Opinion ID: 2446
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ambiguity of the Penalty Statute

Text: The district court's first error was finding that the Penalty Statute unambiguously imposes liability on a carrier at the moment the carrier transports an undocumented alien, notwithstanding any subsequent waiver. The initial step in determining whether a statute is ambiguous is to begin with the statute's text. Carcieri v. Salazar, 129 S. Ct. 1058, 1063 (2009); see also Woods v. Empire Health Choice, Inc., 574 F.3d 92, 98 (2d Cir. 2009) (As always, we begin with the text of the statute.). The district court, to find the statute unambiguous, relied instead on Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit case law, four words in a 1966 amendment to the relevant regulation, and the Penalty Statute's restricting of refunds to those instances where the carrier exercised due diligence. None of these sources render the Penalty Statute unambiguous. The court cited Hamburg for the proposition that liability for the fine obtains upon the transportation of the alien into the United States, notwithstanding any subsequent discretionary relief. But Hamburg does not control in this case. In Hamburg, the Supreme Court held that a carrier was liable for a fine despite the alien's later receipt of a discretionary admission by the Secretary of Labor. 291 U.S. at 425-26. The Court found that the penalty statute applicable at the time preserve[d] the fine against any discretionary admission. Id. at 426. The problem in applying Hamburg 's analysis to this case is that the penalty statute then in effect categorically prohibited carriers from bringing an alien who had no visa to the United States. Id. at 421 n.1. As the Supreme Court concluded, the Penalty Statute applicable to carriers in 1934 ma[de] it clear that the occasion for the fine is the bringing in of the alien without an unexpired visa. Id. at 425. The Penalty Statute at issue in these cases, however, restricts its prohibition to those instances where a visa was required under this chapter or regulations issued thereunder. 8 U.S.C. § 1323(a)(1). Certain regulations issued thereunder, moreover, expressly state that certain classes of aliens are not required to present a visa. See, e.g., 8 C.F.R. § 212.1(g). The textual differences between the current Penalty Statute and the one at issue in Hamburg are precisely the crux of the interpretive dilemma that we must address. Reliance on the Fifth Circuit's Peninsular & Occidental decision is similarly misplaced. In the decision, a steamship company challenged the fine incurred under § 273 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 for bringing into the United States four aliens that did not possess valid visas. 242 F.2d 639, 640 (5th Cir. 1957). In its decision, the court referenced broad language regarding Congress's intent to compel carriers, under the pain of penalties which increase vigilance, to police enforcement of and compliance with many parts of the immigration laws. Id. at 641. There was no regulation in place at the time, however, that removed the visa requirement from an alien who was granted a post-arrival waiver. See 8 C.F.R. § 212.1(g) (1995). Instead, Peninsular & Occidental was interpreting the 1952 Penalty Statute directly. 242 F.2d at 641. The Fifth Circuit had no occasion to consider the effect of a regulation exempting aliens from the visa requirement when it upheld the fine on the carrier. These cases, relied upon by both the district court and the INS in its arguments to us, do not answer the question here, which is whether imposing the fine provided for in the Penalty Statute is consistent with regulations exempting certain groups of aliens from the visa requirement based on a post-arrival waiver. When considered in relation to that question, the statutory language  if a visa was required under this chapter or regulations issued thereof  is ambiguous. Once a statute is determined to be ambiguous, the court must look to the agency interpretation of the statutory provision, to consider the level of deference due the agency's interpretation of the Penalty Statute. Kruse v. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Inc., 383 F.3d 49, 55 (2d Cir. 2004) (If we decide that we are to defer, we must then decide the appropriate level of deference.); see also Gen. Dynamics Land Sys. v. Cline, 540 U.S. 581, 600 (2004) ([D]eference to [an agency's] statutory interpretation is called for only when the devices of judicial construction have been tried and found to yield no clear sense of congressional intent.); Sutherland v. Reno, 228 F.3d 171, 174 (2d Cir. 2000) ([W]here the relevant statutory provision is silent or ambiguous, `a court may not substitute its own construction of a statutory provision for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrator of an agency.' (quoting Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 843-44 (1984))).