Opinion ID: 791779
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Application to Zheng

Text: 92 Having held that § 1245.1(c)(8) is invalid, we now turn to several miscellaneous issues, specific to Zheng's case, that the government contends prevent him from applying for adjustment of status.
93 Zheng meets section 245's requirement that he be an alien admitted or paroled into the United States, 8 U.S.C. § 1255(a), because he was granted advance parole to return to the country in 1993. See supra Part II.A. The government argues, however, that his parole was revoked when the INS served him with a Notice to Appear. The regulations provide that, [w]hen a charging document is served on the alien, the charging document will constitute written notice of termination of parole, unless otherwise specified. 8 C.F.R. § 212.5(e)(2)(i). Thus, because Zheng's parole was revoked when a Notice to Appear was served on him, he is said to no longer be paroled into the United States under the terms of section 245. 94 While this argument is facially plausible, it seems to conflict with the statutory and regulatory scheme. The Notice to Appear institutes removal proceedings, but it does not normally revoke parole in any literal, physical sense. Thus the Notice to Appear in our record ordered Zheng to appear before an Immigration Judge; it did not commit him to INS custody. The regulation quoted above also provides that [i]f the exclusion, deportation, or removal order cannot be executed within a reasonable time, the alien shall again be released on parole unless in the opinion of [a DHS] official ... the public interest requires that the alien be continued in custody. 8 C.F.R. § 212.5(e)(2)(i). Because Zheng does not seem to have been taken into custody, and because the Notice to Appear merely commenced removal proceedings rather than executing a removal order, we are forced to conclude that this exception applied to Zheng, and that he was free on parole during his removal proceedings. 17 Perhaps the Notice to Appear revoked his parole, but, if so, he was immediately reparoled. 95 Because Zheng appears to have remained free on parole throughout the pendency of removal proceedings, and is free on parole now, we hold that he qualifies as an alien paroled into the United States under the terms of section 245. We leave to another day a determination of whether DHS may prevent a paroled alien from applying for adjustment of status by serving a Notice to Appear and committing the alien to custody. Zheng argues, with some force, that the statute uses a past participle, speaking in terms of aliens admitted or paroled into the United States, not merely aliens currently free on parole. While this word choice is not conclusive evidence, it does suggest that DHS might be unable to terminate adjustment eligibility simply by revoking parole. 96 We also note amicus 's argument that the revised Notice to Appear charged Zheng only with lack of possession of a valid unexpired immigrant visa under INA section 212(a)(7)(A)(i)(I), 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I), and that the CSPA specifically excludes this charge as a basis for denying adjustment of status, CSPA § 2(a)(3)(A), 106 Stat. at 1969. We agree with amicus that it seems anomalous to allow DHS to revoke Zheng's eligibility to adjust status by charging him under a section of the INA that the CSPA renders inapplicable.
97 Zheng presses two adjustment applications. One is based on his approved employment-based immigrant visa petition. Zheng's employment-based adjustment application was first raised in his motion to reopen before the BIA. As far as we can determine, neither the DHS, the IJ, nor the BIA has considered this application. Because we have found that Zheng is eligible to apply for adjustment, we will remand this application for further consideration by the proper authorities. See infra Part VI.C. 98 Zheng's second adjustment claim is a renewal of his application to adjust status pursuant to the CSPA, which was previously denied because Zheng had submitted fraudulent documents in support of his claim. Indeed, the 1999 denial of Zheng's adjustment petition is what precipitated these removal proceedings. 99 We are sympathetic to the government's position that the statute does not mandate that Zheng, or any other alien, be given a second chance to apply for adjustment of status. But the BIA explicitly rejected Zheng's CSPA adjustment application, not because it was duplicative, but because the Board found that Zheng, as an arriving alien in removal proceedings, is ineligible for adjustment of status. We are bound to review the agency's decision based solely on the stated grounds for that decision. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 95, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943); Li v. Attorney General, 400 F.3d 157, 163 (3d Cir.2005). Here, the BIA's stated basis for denying relief was the § 1245.1(c)(8) eligibility regulation, which we have found invalid. 100 As the First Circuit put it in the companion case to Succar: 101 Since the agency action ... cannot be sustained on the stated grounds, the appropriate remedy is to remand to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with the holding [on the eligibility issue]. We do not address any other issues. 102 We do not, for example, address the issue of whether Rivera's application for adjustment of status is somehow number-barred because she already filed one earlier application, which was denied. None of the IJ, the BIA, or the government in its brief to this court have suggested that any such number bar exists. 103 Rodriguez de Rivera, 394 F.3d at 40. Similarly, here, although the government has in its brief argued the unfairness of giving Zheng multiple chances to submit credible evidence of his CSPA claim, it has not pointed to any provision of the statute or regulations that would bar Zheng from renewing his application for adjustment of status. We must therefore remand that application to the immigration authorities.
