Source: http://www.abilblog.com/us-blog/category/kerry-v-din
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 15:02:33+00:00

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Is Being Anti-Trump A New Ground Of Inadmissibility?
After Decunah indicated he was anti-Trump as he had nothing to hide, the CBP officer engaged in further questioning about why he opposed Trump, and the Canadian entrant spoke about the Affordable Care Act and some of the outrageous statements that Trump has made towards minorities. Then from there, the questioning moved on, according to Decunah, to determine if he and the two others in his group were extremists or not. He was asked about where he had been, and if he has ever been to the Middle East. The CBP officer then asked him about his political engagements, to which Dacunah responded that he had been a member of the NDP (New Democratic Party) in the past.
Of course, the CBP officer can rely on other grounds of inadmissibility under the INA. One potential ground is under INA 212(a)(3)(A)(i), which allows a consular or border officer to find inadmissible one, if there are reasonable grounds to believe that he or she seeks to enter the United States to engage principally or incidentally in “any other unlawful activity.” It is purely speculative and a stretch for a CBP officer to assume that an anti- Trump protestor, as opposed to a pro-Trump supporter, may more likely engage in a form of civil disobedience, resulting in unlawful activities such as blocking traffic. It is even more absurd to refuse entry to one who will engage in “silent disruption.” The First Amendment of the US Constitution ought to preclude the assumption that exercise of the right to peaceably assemble is likely to involve the violation of law.
Trump, who is likely to continue being a controversial President, will generate more protests in the future. It would undermine America’s image as a free country if visitors from abroad are barred if they are specifically coming to participate in a peaceful anti-Trump protest. Immigration policy does not operate in a vacuum. There have already been troubling signs of Trump repeatedly attacking the press as being dishonest, thus undermining the First Amendment. Consuls and border officers should not feel emboldened as a result by allowing their personal prejudices to cloud their objectivity in determining who is a bona fide visitor. Otherwise, and most unfortunately, being anti-Trump might de facto become a new ground of inadmissibility. This is because there are very limited grounds to challenge the decision of a border officer. Similarly, under the recent Supreme Court decision in Kerry v. Din, a consular officer’s decision is virtually unreviewable if the applicant was simply informed about the section number in the INA as the basis for the denial. These officers are bestowed with great power and must use their power wisely. While they are obligated to ensure that those who potentially threaten to harm the United States do not come in, they should allow peaceful protestors who wish to exercise and celebrate the rights that are enshrined in the First Amendment.
San Bernardino Attacks Fallout: Will it Get Harder for Americans to Marry Foreign Spouses Overseas?
The USCIS has promised to review the K-1 visa procedures after the San Bernardino attacks since one of the attackers entered on this visa. The K-1 visa is commonly used by a fiancé of a US citizen spouse to enter the United States, and one of the conditions (with some exception) is that the parties must have met within the past two years prior to filing the application. Once the fiancé enters the United States, he or she must get married to the US citizen within 90 days, and then apply for the green card.
While it is unfortunate that a foreign terrorist used the K-1 visa, this does not mean that the K-1 visa should be restricted for all fiancés. The K-1 visa provides the only access for a fiancé to enter the US. While one can enter the United States as a visitor to get married, one cannot also enter with the intention of adjusting to permanent residence status in the United States. Curtailing the K-1 visa will also limit the ability of US citizens to seek foreign spouses. Moreover, the K-1 visa procedure already has in built rigorous screening, and this author has known of delays due to security clearance of K-1 applicants even prior to the California terrorist attacks that left 14 people dead.
As an alternative to the K-1 visa, a US citizen can marry a foreign spouse and directly petition for an immigrant visa. There is only a marginal difference in the time it takes under both the processes. From the point of view of not waiting to celebrate the marriage, it is quicker. However, in terms of processing time, it takes about the same amount of time for a K1 visa or marriage based I-130 petition to get approved, and the same amount of time for the scheduling of the interview at the US consulate. Once the K-1 visa is issued, the parties have to get married in the United States within 90 days prior to filing the green card application (if they get married after 90 days, the I-130 petition must be filed). Thus, there is an additional extra step before the applicant can receive the green card when compared to a beneficiary of a spousal I-130 visa petition who is admitted into the United States as a permanent residence.
