant Juvenile 

Petitions, 76 Fed. Reg. 54978, 54986 (proposed Sept. 6, 2011) (would be codified at 8 C.F.R. 

§§ 204, 205, and 245).

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which we will discuss them. (A) The USCIS acted beyond its authority in 

deciding that the state courts did not have jurisdiction to enter the orders to 

support SIJ status for these plaintiffs and that the court orders did not make 

the necessary findings. (B) Regardless of what the USCIS could decide, the 

state courts had jurisdiction and the orders contained the proper findings. (C) 

The district court substituted its reasoning in upholding the USCIS decision 

instead of analyzing the allegedly flawed reasoning actually used by the 

agency. (D) The USCIS acted arbitrarily and capriciously. 

A. Agency authority to determine sufficiency of state court’s order

The plaintiffs argue that the USCIS exceeded its statutory authority by 

concluding they had failed to show that the Texas state court had jurisdiction. 

That finding was stated in the final paragraph of the agency’s denial of SIJ 

status:

In conclusion, as the evidence submitted in conjunction with 

your I-360 petition and response to the [Request for Evidence], is 

insufficient to meet your burden of showing that the SAPCR 

included with your SIJ petition was issued pursuant to the court’s 

jurisdiction over you as a juvenile, your request for SIJ 

classification is hereby denied. 

That single sentence summarizes the agency’s longer description of the 

procedural background and its analysis of the law. The agency determined the 

effect of each state court order was simply to require child support to be paid. 

These plaintiffs were all older than age 18. The agency did not challenge the 

plaintiffs’ argument that child support could be ordered in Texas for a person 

age 18 or older and until certain events, such as high school graduation,

occurred. The flaw in the case, the agency held, was that nothing showed that 

any of the orders was issued by a court “having jurisdiction under state law to 

make judicial determinations about the care and custody of juveniles.” See 8 

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C.F.R. § 204.11(a). In sum, USCIS concluded that requiring child support is 

not a care and custody determination, and under state law individuals 18 years 

and older were not juveniles even if some are eligible for child support. The 

plaintiffs seek to overcome that deficiency by arguing that each state court 

order was “a valid custody or dependency order for SIJ purposes because the 

order affects the duties of parents to support their children.” 

We will explain in the next section of the opinion what the operative 

Texas statutes state. The issue analyzed first is whether this federal agency 

had the authority to resolve these two issues about the relevant orders: (1) 

were they qualifying orders, and (2) if they were, does the federal agency have 

authority to decide the state court had no jurisdiction to issue them? Because 

of our decision on the first issue, namely, that these were not qualifying orders, 

we will only briefly discuss the authority of an agency to decide that a state 

court had no jurisdiction to act.

The plaintiffs claim that the USCIS Policy Manual supports their view 

that the agency had to accept the state court orders as qualifying them for SIJ 

status. They refer us to a section that disclaims any desire by USCIS to control 

state courts on how they are to apply their own statutes:

There is nothing in USCIS guidance that should be 

construed as instructing juvenile courts on how to apply their own 

state law. Juvenile courts should follow their state laws on issues 

such as when to exercise their authority, evidentiary standards, 

and due process.

6 U.S. CITIZEN AND IMMIGRATION SERV., POLICY MANUAL J.3, “Documentation 

and Evidence” (2017), 2017 WL 443004. Just before that language, though, 

the Manual also states: “The juvenile court order (or orders) must provide the 

required findings regarding dependency or custody, parental reunification, and 

best interests.” Id. The Manual is simply indicating that state courts need to 

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follow state and not federal law in ruling on what comes before them, but it is 

also an obligation of the USCIS to review the orders for the needed findings.

A federal agency must be able to review a state court order offered as 

support for some federal benefit to determine its consistency with the federal 

requirements. The plaintiffs do not show us any authority to the contrary, and 

common sense compels the validity of the point. For example, prior versions 

of the SIJ status statute required that an applicant have been deemed eligible 

for long-term foster care. Immigration Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101–649, § 153, 

104 Stat. 4978, 5005 (1990). Surely the agency needed to be able to examine 

the order and determine if in fact such eligibility had been determined. How 

searching that examination can be is the only real issue. 

