Opinion ID: 788149
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Actions Committed to an Agency's Discretion

Text: 51 Section 701(a)(2) [of the APA] makes it clear that `review is not to be had' in those rare circumstances where the relevant [law] `is drawn so that a court would have no meaningful standard against which to judge the agency's exercise of discretion.' Lincoln, 508 U.S. at 190-91, 113 S.Ct. 2024 (quoting Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 830, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985)). The Government insists that the situation before us is one of those rare circumstances, likening an individual Board member's decision on whether to direct that a written merits decision on an alien's appeal be issued to the role of an agency accorded absolute discretion in determining whether to institute enforcement proceedings, see Heckler, 470 U.S. at 831, 105 S.Ct. 1649 (an agency's decision not to prosecute or enforce, whether through civil or criminal process, is a decision generally committed to an agency's absolute discretion). Heckler involved the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) decision to refrain from instituting enforcement proceedings with respect to drugs used in administering lethal injections. The Supreme Court determined that there was no law to apply in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act against which a court could review the FDA's decision not to bring enforcement proceedings. Id. at 830-31, 105 S.Ct. 1649. 52 Under the streamlining regulations, in contrast, in order to affirm without an opinion, several specific criteria must be met: (1) the result reached in the decision under review [must be] correct; (2) any errors in the decision under review [must be] harmless or nonmaterial; and (3) (A) [t]he issues on appeal [must be] squarely controlled by existing Board or federal court precedent and ... not involve the application of precedent to a novel factual situation or (B) [t]he factual and legal issues raised on appeal [must be] not so substantial that the case warrants the issuance of a written opinion in the case. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(4)(i). All three of these criteria must be met in order for a case properly to be streamlined. 8 53 These criteria are clearly intended to require the single BIA member to determine whether the correct outcome was reached and, if so, whether a Board opinion would have significant value in the context of an appeal of the matter or in the context of other matters yet to be adjudicated. We agree with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that they have nothing to do with the BIA's caseload or other internal circumstances. Batalova v. Ashcroft, 355 F.3d 1246, 1253 (10th Cir.2004); see also Denko v. I.N.S., 351 F.3d 717, 732 (6th Cir.2003) (the size of the BIA's caseload-a factor which the Board may be better equipped to assess-has no relevance in deciding which cases are appropriate for summary affirmance). Rather, these criteria present the kinds of issues [courts] routinely consider in reviewing cases, Batalova, 355 F.3d at 1253, and provide amply sufficient law for courts to apply. The fact that they may require the exercise of some discretion on the part of the single BIA member that may be deserving of some deference is, of course, not relevant; the APA expressly authorizes review of the exercise of discretion for abuse. 54 The government's insistence that § 1003.1(e)(4)(i) requires a single BIA member to assess the availability of agency resources is based upon subsection B and its reference to whether the issues raised upon appeal are not so substantial that the case warrants the issuance of a written opinion, id. § 1003.1(e)(4)(i)(B). However, this language focuses upon the lack of importance of the issues, not backlog and the availability of resources to produce an opinion. Moreover, the government's argument ignores the fact that § 1003.1(e)(4)(i) is only one part of an overall case management system that is based solely on the correctness of the result and the institutional value that an opinion would have. Under subsection 1003.1(e), a single BIA member who is assigned a case shall do one of three things. If the result is correct and the institutional value of an opinion would be so low that the criteria of (e)(4) are met, he must affirm without opinion. On the other hand, if the case presents one of the circumstances enumerated in § 1003.1(e)(6), all relating to the institutional value of an opinion, 9 the case will be assigned to a three member panel for disposition. If the case is more significant than an (e)(4) case and less significant than an (e)(6) case, the single BIA member will decide the merits of the appeal by himself and issue a brief order, affirming, modifying or remanding under § 1003.1(e)(5). In short, the regulations do not call upon single BIA members to evaluate the resources available at a particular time. Rather, the regulations themselves allocate whatever decision-making resources the agency has, calling upon single BIA members to follow the criteria contained in the regulations for allocating those resources. 55 Nor are we impressed with the government's suggestion that § 1003.1(e)(4)(ii) precludes a single BIA member from explaining his or her decision to streamline and that this somehow deprives a reviewing court of law to apply. First, reading this section in context, we understand it to preclude any explanation of the member's reason for affirming the IJ's decision so that the IJ's decision will stand alone as the final agency decision. We do not read it as precluding comment regarding the decision to streamline, and there may be rare situations in which the member might find it helpful to file brief comments on this subject. More importantly, however, the law to be applied is provided by the criteria of the regulations, and it will be the rare case, indeed, where the reviewing court, having received the administrative record and the briefs of the parties, will have any difficulty, without more, reaching a decision as to whether the member was so wide of the mark in applying those criteria that his action can be characterized as arbitrary and capricious. 56 We hold that the issues addressed by single BIA members under § 1003.1(e)(4)(i) of the streamlining regulations are not committed to agency discretion and that the resolutions of those issues are judicially reviewable.