Even if the K-1 visa is not curtailed by Congress (and hopefully that will not be the case), there is bound to be more scrutiny after the shootings. To be eligible for the K-1 visa, it is important that there be no legally valid marriage as the applicant must remain a fiancé. Even religious marriages that are legally recognized as marriages may disqualify the applicant. The authorities will try to ferret out cases if they discover that the parties got married prior to the issuance of the K-1 visa. In traditional cultures, a marriage is generally preferred, and if an applicant is not permitted to be with the prospective US citizen spouse without a marriage, one should not file the K-1 visa and directly file for a spousal immigrant visa. In fiscal year 2014, only 4 K-1 visas were issued in Saudi Arabia as compared to 7, 228 K-1 visas in the Philippines. Still, even if there is no marriage, the authorities will look more closely after the San Bernardino shootings to see whether this is a bona fide relationship, which is harder to prove when there is no marriage. There will also be more security checks and delays relating to the K-1 visa, although even in the past, delays as a result of security checks were extremely frequent.
The essential point that must be made is that terrorism is separate from immigration. While additional screenings for K-1 visa applicants will be inevitable, they must not in effect nullify the K-1 visa. By the same token, beneficiaries of marriage-based I-130 petitions should also not get excessively delayed as a result of additional scrutiny. Both the K-1 and I-130 procedures take upward of six months, and fiancés as well as spouses from countries with predominant Islamic populations have in any event been impacted since 9/11. It has also been revealed that the shooter who received the K-1 visa also talked openly on social media about violent jihad. Those social media comments were not subject to the security checks that she underwent, and in the future, the authorities are more likely to pry into one’s comments on social media. While comments relating to causing violence should be taken seriously in the visa application process, it is hoped that harmless comments made in the exercise of free speech in opposition to US policy or events, such as feeling disgust about Donald Trump’s statements regarding banning Muslims or criticizing US drone policy, should not be used as a basis to play “gotcha” during the security screening of a visa applicant.
US citizens must be free to marry foreign spouses of their choosing. Imagine if Trump’s desire to ban Muslims from being admitted become reality. Americans will not be able to bring in fiancés or spouses who are Muslims. Note that this has de facto been the case, exemplified in the Supreme Court case of Kerry v. Din, where the plurality of the court upheld the limited power of courts to review adverse consular decisions. In Kerry v. Din, the foreign national spouse in Afghanistan was denied an immigrant visa by citing the terrorism ground of inadmissibility, INA 212(a)(3)(B), without any further explanation.
US immigration law is already very complicated, made further convoluted with security checks since 9/11. There is no need for Congress to curtail the K-1 visa, which in turn will make it harder for Americans to marry foreign spouses abroad. It is hard for an employer to sponsor a foreign national employee for a green card as the employer must certify that it was not able to find an available and willing US worker before being able to sponsor a foreign employee for a green card. The reason for this is that there is a countervailing policy interest in protecting American jobs. It would be absurd to similarly restrict an American’s ability to marry and sponsor a foreign spouse as a result of countervailing security concerns. One unfortunate misuse of the K-1 visa, which has otherwise worked very well, should not be the reason to make it harder for Americans to marry foreign spouses overseas.
Not since the landmark case of Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 ( 1972) has the Supreme Court revisited the well-settled doctrine of consular nonreviewability. That may be about to change as the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Kerry v. Din, Docket No. 13-1402. The vehicle for this doctrinal review is not the complaint of the unadmitted alien but that of the American citizens the abridgement of whose constitutional rights provides the standing to find out what happened and why. Indeed, it is precisely when denial of a visa impinges upon the free and full exercise of such constitutional freedoms that the courts have recognized a meaningful but limited exception to consular non reviewability. Bustamanate v. Mukasey, 531 F. 3d 1059 (9th Cir. 2013).