104 In order to remand this case, we must determine who has jurisdiction to hear Zheng's applications for adjustment of status. Jurisdiction over applications to adjust status is allocated by regulation: 105 An alien who believes he or she meets the eligibility requirements of section 245 of the Act [8 U.S.C. § 1255] or section 1 of the Act of November 2, 1966 [viz., the Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act], and [8 C.F.R.] § 1245.1 shall apply to the director having jurisdiction over his or her place of residence unless otherwise instructed in 8 CFR part 1245, or by the instruction on the application form. After an alien, other than an arriving alien, is in deportation or removal proceedings, his or her application for adjustment of status under section 245 of the Act ... shall be made and considered only in those proceedings. An arriving alien, other than an alien in removal proceedings, who believes he or she meets the eligibility requirements of section 245 of the Act ... and § 1245.1 shall apply to the director having jurisdiction over his or her place of arrival. 106 8 C.F.R. § 1245.2(a)(1). 107 This regulation appears to create three categories of applicants. First, there is a broad catch-all category of aliens who believe they are eligible. These aliens may apply for adjustment to the district director 18 with jurisdiction over their residence. Second, aliens who are not arriving aliens, but who are in removal proceedings, may apply for adjustment in those proceedings—ordinarily, we expect, to the IJ with jurisdiction over the removal proceedings. Third, arriving aliens who are not in removal proceedings may apply for adjustment to the district director with jurisdiction over their place of arrival. 108 This list seems to omit a fourth category, arriving aliens who are in removal proceedings. Such an omission is, of course, perfectly consistent with § 1245.1(c)(8), which renders that class of aliens ineligible to apply for adjustment of status. Because we have found the eligibility regulation invalid, however, we must consider the impact of our decision on the jurisdictional regulation: if arriving aliens in removal proceedings are eligible to adjust status, then someone must have jurisdiction to consider their applications. 109 In a letter dated February 4, 2005, we asked counsel to address the question of who should have jurisdiction to hear adjustment petitions of arriving aliens in removal proceedings if we were to find that such aliens were eligible to adjust status. Following oral argument, the parties submitted supplemental briefing on this and other questions. Zheng's position is that the Immigration Judge responsible for removal proceedings should have jurisdiction over his adjustment applications. The government's position is less clear, but it appears to ask us to leave to the Attorney General the determination of who has jurisdiction over such applications. 110 The simplest reading of § 1245.2(a)(1) in light of our eligibility holding is that aliens in Zheng's position fall into the catch-all category of aliens who may apply to the USCIS district director responsible for their place of residence. This reading is bolstered by the fact that, prior to the enactment of the eligibility regulation that we have invalidated today, an arriving alien in removal proceedings was required to file his or her adjustment applications with the INS district director rather than the IJ hearing the removal proceedings. See Matter of Castro-Padron, 1996 WL 379828, 21 I. & N. Dec. 379, 380 (BIA 1996) (The applicants can file their adjustment applications with the district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, who has sole jurisdiction over the application and can act on the application independently of [the removal] proceedings.); see also supra note 16. 111 In Succar and Rodriguez de Rivera, the First Circuit invalidated § 1245.1(c)(8) and remanded to the BIA without explaining who had jurisdiction to hear petitioners' adjustment applications. See Succar, 394 F.3d at 36; Rodriguez de Rivera, 394 F.3d at 40. Consistent with our reading above, commentators seem to have assumed that the district director will have exclusive jurisdiction to hear adjustment applications from arriving aliens in removal proceedings. But other conclusions are possible: As a consequence [of Succar ], parolees in proceedings are currently eligible to adjust status before USCIS notwithstanding the fact that the individual is in proceedings. Moreover, it is reported that at least some of the immigration judges in the Boston immigration court are also accepting adjustment applications from arriving alien parolees and adjudicating them. 112 Sarah Ignatius & Elisabeth S. Stickney, Immigration Law & the Family § 8:35 (database updated 2005). 113 Because the plain text of § 1245.2(a)(1) appears to grant the district director the jurisdiction to hear adjustment of status applications from arriving aliens in removal proceedings, and because neither party has provided any convincing argument for granting jurisdiction to any other official, we tentatively conclude that the USCIS district director for Philadelphia should have jurisdiction over Zheng's adjustment application. Nonetheless, we will remand to the BIA for further consideration; if the parties agree, or the BIA is convinced, that the IJ has jurisdiction to hear Zheng's application, then the Board may remand it to the IJ rather than to the district director.