The dispute here is about the discretion, indeed the obligation in 

USCIS’s view, of the federal agency to decide the sufficiency for federal 

purposes of Texas state court child support orders. The USCIS examined those 

orders and did not say the state courts had no jurisdiction to order child 

support for individuals over the age of 18. Instead, it concluded that the state 

court had no jurisdiction under Texas law to declare the care and custody of 

someone who was at least 18 years old and, besides, had not actually declared

dependency, i.e., the orders did not in the language of the Manual make the 

“required findings regarding dependency or custody.” 6 U.S. CITIZEN AND 

IMMIGRATION SERV., POLICY MANUAL J.3, “Documentation and Evidence”

(2017), 2017 WL 443004. The closest the state court got to the SIJ 

requirements was simply to say the orders could be “disclosed and used to 

support a petition” for SIJ status. 

A similar argument in the SIJ context has been addressed by one circuit 

court of appeals. See M.B. v. Quarantillo, 301 F.3d 109, 110 (3d Cir. 2002). 

There, USCIS had refused to consent to commencement of the plaintiff’s 

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juvenile court proceedings because, under its analysis of state law, the plaintiff 

was too old to be eligible for a dependency order and thus would not be able to 

satisfy the SIJ requirements. Id. This initial consent was necessary because 

the applicant was in federal custody, and the Secretary of the Department of 

Homeland Security had to consent before a state juvenile court could act. Id.;

see also 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J)(iii). As a result, the agency’s determination 

occurred before any state court proceedings. Quarantillo, 301 F.3d at 116. 

Nonetheless, the Third Circuit rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the state 

juvenile court would be the sole judge of its own jurisdiction, leaving the agency 

without the authority to make a preemptive decision that an individual did not 

meet the “jurisdictional age of [the] juvenile court.” Id. at 111. The USCIS 

“can reasonably consider the requirements of a petition for special immigrant 

juvenile classification” to determine whether, under state law, “allowing the 

juvenile court proceeding to go forward would have amounted to . . . an exercise 

in futility.” Id. at 115–16. 

This sort of agency obligation to review state court orders for their 

sufficiency is certainly the approach of the regulations identifying the 

documents that must be submitted in support of SIJ status: 

(2) One or more documents which include: 

(i) A juvenile court order, issued by a court of competent 

jurisdiction located in the United States, showing that the court 

has found the beneficiary to be dependent upon that court; 

(ii) A juvenile court order, issued by a court of competent 

jurisdiction located in the United States, showing that the court 

has found the beneficiary eligible for long-term foster care; and 

(iii) Evidence of a determination made in judicial or administrative 

proceedings by a court or agency recognized by the juvenile court 

and authorized by law to make such decisions, that it would not be 

in the beneficiary’s best interest to be returned to the country of 

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nationality or last habitual residence of the beneficiary or of his or 

her parent or parents.

8 C.F.R. § 204.11(d). 

The regulation requires both that the court be one of “competent 

jurisdiction” and that it have made certain findings.5 Whether a state court 

order submitted to a federal agency for the purpose of gaining a federal benefit 

made the necessary rulings very much is a question of federal law, not state 

law, and the agency had authority to examine the orders for that purpose. 

Finally, we examine the plaintiffs’ argument that questions of how to 

apply the state court orders fall into the general category of the obligation of 

federal courts to give full faith and credit to the rulings of state courts. A 

federal statute provides that the records and proceedings of state courts “shall 

have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States” as 

they have in that state. 28 U.S.C. § 1738. By its own terms, though, the statute 

does not apply to federal agencies examining state court proceedings. 

American Airlines, Inc. v. Dep’t of Transp., 202 F.3d 788, 800 (5th Cir. 2000). 

A federal agency must consider, though, and so does this court in reviewing 

the agency’s decision, whether the policies favoring full faith and credit to the 

state court orders, such as repose and concerns about federalism, outweigh any 

federal interests. See id. This balancing test was not applied by the district 

court nor the agency. The plaintiffs claim that was error.

 

5 USCIS policy guidance referenced by the district court has the agency look even more 

searchingly than we are discussing here. It directs USCIS to decide whether the SIJ benefit 

was “sought primarily for the purpose of obtaining the status of an alien lawfully admitted 

for permanent residence, rather than for the purpose of obtaining relief from abuse or neglect 

[or abandonment.]” USCIS Interoffice Memorandum from William R. Yates, Assoc. Dir. for 

Operations, to Reg. Dirs. & Dist. Dirs. (May 27, 2004), at 2. Neither the USCIS nor the 

district court made a finding about “primary purpose.”

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Our response is to agree with the USCIS that there was no failure to give 

proper respect to the state court order. The state court ordered child support. 