A consul can merely cite “section 212(a)(3)” when denying an applicant seeking an immigrant visa based on an I-130 petition filed by a US citizen relative. It is impossible to know whether this individual was denied the immigrant visa because the consul had reasonable grounds to believe that he or she was seeking to enter the United States to violate a law relating to espionage or prohibiting the export of some sensitive technology or some other unlawful activity. This individual in any event would find it difficult to contest the denial under the plenary power doctrine, which upholds the power of Congress to establish rules for the admission or exclusion of aliens. Given the absence of a factual basis, it would be even more difficult for this individual to challenge the denial even informally with a consular officer if no factual basis has been provided under section 212(a)(3). The absence of such disclosure seems in direct contradiction of the State Department regulation requiring consular officials in the event of an immigrant visa denial to “inform the applicant of the provision of law or implementing regulation under which administrative relief is available.” 22 C.F.R. section 42.81(b). It is worth noting that this minimum level of disclosure does not prevent a more complete explanation to the visa applicant or the US citizen petitioner.
As noted above, despite the existence of the doctrine of consular non-reviewability, a visa applicant may still seek review under limited circumstances when the denial implicates the constitutional rights of citizens. Under such circumstances, a consular officer must give a facially legitimate and bona fide reason for the denial. See Kleindienst v. Mandel, supra. The level of review in Kliendienst v. Mandel was highly constrained, and the Court refused to look behind the consular officer’s denial on the ground that Mandel espoused the doctrines of world communism. That in itself was sufficient under the facially legitimate and bona fide test. The US interest in Kliendienst v. Mandel that triggered this limited judicial review were the First Amendment rights of US citizen professors who had invited Mandel to the United States to receive information and ideas from him. The facts as recited by the consular officer need not necessarily be true, but, for consular non-reviewability to shield it from further challenge, they must be stated with sufficient specificity and the consul must have a good faith belief in their veracity.
Despite the highly constrained review of the facially legitimate and bona fide test, an Islamic scholar was able to demonstrate that the consul was unable to meet this test in denying him a nonimmigrant visa under the terrorism ground of inadmissibility pursuant to INA 212(a)(3)(B)(i)(1). See American Academy of Religion v. Napolitano, 573 F.3d 115 (2d Cir. 2009). There the Second Circuit acknowledged that there was little guidance regarding the application of the facially legitimate and bona fide standard, and described it as “the identification of both a properly construed statute that provides a ground of exclusion and the consular officer’s assurance that he or she ‘knows or has reason to believe’ that the visa applicant has done something fitting within the proscribed category constitutes a facially legitimate reason.” Id. at 126.
The limited exception to the consular non-reviewability doctrine has also been extended to citizen’s who have a protected liberty interest in marriage that entitles them to seek review of the denial of a spouse’s visa. See Bustamante v. Mukasey, supra. Though not mentioned by the Ninth Circuit, it is perhaps not too large of a doctrinal enlargement to argue that the protection of such a liberty interest flows naturally from the recognition by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), that the freedom to marry is a fundamental constitutional right. Surely, the opportunity to live together in marital union in the United States with their spouse is an integral exercise of such freedom by the US citizen visa petitioner. The same high value attached to immediate relative relationships should apply to visa applications by parents of US citizens. While the need to preserve the integrity of the marital union would not manifest itself under such slightly variant facts, the importance of facilitating the migration of older parents to live with their adult US citizen children should be given the same substantial deference. Nor should the wisdom of modifying the consular non-reviewability doctrine not enrich consideration of visa applications advanced by children, whether as immediate relatives, family first preference unmarried adult children or family third preference married adult sons or daughters of US citizens. A disciplined invocation of narrowly drawn statutory provisions and logical, if concise, factual summations brought in good faith are in the manifest interests of the consular corps and those it serves.
