Opinion ID: 2446
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: United Airlines

Text: The United Airlines case presents two questions: (1) whether the district court erred when it ruled that the Penalty Statute unambiguously imposes a fine on a carrier transporting an undocumented alien, notwithstanding any subsequent receipt of a visa waiver by that alien and regardless of the language of any applicable regulation; and (2) whether the INS acted arbitrarily when it paroled aliens into the United States rather than granting them a visa waiver, thereby preserving its ability to fine the carrier for having brought the aliens to the United States.
The first issue concerns the validity of the BIA's longstanding rule, originating through its own adjudications, that when (1) a visa waiver regulation states that an alien is not required to present a visa when they receive a post-arrival visa waiver, and (2) an alien receives a waiver pursuant to that regulation, the carrier may not be fined under the Penalty Statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1323(a)-(b), for having brought the alien to the United States (the BIA Rule). It was this BIA Rule that the district court invalidated, as inconsistent with the Penalty Statute, in United Airlines, and it was on the basis of United Airlines that the district court reversed itself in Air India and also decided Finnair. Our decision, therefore, as to the validity of this BIA Rule will determine our approach to all three cases. To recap, the district court held that any regulation (or interpretation thereof) exempting an alien from the visa requirement, thus exempting the airline from the Penalty Statute based on a post-arrival waiver, is inconsistent with the Penalty Statute and Congress's intent in enacting it. On appeal, the airlines challenge this holding. They distinguish Hamburg, relied on by the district court, in which the Supreme Court held that a discretionary admission of an alien lacking the required documentation has no effect on the fine to be imposed on a carrier, see 291 U.S. at 426, by arguing that the admissions here were not discretionary. The airlines believe that the aliens in these cases were entitled to admission because they satisfied the statutory requisites (i.e., a showing of good cause or an unforeseen emergency), and they claim that because the aliens were entitled to admission, the Penalty Statutedoes not apply. The airlines further argue that the district court misread Congress's intent. They assert that the district court's interpretation of the statutory scheme would force airlines to risk a fine when they transport aliens who comply with the regulation [exempting them] from the visa requirement. They contend that the BIA decisions interpreting the regulations and the statute in a way that comports with the airlines' position should be respected because those decisions are wholly consistent with Hamburg and the 1952 statutory and regulatory scheme. Finally, the airlines argue that Congress's inaction in the face of the BIA's interpretation of the regulations and statutes involved here reflects its acquiescence in that interpretation. The INS on the other hand asserts the propriety of the district court's reliance on Hamburg-American Line v. United States, 291 U.S. 420 (1934), and Peninsular & Occidental Steamship Co., 242 F.2d 639 (5th Cir. 1957), in support of its interpretation of Congress's intent. That is, Congress, through the Penalty Statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1323, intended that a fine be levied against a carrier for bringing to the United States an alien who did not possess the proper documentation, regardless of whether or not a post-arrival waiver was issued. We conclude that the district court erred when it invalidated the BIA Rule. We also conclude that the district court should have deferred to the agency's interpretation of the Penalty Statute.
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))).
Once we determine that a statute is ambiguous, we then consider the level of deference warranted by an agency's interpretation of the statute. Kruse, 383 F.3d at 55. The BIA Rule warrants Chevron deference. The BIA interprets the Penalty Statute to mean that the issuance of certain post-arrival waiversspecifically, those which explicitly provide that a visa is not required if the waiver is issued, see, e.g., 8 C.F.R. § 212.1(g) (1995)results in the carrier avoiding a basis for being fined. This interpretation of the Penalty Statute by the BIA, while not evolved through a traditional notice-and-comment period, is still worthy of our deference. See Shi Liang Lin v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 494 F.3d 296, 317 n.4 (2d Cir. 2007) (en banc) (Katzmann, J. , concurring) ([T]he BIA should be accorded Chevron deference as it gives ambiguous statutory terms concrete meaning through a process of case-by-case adjudication. (internal quotation marks omitted)). To the extent the BIA Rule includes an interpretation of a regulation, similar deference is warranted. See Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 461 (1997) (An agency's interpretation of its own regulations is controlling unless plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation (internal quotation marks omitted)). Applying Chevron deference, we conclude that the BIA Rule is reasonable. The BIA Rule conditions the application of the Penalty Statute on whether the regulations entirely exempt from visa requirements the transported aliens who are in receipt of a waiver. This interpretation, while not compelled by the statutory and regulatory scheme, is certainly plausible and rational: the Penalty Statute provides for the imposition of a fine if a visa were required pursuant to regulations, and the regulations at issue in turn provide that a visa is not required if a waiver were granted. Moreover, we note that neither party disputes that the BIA has for decades interpreted the Penalty Statute and corresponding INS regulations to exempt carriers from liability when the alien is granted certain post-arrival waivers. The BIA's consistency in applying the BIA Rule has particular force because it is a contemporaneous construction of a statute by the [individuals] charged with the responsibility of setting its machinery in motion, of making the parts work efficiently and smoothly while they are yet untried and new. Aluminum Co. of Am. v. Cent. Lincoln Peoples' Util. Dist., 467 U.S. 380, 390 (1984) (internal quotation marks omitted). It might therefore carry the day against doubts that might exist from a reading of the bare words of a statute. Good Samaritan Hosp. v. Shalala, 508 U.S. 402, 414 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, Congress's repeated amendment of the relevant provisions of the statute without expressing any disapproval reinforces the strength of the BIA's interpretation, because it is persuasive evidence that the [Agency's] interpretation is the one intended by Congress. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833, 846 (1986) (internal quotation marks omitted); Coke v. Long Island Care at Home, Ltd., 376 F.3d 118, 130 (2d Cir. 2004), rev'd on other grounds, 551 U.S. 158 (2007). Since 1952, Congress has amended the section containing the statutory waiver provisions for non-immigrants, 8 U.S.C. § 1182, at least four times (in 1965, 1976, 1980, and 1990). Congress has also amended the Penalty Statute four times, and none of those amendments modified the language at issue in this case. The difficulty with the BIA rule concerns the counterintuitive analysis by which a post-arrival determination by an INS officer to grant a waiver may retroactively modify the alien's pre-arrival need to present a visa. This, however, does not lessen the reasonableness of the BIA's interpretation of the Penalty Statute. Retroactivity is not particularly unusual in regulatory law nor in the immigration context. See Orr v. Hawk, 156 F.3d 651, 654 (6th Cir. 1998) (So long as a change in a regulation does not announce a new rule, but rather merely clarifies or codifies an existing policy, that regulation can apply retroactively.). If the INS finds that application of the BIA Rule creates a disincentive for airlines to make a reasonable, good faith effort to ensure that every alien has a visa prior to arrival in the United States, it may amend the regulations so that a post-arrival waiver does not nullify the visa requirement. In sum, we conclude that the language of the Penalty Statute is ambiguous, and the agency's interpretation of the statute is reasonable. Accordingly, we defer to the agency's interpretation under Chevron and uphold the BIA Rule.