The agency, concluding that for SIJ status there needed to be more, refused to 

grant the special status but did not interfere with the operation of the state 

court’s support orders. The state and federal orders had different roles, and 

each continues to perform those functions.

Whatever responsibilities are exclusively for the state court, USCIS 

must evaluate if the actions of the state court make the applicant eligible for 

SIJ status. We now turn to how the agency exercised its review authority.

B. Sufficiency of state court rulings as to the plaintiffs

Before deciding anything about state law, we summarize our earlier 

discussion of the federal requirements for the grant of SIJ status. The SIJ 

statute ties eligibility to whether the applicant has been the subject of certain 

state court orders. Explaining, the Manual states:

The petitioner must be the subject of a juvenile court order that 

declares him or her dependent on a juvenile court, or legally 

commits to or places the petitioner under the custody of either an 

agency or department of a state, or a person or entity appointed by 

a state or juvenile court.

6 U.S. CITIZEN AND IMMIGRATION SERV., POLICY MANUAL J.2, “Eligibility 

Requirements” (2017), 2017 WL 443003. Thus, there are three bases for a state 

court order to satisfy the dependency requirement of SIJ status: (1) if the court 

determines the juvenile is dependent on the court; (2) if the court places the 

juvenile into state custody; or (3) if the court places the juvenile into the 

custody of an individual or entity. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(27)(J)(i). Here, there is 

no argument that a court placed any plaintiff into the custody of the state, 

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some other entity, or an individual. Thus, the only possibility is that they were 

made dependent on the court, and there was jurisdiction to do so.

The three orders each found that a parent had a support obligation that 

would continue until one of several events occurred. Each also set the amount 

of the periodic payments and concluded “that this Order may be disclosed and 

used to support a petition for Special Immigrant Juvenile status.” In sum, the 

court in each case ordered a parent to pay child support and then suggested 

such an order was relevant for SIJ status. There was no declaration of 

dependency. The plaintiffs, though, have argued that “the SAPCR is a valid 

custody or dependency order for SIJ purposes because the order affects the 

duties of parents to support their children.” 

In considering the adequacy of these state court orders, we compare what 

federal law requires that a state court have done with what Texas law permits 

it to do. The applicable federal regulation defines a “juvenile court” as “a court 

located in the United States having jurisdiction under State law to make 

judicial determinations about the custody and care of juveniles.” 8 C.F.R. 

§ 204.11(a). Although the regulation permits an applicant for SIJ status to be 

someone who has not yet become age 21, what controls on eligibility for that 

status is the state law governing decisions over the care and custody of 

juveniles. See Id. § 204.11(c). The relevant state law here provides that in 

most family law contexts, child is an individual under 18 years old. See TEX.

FAM. CODE § 101.003(a). The only statutory exception is this: “In the context 

of child support, ‘child’ includes a person over 18 years of age for whom a person 

may be obligated to pay child support.” Id. § 101.003(b). Another statute 

provides that a court may order support for a child until age 18, or until high 

school graduation, or until certain other events. Id. § 154.001(a). From these 

provisions, it certainly seems proper for the state court to have entered orders

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that awarded child support to each of the plaintiffs, who were over the age of 

18 but qualified apparently because they were still in high school and not yet 

age 21. The federal question, though, is not whether these are valid support 

orders, but whether they are the equivalent of declaring the child dependent 

on a juvenile court. 

As we have discussed, the USCIS is entitled to exercise some diligence 

in its examination of state court orders offered in support of SIJ status. 

Guidance on whether these orders involved a declaration of “dependency” in 

this context can be found in the Manual, which uses a California statute “[f]or 

an example of state law governing declarations of dependency.” 6 U.S. CITIZEN 

AND IMMIGRATION SERV., POLICY MANUAL J.2 “Eligibility Requirements” 

(2017), 2017 WL 443003, n.5 (citing CAL. WELF. & INST. CODE § 300). That 

statute allows the court to make temporary custody determinations while 

trying to ameliorate potentially harmful aspects of the child’s family 

environment. See In re Ethan C., 279 P.3d 1052, 1059–61 (Cal. 2012). 

We conclude, then, that before a state court ruling constitutes a 

dependency order, it must in some way address custody or at least supervision. 

That is emphasized in guidance from the agency in interpreting the language 

from a prior version of the statute. In an opinion on an administrative appeal, 

the predecessor agency to USCIS held that “[t]he acceptance of jurisdiction 

over the custody of a child by a juvenile court, when the child’s parents have 

effectively relinquished control of the child, makes the child dependent upon 

the juvenile court.” Jose A. Menjivar, (INS Administrative Appeals Unit, Jan. 

