Opinion ID: 3036824
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Waiver Standard

Text: [9] Despite his aggravated felony conviction, Rivas remained eligible to apply for adjustment of status. However, because his conviction was for a “crime involving moral turpitude,” 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I), Rivas was not admissible unless he obtained a waiver under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(c), which provides that the Attorney General “may waive” application of § 1182 “for humanitarian purposes, to assure family unity, or when it is otherwise in the public interest.” Rivas asserts that the IJ erred when he applied the heightened, “extreme hardship” standard when he denied Rivas’s waiver application, raising two legal arguments. First, he asserts that in Matter of Jean, 23 I. & N. Dec. 373 (A.G. 2002), the Attorney General exceeded his statutory authority by imposing a heightened waiver standard for aliens convicted of violent or dangerous crimes. Second, he argues that the IJ erred in applying the heightened standard in his case without first determining that Rivas’s aggravated felony conviction was for a violent or dangerous crime. [10] Jean concerned a § 1182 waiver for a female alien who had been convicted of second-degree manslaughter in connection with the death of a nineteen-month-old child that had been left in her care. Reversing the BIA’s grant of the waiver, the Attorney General determined that “evaluations of requests for waivers of inadmissibility . . . cannot . . . focus solely on family hardships, but must consider the nature of the criminal offense that rendered an alien inadmissible in the first place.” Id. at 383. The Attorney General stated that “violent or dangerous individuals” would not be granted a waiver “except in extraordinary circumstances, such as those involving national security or foreign policy considerations, or cases in which an alien clearly demonstrates that the denial of status RIVAS-GOMEZ v. GONZALES 3625 adjustment would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship.” Id. [11] Rivas’s first argument that the Attorney General exceeded statutory authority by adopting a heightened standard is foreclosed by our decision in Ayala-Chavez v. INS, 944 F.2d 638, 641 (9th Cir. 1991). Ayala-Chavez upheld the Attorney General’s requirement that waiver applicants under former § 212(c), 8 U.S. C. § 1182(c), with serious drug offense convictions demonstrate “outstanding equities.” Id. Under Ayala-Chavez the Attorney General has broad discretion to grant or deny waivers and may establish general standards governing the exercise of such discretion “as long as these standards are rationally related to the statutory scheme.” Id. Here, the Attorney General’s heightened waiver standard for aliens convicted of violent or dangerous crimes is rationally related to the national immigration policy of not admitting aliens who would be a danger to society. The second argument raised by Rivas, that the IJ erred when he applied the Jean “extreme hardship requirement” without first determining that Rivas’s conviction was for a “violent or dangerous” crime has merit. While the government argues that the IJ merely balanced the equities when he denied the waiver, the IJ assumed from the beginning of the proceeding that Rivas’s conviction triggered the Jean analysis, and concluded by stating: So the Court wishes to make its analysis plain. I believe that [the Jean] standard applies to him and the primary basis for my decision, which I cannot grant it, is because I do not believe that he had met that burden. I am not denying [the waiver] because of his either lack of accounting for the crime and the other things the Court is commenting on those. But the Court is denying it because it does not meet the hardship standard indicated by the Attorney General. 3626 RIVAS-GOMEZ v. GONZALES Thus, we consider Rivas’s legal argument. [12] In Jean, the Attorney General did not impose the heightened “extreme hardship” standard on all aliens with aggravated felony convictions, only on those who “engage in violent criminal acts.” Jean, 23 I. & N. Dec. at 384. The determination in Jean was fact-based, not categorical. Moreover, in a subsequent decision the BIA specifically limited Jean’s heightened waiver requirement to “dangerous or violent crimes.”3 In re K-A-, 23 I. & N. Dec. 661, 666 (BIA 2004). Therefore, the IJ erred when he applied the “extreme hardship” standard without first making a determination based on the facts underlying Rivas’s conviction that Rivas’s crime was violent or dangerous. Thus, we grant the petition in part and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. PETITION DENIED IN PART AND GRANTED IN PART. REMANDED.