Because we uphold the BIA Rule, we must next address whether the agency acted unreasonably in paroling aliens into this countryinstead of granting them a post-arrival waiverin order to preserve its ability to fine the airlines. The district court found that the INS had acted within its authority in paroling aliens rather than waiving the visa requirement. We agree. As an initial matter, the airlines have presented no support for their claim that, in these cases, the INS first determined that the aliens were eligible for a waiver, and only then granted parole rather than a waiver. Though United points to its Rule 56.1 statement for support, its Rule 56.1 statement asserts only that when the aliens in question arrived in the United States, each gave an explanation for the absence of a visa or a passport of the sort usually accepted by the agency, but that each was granted parole rather than a waiver despite having presented such an explanation. The Rule 56.1 statement did not assert that the INS district director was satisfied that the alien's explanation constituted an emergency, 8 C.F.R. § 212.1(g), and the INS has not conceded that the agency first found the aliens eligible for a waiver and only then granted parole instead. The real question, therefore, is whether the INS abused its authority in employing its parole power rather than its waiver power so as to preserve its ability to fine the airlines. The airlines contend that the agency had an improper motive for its change in policy. We disagree. A 1994 policy directive stated that the agency's goal was to maximize revenues and create a deterrent against violations. Memorandum from George Wetteland, Acting APD, Immigration & Naturalization Serv., Change in Policy Regarding Carrier Fines when a Visa Waiver is Granted on Form I-193 (Aug. 24, 1994). Congress had recently given the INS power to retain the monies collected from fines, 8 U.S.C. § 1356; see also INS Fines Training Program, J.A. 105 (detailing INS policy on collecting fines under § 273), most assuredly knowing that the financial stake would influence the manner which the INS exercised its enforcement discretion. The resulting INS policy change of paroling aliens, versus granting waivers, is thus not an improper motive. However repugnant the idea of financial drivers may be to United, there is no authority for United's claim that such motives are improper or contrary to Congress's intent. United also argues that the INS's shift in its enforcement policy was a legislative act that required notice to carriers under the APA that the very same aliens it had been transporting since 1958 would no longer be admitted but paroled, but that claim is also meritless. Unless a statute constrains an agency's exercise of its enforcement powers, the agency possesses broad discretion in how it enforces statutory and regulatory law. See Ass'n of Irritated Residents v. EPA, 494 F.3d 1027, 1033 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (holding that, because the statute did not give any indication that violators must be pursued in every case, or that one particular enforcement strategy must be chosen over another and provide[d] no meaningful guidelines defining the limits of [the agency's] discretion, the challenger had failed to rebut the presumption that the enforcement decision was committed to the discretion of the agency); cf. Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 834-35 (1985) (If [Congress] has indicated an intent to circumscribe agency enforcement discretion, and has provided meaningful standards for defining the limits of that discretion, there is `law to apply' under [the APA], and courts may require that the agency follow that law; if it has not, then an agency refusal to institute proceedings is a decision `committed to agency discretion by law' within the meaning of [the APA].). Here, when making parole decisions, the INS exercises a broad discretionary power pursuant to [t]he unusually broad Congressional power over the admission of aliens into the United States. Bertrand v. Sava, 684 F.2d 204, 212 (2d Cir. 1982). Those decisions must be viewed at the outset as presumptively legitimate and bona fide in the absence of strong proof to the contrary, a showing that poses a heavy [burden] for any alien challenging a parole decision. Id. at 212-13. Similarly, the waiver statute states only that the visa requirement  may be waived on the basis of an unforeseen emergency. 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(4)(A) (emphasis added). It does not require a waiver or otherwise restrict the executive's exercise of its enforcement discretion. With respect to United Airlines, therefore, we reverse the district court's ruling declaring the BIA Rule invalid, but we affirm the district court's judgment in favor of the INS on the grounds that the agency permissibly chose from among the various enforcement mechanisms available to it when it paroled aliens into this country rather than granted them visa waivers.