3, 1995), 1995 WL 18235939 at *2. In sustaining the appeal, the agency relied 

on statements from one of the drafters of the Texas Family Code. Id. This 

drafter explained that a family court’s designation of a nonparent as managing 

conservator over a juvenile in a case where parental rights have been 

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terminated is the equivalent of a dependency order. Id. We know from our 

earlier discussion of amendments to the statute governing SIJ status that 

placing the child in the custody of someone or some entity is not required, but 

at least the person must be declared to be dependent on the court. See 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1101(a)(27)(J). The plaintiffs urge that because the state courts could 

exercise jurisdiction over the plaintiffs for child support orders, the plaintiffs 

were dependent on the juvenile court for that purpose. “Dependent” for SIJ 

purposes, though, demands that a state court do more than impose a financial 

obligation on parents.

We proceed one step further in order to analyze, should our analysis of 

the language of the orders have overlooked some implication, whether the 

absence of formulaic language in the state court orders is all that blocks their 

utility for SIJ status. We do not think so. Earlier we discussed the arguments 

about full faith and credit. Under the statute we mentioned, 28 U.S.C. § 1738,

full faith and credit should not be given to an earlier state court ruling unless 

the relevant legal issue was “fully and fairly considered.” See Underwriters 

Nat’l Assurance Co. v. N.C. Life and Accident and Health Ins. Guar. Ass’n, 455 

U.S. 691, 707 (1982). We expect that obligation applies to agencies under 

American Airlines, 202 F.3d at 800, which discussed federal agencies’

consideration of state court orders, inasmuch as a federal court on review of 

the agency action will need to make these inquiries.

Applying that obligation, and as far as the records here show, the state 

court proceedings were not adversarial. The court orders provide that the 

parents filed a waiver of service and did not appear. Further, there were no 

arguments or recorded consideration by the courts of whether any of the 

subjects of the support orders should be made dependent on those courts or 

placed in the care and custody of another person or some institution, and if so, 

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whether there was authority to do so despite the age of the plaintiffs. Including 

better language in the state court orders would at most take us to the deferred 

step in our analysis in this opinion, which is whether the state court could 

declare someone who was at least 18 years old dependent on the court. 

In concluding this discussion, we briefly address Texas caselaw about 

the jurisdiction of its courts. We make no holding as to jurisdiction, both 

because it is unnecessary and because the caselaw is solely from two 

intermediate Texas courts. Opinions from such courts are persuasive but not 

binding in our analysis of state law. See ExxonMobile Corp. v. Elec. Reliability 

Serv., Inc., 868 F.3d 408, 414 (5th Cir. 2018). The caselaw, though, supports

our conclusion that the orders in this case cannot be considered a 

determination of care and custody. 

One appeal discussed a SAPCR suit brought in 2009 seeking a 

conservatorship and SIJ findings, but the court denied the relief. In Re 

J.L.E.O., No. 14-10-00628-CV, 2011 WL 664642, at *1 (Tex. App.—Houston 

[14th Dist.] Feb. 24, 2011, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication). 

After reaching age 18, the plaintiff filed a request for a judgment declaring the 

findings needed for SIJ status, but the declaration was refused — it is unclear 

if this was a new suit or a motion filed in the existing one. Id. at *1. The

appellate court held that because the plaintiff “was no longer a child as defined 

by the Texas Family Code. . . , the juvenile court no longer had jurisdiction over 

the person to make the requested findings” of care and custody Id. at *2.

Another Texas Court of Appeals decision, entered after briefing in this 

case was completed, adopted the reasoning of In re J.L.E.O. to conclude that 

where the plaintiff was already 18, the court no longer had jurisdiction to make 

determinations about his care and custody as required by the SIJ statute. In

Interest of B.A.L., No. 01-16-00136-CV, 2017 WL 3027660, at *6 (Tex. App.—

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Houston [1st Dist.] July 18, 2017, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for 

publication). 

The plaintiffs here distinguish In re J.L.E.O. by arguing it analyzed 

“whether the [trial] court correctly declined to make care and custody orders 

for want of jurisdiction in a suit brought pursuant only to the Texas 

Declaratory Judgment Act — and not pursuant to any provision of the Texas 

Family Code.” The distinction is meaningless. Regardless of the procedural 

mechanism used by that plaintiff, the court construed provisions of the Texas 

Family Code. It summarized that “in some states, the court’s jurisdiction over 

juveniles may be extended” after the individual turned age 18, but “Texas has 

no similar provision.” In re J.L.E.O., 2011 WL 664642 at *2 n.5 (citations

omitted). According to the J.L.E.O. court, there is a three-year gap in Texas 

between the state-law age of majority (18) after which care and custody can no 

longer be ordered and the outer limits of the federal regulation for SIJ 

eligibility (21). See id.