Indeed, when a consular denial recites a broad ground of inadmissibility that contains numerous categories of proscribed conduct such as in INA §212(a)(3)(B), the denial does not meet the facially legitimate and bona fide standard as all that the denial does is to cite a 1,000 word statute without providing a factual basis. See Din v. Kerry, 718 F.3d 856 (9th Cir. 2013). In Din v. Kerry, the applicant whose visa was denied, Mr. Berashk was an Afghan citizen who married Ms. Din, a US citizen. Mr. Berashk had previously worked for the Afghan Ministry of Social Welfare from 1992 to 2003, and the Afghan Ministry of Education from 2003 to present. Since the Taliban ruled Afghanistan for some of the period during his employment with the Afghan government, his visa was initially denied because of INA section 212(a), without citing anything more specific. After contacting the Consulate for clarification, Mr. Berashk was told that his visa was denied under the terrorism related inadmissibility grounds in INA section 212(a)(3)(B). This provision exceeds 1000 words. No factual basis was provided to support the denial. Therefore, the Ninth Circuit held that the government had not offered a facially legitimate and bona fide reason for the visa denial. The government must cite to a ground narrow enough to allow us to determine that it has been “properly construed” under the test set forth in American Academy, supra.
The government appealed the Ninth Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on October 2, 2014. See Kerry v. Din, Docket No. 13-1402. We fail to understand why the government chose to appeal this decision, which essentially upheld the highly constrained review of the facially legitimate and bona fide test set forth in Kleindienst v. Mandel. The Ninth Circuit insisted on the consul providing some factual basis for the denial rather than merely citing a broad statutory provision, but it did not articulate a test beyond what was established in Kleindienst v. Mandel, and further explained in Academy of Religion. As the provisions of inadmissibility get more verbose in INA 212, the applicant who is being denied a visa ought to know the factual basis so that he or she can endeavor to overcome it by trying to submit rebuttal evidence. The dissenting opinion in Din v. Kerry broadly upheld plenary power, and the nation’s desire to keep out persons who are connected with terrorist activities. It held that the citation of the statute, however broad, constituted a facially legitimate and bona fide ground. In a post 9/11 world, while there are obvious security concerns, the government cannot be allowed to loosely cite terrorism related grounds, without further explanation, that would lead to the permanent separation of a spouse from a US citizen.
It would be a set back if the Supreme Court reversed the limited review afforded to an applicant for a visa, especially when there is a legitimate US interest involved, by allowing the consul to broadly cite the statutory provision, or worse still, only INA section 212(a) as a basis for denial. While it is disappointing that the Obama administration chose to appeal the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Din v. Kerry, it is hoped that the Supreme Court affirm the limited ability for an individual to seek review of a visa denial that would affect a US interest, such as a spouse, a group of US citizen academics who would otherwise be denied the ability to hear and debate his or her views, or even a US employer who has sponsored a foreign worker for a work visa or for permanent residency. The liberty interest of a US citizen spouse who awaits marital reunion with keen anticipation should be deserving of the same minimal due process that an academic conference would trigger. The issue is not the need to give due deference to consular visa denials but to put the consul to a minimal burden of proof where the reason for the denial is identified and the facts sustaining it are articulated with sufficient particularity to allow for intelligent review and reasonable challenge. Just as the Obama Administration wisely declined to defend DOMA even before the Supreme Court cast it aside, in wise recognition of its obvious constitutional infirmity, so a willingness to relax the doctrine of consular non-reviewability should inform the Administration’s posture in this litigation and future cases like it. This may no longer be possible now that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case. Doubtless, however, this will not be the last time that the need for relaxation of the consular non-reviewability doctrine will present itself. When this happens, we urge that the Administration then in power adopt a more enlightened attitude. A compassionate nation deserves no less.

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