Opinion ID: 3049970
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Conditional Parole and Adjustment of Status

Text: Having determined that Ortega-Cervantes was conditionally paroled under § 1226(a) rather than paroled into the United States under § 1182(d)(5)(A), we must next decide whether conditional parolees under § 1226(a) are “paroled into the United States” within the meaning of § 1255(a) and thus eligible for adjustment of status under that section. We conclude that they are not. [4] We agree with the IJ and BIA that the language of § 1255(a) suggests that adjustment of status is available only to aliens who are “paroled into the United States” pursuant to § 1182(d)(5)(A) and not to aliens who are “conditional[ly] parole[d]” pursuant to § 1226(a). However, the statute and its accompanying regulations do not expressly exclude § 1226(a) conditional parolees from eligibility for adjustment of status. We therefore consider whether the legislative history and purpose of these provisions support the agency’s interpretation. As originally enacted in 1952, § 1255(a) did not authorize adjustment of status for any parolees. Instead, it provided that ORTEGA-CERVANTES v. GONZALES 11389 the Attorney General could adjust “[t]he status of an alien who was lawfully admitted to the United States as a bona fide nonimmigrant and who is continuing to maintain that status.” Immigration and Nationality Act, Pub. L. No. 414, § 245(a), 66 Stat. 163, 217 (1952). Congress added the “parole” language to § 1255(a) in 1960 as part of a joint resolution authorizing the parole of certain refugees into the United States. As revised, § 1255(a) provided that “[t]he status of an alien, other than an alien crewman, who was inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States may be adjusted by the Attorney General.” H.R.J. Res. 397, 86th Cong., Pub. L. No. 86648, § 10, 74 Stat. 504, 505 (1960). According to the accompanying Senate Report, The principal purpose of the Joint Resolution . . . is to enable the United States to participate in the resettlement of certain refugee-escapees by granting the Attorney General special authority under the provisions of [§ 1182(d)(5)] to parole into the United States . . . refugees who are under the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees . . . . The resolution also would establish a procedure which is designed to enable any such refugee- escapee admitted in a parole status to obtain an adjustment of his immigration status to that of alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence . . . . .... In addition, a purpose of the joint resolution is to broaden the existing procedure for the adjustment of the status of a nonimmigrant to that of the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence to include all aliens (other than crewman) who have been inspected at the time of their entry into the United States or who have been paroled into the United States. 11390 ORTEGA-CERVANTES v. GONZALES S. Rep. No. 86-1651 (1960), as reprinted in 1960 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3124, 3124-25. Thus, by amending § 1255(a), Congress sought to ensure that a class of otherwise excludable aliens who were being brought to the United States for humanitarian reasons would have an opportunity to become lawful permanent residents. See 106 Cong. Rec. 15389 (1960) (statement of Sen. Keating) (explaining that the legislation “would establish a procedure for allowing refugee-escapees admitted on a parole basis to adjust their immigration status to that of aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence”). Congress did not intend for the 1960 amendment to benefit aliens already within the United States who had been taken into custody because they were believed to be deportable but who were then released on parole under the precursor to § 1226(a) pending a final decision on their deportation. Parole into the United States meant just that. The Senate Report was explicit on this point: “The wording of the amendment is such as not to grant eligibility for adjustment of status . . . to aliens who entered the United States surreptitiously.” S. Rep. No. 86-1651 (1960), supra, 1960 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 3137. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”) raised new questions about who is eligible to adjust status under § 1255(a) as a parolee “into the United States.” By shifting the focus of immigration law from “entry” to “admission,” and by merging exclusion and deportation proceedings into “removal” proceedings, IIRIRA arguably altered the relationship between conditional parole and adjustment of status. Prior to IIRIRA, aliens “who entered the United States without inspection or at any time or place other than as designated by the Attorney General” would have been subject to deportation. See 8 U.S.C. § 1251(a)(1)(B) (1994). Now, under IIRIRA, aliens “present in the United States who ha[ve] not been admitted” and aliens “who arrive[ ] in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival . . .)” are both considered “applicant[s] for admission.” 8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(1); see also Succar v. AshORTEGA-CERVANTES v. GONZALES 11391 croft, 394 F.3d 8, 26-27 (1st Cir. 2005). All applicants for admission, whether they are at the border or already physically present inside the country, must “be inspected by immigration officers” who will determine their admissibility. 8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(3). Aliens who have entered the country without inspection are classified as “inadmissible” under § 1182. See id. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). Section 1182, of course, is the same provision that allows aliens who might otherwise be deemed inadmissible to be “parole[d] into the United States . . . on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” Id. § 1182(d)(5)(A). Thus, after IIRIRA, one could reasonably argue that any grant of parole, whether formally authorized by § 1182(a)(5)(D) or § 1226(a), necessarily allows an alien “into the United States” while a final decision on the alien’s admissibility remains pending. Indeed, since the passage of IIRIRA, INS memoranda have twice suggested that unlawful entrants paroled pursuant to § 1226(a) might qualify for adjustment of status. First, in a policy memorandum issued in 1998, the INS General Counsel’s Office explained that aliens who have entered the United States without inspection are applicants for admission who may be paroled under the authority of § 1182(d)(5)(A), presumably making them eligible for adjustment of status under § 1255(a). INS, General Counsel’s Office, Legal Op. No. 9810, 1998 WL 1806685 (Aug. 21, 1998). The General Counsel’s memorandum is consistent with our conclusion in the previous section that there is no per se bar on paroling unlawful entrants into the United States pursuant to § 1182(d)(5)(A). However, the memorandum does not further state that every conditional parole under § 1226(a) necessarily constitutes a “parole into the United States” within the meaning of § 1255(a). Second, in a 1999 memorandum that relied in part on the General Counsel’s 1998 memorandum, the INS Commissioner concluded that Cuban nationals who arrived “at a place other than a port of entry” were eligible for adjustment of sta11392 ORTEGA-CERVANTES v. GONZALES tus under the Cuban Adjustment Act, which uses language similar to § 1255(a). See INS Commissioner Meissner, Cuban Adjustment Act Memorandum, Apr. 19, 1999, available at http://www.uscis.gov (click on “Laws and Regulations” tab, then on “Immigration Handbooks, Manuals, and Policy Guidance,” then on “Adjudicator’s Field Manual,” and then on Appendix “23-4”). The Commissioner stated that “if the Service releases from custody an alien who is an applicant for admission because the alien is present in the United States without having been admitted,” the Service should treat the alien as having been paroled into the United States. Id. The Commissioner instructed INS officials to issue Cuban nationals I-94 cards upon request indicating that they were paroled under § 1182(d)(5)(A). Id. n.1. Although the Commissioner’s memorandum goes somewhat further than the General Counsel’s memorandum, it focuses on aliens covered by the Cuban Adjustment Act and does not expressly state that every alien who is conditionally paroled under § 1226(a) necessarily becomes eligible for adjustment of status under § 1255(a). These memoranda do not convince us that IIRIRA made every alien conditionally paroled under § 1226(a) eligible for adjustment of status. The BIA correctly noted that internal guidance memoranda are not binding authority and “are entitled to respect . . . only to the extent that [they] have the power to persuade.” Acosta v. Gonzales, 439 F.3d 550, 554 (9th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). Like the IJ and BIA, we are unconvinced that IIRIRA made every “conditional parole” under § 1226(a) equivalent to a “parole into the United States” under § 1182(d)(5)(A), thus enabling conditional parolees to adjust their status under § 1255(a). Even after IIRIRA, the parole provisions of § 1182(d)(5)(A) and § 1226(a) continue to serve distinct