In summary, the USCIS properly determined that the state court orders 

for child support were not the equivalent of the necessary “care and custody” 

rulings required for SIJ status. Whether the Texas law even allows its courts 

to make such rulings for individuals who have passed their eighteenth 

birthday is an issue we leave for another day.

C. District court’s obligation to rely on agency reasoning

The plaintiffs argue that the district court relied on reasoning not 

employed by the agency when upholding the USCIS decision. Courts must 

focus on the justifications expressed by the agency at the time of its ruling. If 

an agency decides based on invalid reasons, “[t]he reviewing court should not 

attempt itself to make up for such deficiencies; we may not supply a reasoned 

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basis for the agency’s action that the agency itself has not given.” Liwanag v. 

INS, 872 F.2d 685, 692 (5th Cir. 1989) (quoting Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n of 

U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983)). But we 

need not require pellucid clarity “if the agency’s [analysis] may reasonably be 

discerned.” Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n, 463 U.S. at 43 (quoting Bowman 

Transp. Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight Sys., Inc., 419 U.S. 281, 286 (1974)).

The plaintiffs’ argument is based on its characterization of what the 

USCIS decided. Each decision included the following language: “the evidence 

submitted in conjunction with your I-360 petition and response to the RFE [] 

is insufficient to meet your burden of showing that the SAPCR included with 

your SIJ petition was issued pursuant to the court’s jurisdiction over you as a 

juvenile, [so] your request for SIJ classification is hereby denied.” The 

plaintiffs then argue that the agency changed its claimed justification in the 

district court, where USCIS pointed out, quite accurately as we have discussed, 

that the state court orders were for child support and never declared 

dependency. 

We do not see the discrepancy. The USCIS summarized the Texas 

statute that a child or minor must be under age 18 and that the order itself 

required support payments to continue until the applicant reached age 18 or 

until certain later events occurred, like high school graduation. The USCIS 

noted that what the state courts ordered was child support. It remarked that 

the applicants argued that such an order was an SIJ dependency or custody 

order “because the order affect[ed] the duties of parents to support their 

children.” Having referenced the state law that minors are those under 18, 

having said that an extension beyond that age for child support was ordered, 

then having described the plaintiffs’ reasoning for why these orders were “valid 

custody or dependency orders,” the USCIS effectively stated its disagreement 

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by saying it was not convinced that “the SAPCR was issued by a juvenile court

making a care and custody determination of a juvenile.” 

The district court did analyze and agree with the agency’s arguments 

about what is required for a dependency order to support SIJ status. It also 

discussed the plaintiffs’ insistence that this was a new justification. The 

district court found the portion of the agency decision we just quoted — the

order was not from “a juvenile court making a care and custody determination

of a juvenile” — to be the reasoning that no dependency order was actually 

entered. 

Not central to our resolution, but at least of interest is the plaintiffs’ 

initial characterization of the USCIS’s decisions. Both the original and 

amended complaints challenged “USCIS’s denial of Plaintiff’s SIJ petition on 

the basis that a person who has reached the age of 18 is not a ‘child’ under the 

Texas Family Code and, therefore, not ‘dependent’ on a ‘juvenile court.’” 

The district court did not adopt a post-hoc justification for its decision.

D. Arbitrary and capricious decision

The plaintiffs also claim USCIS’s denials were arbitrary and capricious. 

Agency action is arbitrary and capricious “when it is ‘so implausible that it 

could not be ascribed to a difference in view or the product of agency expertise.’” 

Wilson v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 991 F.2d 1211, 1215 (5th Cir. 1993) (citation 

omitted). The district court held that the denials were not arbitrary and 

capricious because the agency looked for evidence that the Texas court could 

have found the plaintiffs to be dependent juveniles. Seeing no statutory basis 

for making that determination, the agency denied the applications. The agency 

considered both state law and its own regulations that set the requirements 

for dependency orders. The letters of denial reference the fact that state courts

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hearing SAPCR cases may exercise jurisdiction over individuals older than 18 

for the limited purpose of child support but the otherwise applicable definition 

for a child is one who is under 18 years old. 