purposes. Section 1182(d)(5)(A) allows deserving aliens who might not otherwise be admissible to come “into the United States” on a temporary basis. The scope of § 1182(d)(5)(A) is carefully circumscribed: Aliens may be paroled into the United ORTEGA-CERVANTES v. GONZALES 11393 States “only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A). The provision focuses principally on aliens who arrive and present themselves to immigration officials at a designated port of entry. See 8 C.F.R. § 212.5. By contrast, § 1226(a) focuses principally on aliens who are present in the United States but were not lawfully admitted or who were lawfully admitted but have become subject to removal. Section 1226(a) simply provides that, when an alien is “arrested and detained,” immigration officials have the option of releasing the alien from custody on bond or conditional parole pending a final removal decision. The provision does not restrict conditional parole to cases involving “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” Cf. Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 294-95 (1993) (“Congress has given the Attorney General broad discretion to determine whether, and on what terms, an alien arrested on suspicion of being deportable should be released pending the deportation hearing.”). [5] In enacting IIRIRA, Congress did not express any intention to allow conditional parolees to adjust status as aliens “paroled into the United States.” To the contrary, Congress expressed concern that the Attorney General had been using parole “to circumvent Congressionally-established immigration policy or to admit aliens who do not qualify for admission under established legal immigration categories.” H.R. Rep. No. 104-469, pt. 1, at 141 (1996). Congress responded in IIRIRA by narrowing the circumstances in which aliens could qualify for “parole into the United States” under § 1182(d)(5)(A) and thus become eligible for adjustment of status. That Congress did not similarly limit the Attorney General’s discretion under § 1226(a) strongly suggests that Congress did not view “conditional parole” as the equivalent of “parole into the United States” under § 1182(d)(5)(A) and thus as a path to lawful permanent residence under § 1255(a). 11394 ORTEGA-CERVANTES v. GONZALES [6] Further evidence that adjustment of status is not generally available to unlawful entrants who are conditionally paroled under § 1226(a) appears at 8 U.S.C. § 1255(i). That provision, which was added to § 1255 in 1994, expressly permits certain unlawful entrants to adjust status. See 8 U.S.C. § 1255(i) (1994 & Supp. 1996) (“Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a) and (c) of this section, an alien physically present in the United States . . . who . . . entered the United States without inspection . . . may apply to the Attorney General for the adjustment of his or her status to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence.”). Section 1255(i) was initially scheduled to sunset in 1997, but that date was subsequently extended to 1998 and then to 2001. See Pub. L. No. 105-119, § 111, 111 Stat. 2440, 2458 (1997); Pub. L. No. 106-554, § 1502, 114 Stat. 2763, 2763A-324 (2000). In its current form, § 1255(i) allows adjustment of status only for unlawful entrants who were physically present in the United States on December 21, 2000, and who filed petitions for classification or labor certifications on or before April 30, 2001. 8 U.S.C. § 1255(i)(1)(B), (C). Given that § 1255(i) permits unlawful entrants to adjust their status only under certain specified conditions, it would be odd to read § 1255(a) to authorize unlawful entrants who do not meet those conditions to seek adjustment of status whenever they are conditionally paroled pursuant to § 1226(a). Ortega-Cervantes makes the additional argument that, although he is currently in removal proceedings, 8 C.F.R. § 245.1(c)(8) does not preclude him from adjusting his status if he is otherwise eligible to do so. In Bona v. Gonzales, 425 F.3d 663 (9th Cir. 2005), we held that § 245.1(c)(8), which barred aliens in removal proceedings from seeking adjustment of status, was invalid. The regulation has since been withdrawn. See 71 Fed. Reg. 27585, 27587 (May 12, 2006). However, § 245.1(c)(8) is not relevant to this case. First, contrary to Ortega-Cervantes’s assertions, neither the IJ nor BIA relied upon, or even mentioned, § 245.1(c)(8). Second, because Ortega-Cervantes’s conditional parole does not constitute ORTEGA-CERVANTES v. GONZALES 11395 parole into the United States under § 1255(a), he is not otherwise eligible for adjustment of status.