The only order as to each of the plaintiffs was one for child support, 

causing the agency to conclude there was insufficient evidence of a valid

dependency order. It then denied the petitions. The agency relied on state law 

and its own regulations to make the determination that the SAPCR orders did 

not comply with what SIJ status petitions require. We agree with the district 

court that the agency’s decision was not arbitrary or capricious.

Thus, we reject each of the arguments about defects in the agency and 

district court rulings under the APA. We now turn to the remaining issues.

 

2. Motion to take judicial notice

The plaintiffs have moved in this court to have us take judicial notice of 

certain documents. We review first the request to take notice of Ramon Soto 

Carias’s USCIS proceedings and then the request to take notice of the 

supplemental SAPCR orders. 

Originally, Soto Carias was a plaintiff in this action, but the agency 

reconsidered, reversed its denial of his petition, and granted him SIJ status. 

The plaintiffs argue that ruling is relevant to their case and, because the 

documents are a matter of public record, they should be judicially noticed 

under Federal Rule of Evidence 201. 

Rule 201(b) permits a court to take notice of facts “generally known 

within the trial court’s territorial jurisdiction” or facts that “can be accurately 

and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be 

questioned.” FED. R. EVID. 201(b). Such a request may be denied, though, 

where granting the motion would “undermine the general rule that a party 

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may not add documents to the record that were not presented to the district 

court.” Board of Miss. Levee Comm’rs v. EPA, 674 F.3d 409, 417 n.4 (5th Cir. 

2012) (citation omitted). There, this court denied a request to supplement the 

record or take judicial notice of an official report prepared by the Corps of 

Engineers after determining the information in the supplemental materials 

was not necessary to deciding the case. Id. 

The documents involving Soto Carias all predate the district court’s 

decision and could have been provided to that court. We also do not see that 

the materials are relevant to our decision. We are examining the validity of 

the agency’s decisions that, as to the three plaintiffs, qualifying dependency 

orders were not entered. We have concluded that the decision was correct. If 

the Soto Carias documents might show inconsistent reasoning, and we do not 

hold they do, the time for injecting that into the district court’s deliberations 

has passed. We deny the request.

The plaintiffs also ask that we take judicial notice of additional orders 

entered in each of the plaintiffs’ SAPCR cases. They were entered two months 

after the district court entered its order, and that court relied in part on the 

absence of any declaration of dependency. In what were called “motions to 

clarify,” though perhaps “motions to enhance” would have been more accurate, 

the plaintiffs sought an additional order in each case. The state court complied. 

Each order states that the petitioner was a child under Texas Family Code 

Section 101.003(b); that there was a basis for a child support order; and that 

the petitioner was “dependent on this Court pursuant to this Court’s authority 

under Texas Family Code 154.001(a)(1) and 154.002.” 

Our analysis has not relied on the absence of some magic words in the 

state court orders. We discussed why “dependency” for SIJ status purposes 

has a specific federal meaning. Merely saying, now, that the order was one 

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declaring dependency does not address that problem. Regardless, “the focal 

point for judicial review should be the administrative record already in 

existence, not some new record made initially in the reviewing court.” Camp v. 

Pitts, 411 U.S. 138, 142 (1973). These documents are not part of the 

administrative record, could not have been considered by the agency making 

the decision, and are therefore irrelevant to this appeal.

We deny the plaintiffs’ motion to supplement. 

3. Entire record

The plaintiffs argue the district court failed to consider the entire 

administrative record, which is reflected in that court’s failure to reference the 

SAPCR petitions. According to the plaintiffs, the record, when properly 

considered, demonstrates the agency had sufficient evidence to conclude that 

the SAPCR orders were issued by a juvenile court. We interpret the brief to 

concede, though, that those petitions were actually before that court. 

The plaintiffs rely on one of our precedents in which we reversed so the 

district court could consider the entire administrative record. United States v. 

Menendez, 48 F.3d 1401, 1410 (5th Cir. 1995). There, the relevant statute 

required the government to file the entire administrative record with the 

district court, and that had not been done. Id. at 1409. The relevant statute 

here is Section 706 of the APA, which allows the court to review only “those 

parts of [the record] cited by a party.” 5 U.S.C. § 706. The real issue the 

plaintiffs raise is not that the SAPCR petitions were absent from the record 

but that they were absent from the court’s analysis. Menendez does not require 

the court to refer to any particular set of documents. 

AFFIRMED. MOTION TO SUPPLEMENT RECORD DENIED.

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