Opinion ID: 152884
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Development of the BIA's Sua Sponte Authority and the Departure Bar

Text: The BIA was established through regulations promulgated by the Attorney General in 1940. See Regulations Governing Departmental Organization and Authority, 5 Fed.Reg. 3502, 3503, § 90.2 (Sept. 4, 1940). [3] These regulations authorized the Board to issue orders of deportation; consider and determine appeals; and resolve motions for reconsideration, reargument or reopening of a case after the issuance of a final decision. Id. at 3503-04, §§ 90.3(a)-(b), 90.10. In 1952, Congress enacted the INA, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act. Pub.L. No. 82-414, ch. 414, 66 Stat. 163 (June 27, 1952). The INA charged the Attorney General with the administration and enforcement of the Act, and authorized him to establish such regulations ... as he deem[ed] necessary for carrying out [that] authority. Id. § 103(a), 66 Stat. at 173. Pursuant to that congressional delegation, the Attorney General promulgated a series of regulations defining the [a]ppellate jurisdiction of the BIA and the [p]owers of the Board. Immigration and Nationality Regulations, 17 Fed.Reg. 11,469, 11,475, § 6.1(b), (d) (Dec. 19, 1952) (final rule codified at 8 C.F.R. § 6.1(b), (d) (1952)). Section 6.1(d)(1) of those regulations defined the General[ ] [p]owers of the Board: Subject to any specific limitation prescribed by this chapter, in considering and determining cases before it as provided in this part the Board shall exercise such discretion and authority conferred upon the Attorney General by law as is appropriate and necessary for the disposition of the case.... 8 C.F.R. § 6.1(d)(1) (1952). The 1952 regulations also allowed for motions to reopen and for reconsideration of Board decisions, and these regulations included the first version of the departure bar. See id. § 6.2. [4] Two years after these regulations were promulgated, the BIA concluded that the departure bar was a jurisdictional limitation on its authority to consider a motion to reopen when the alien is outside the United States. In re G-Y B-, 6 I. & N. Dec. 159, 160 (BIA 1954). In 1958, the Attorney General revised the regulations relating to the BIA's authority to consider motions to reopen. See Miscellaneous Amendments to Chapter, 23 Fed.Reg. 9115, 9118-19 (Nov. 26, 1958). The revised regulations established what is now referred to as the BIA's sua sponte authority by providing the Board with the power to reopen proceedings and reconsider its decisions on its own motion. Id. at 9118, § 3.2. This BIA authority remained a creature of Attorney General regulations not restricted or modified by congressional enactmentsfor more than thirty years. Congress amended the INA in 1961 in order to add, inter alia, provisions relating to judicial review of the BIA's decisions. See Act of Sept. 26, 1961, Pub.L. No. 87-301, 75 Stat. 650. Relevant here is § 5(a) of the Act, which established the sole and exclusive procedure for [ ] the judicial review of all final orders of deportation heretofore or hereafter made against aliens within the United States. Id. § 5(a), 75 Stat. at 651 (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(a) (1964) (repealed 1996)). Among the judicial review procedures adopted by Congress was a provision similar to the departure bar regulation, which stated that [a]n order of deportation or of exclusion shall not be reviewed by any court if the alien ... has departed from the United States after the issuance of the order. 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(c) (1964) (emphasis added); see also In re Armendarez-Mendez, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 649 ([N]early a decade after the departure bar rule went into effect, Congress imposed a similar statutory restriction prohibiting the United States courts of appeals from reviewing deportation orders if the alien `has departed from the United States after issuance of the order.' (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(c) (1964))). Until 1990, this procedural scheme remained intact, and the substance of the Attorney General's regulations regarding motions to reopen went unchanged. However, in the Immigration Act of 1990, Pub.L. No. 101-649, 104 Stat. 4978 (Nov. 29, 1990), Congress directed the Attorney General to issue regulations with respect to ... the period of time in which motions to reopen and to reconsider may be offered in deportation proceedings, which regulations [should] include a limitation on the number of such motions that may be filed and a maximum time period for the filing of such motions. Id. § 545(d)(1), 104 Stat. at 5066. Congress issued this directive in order to reduce or eliminate ... abuses of regulations that, at that time, permitted aliens to file an unlimited number of motions to reopen without any limitations period. Stone v. INS, 514 U.S. 386, 400, 115 S.Ct. 1537, 131 L.Ed.2d 465 (1995). Although the Attorney General expressed doubt about the need to impose such limitations because there was little evidence of abuse, she ultimately promulgated regulations that, subject to certain exceptions, permitted an alien to file one motion to reopen within 90 days. Dada v. Mukasey, 554 U.S. 1, 128 S.Ct. 2307, 2315, 171 L.Ed.2d 178 (2008) (citing Executive Office for Immigration Review; Motions and Appeals in Immigration Proceedings, 61 Fed.Reg. 18,900, 18,901, 18,905 (Apr. 29, 1996) (final rule codified at 8 C.F.R. § 3.2(c) (effective July 1, 1996))); see also Iavorski v. INS, 232 F.3d 124, 129, 131 (2d Cir.2000). However, the revised regulations retained additional mechanisms whereby otherwise untimely motions could still be considered when the circumstances so required. Iavorski, 232 F.3d at 131. Chief among these mechanisms were the regulations providing authority to both an IJ and the BIA to reopen, sua sponte, a proceeding. Id. (citing 8 C.F.R. §§ 3.2(a), 3.23(b)(1) (2000)). [5] Approximately three months later, Congress codified somebut not allof the Attorney General's 1996 regulations regarding motions to reopen. See Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), Pub.L. No. 104-208, div. C, § 304, 110 Stat. 3009-546, 3009-587 (Sept. 30, 1996). Neither the departure bar nor the regulation granting the BIA sua sponte authority was mentioned in the statute in any fashion. See In re Armendarez-Mendez, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 654. But the IIRIRA repealed the INA's judicial review provisionsincluding the provision precluding post-departure judicial review of BIA ordersand enacted new rules for that process. See Pub.L. No. 104-208, div. C, § 306, 110 Stat. at 3009-607 to -612. Under these revisions to the INA, an alien is no longer foreclosed from seeking judicial review of a BIA order after he or she departs from the country. See Dada, 128 S.Ct. at 2320. The Attorney General promulgated new regulations based on the IIRIRA on March 6, 1997. See Inspection and Expedited Removal of Aliens; Detention and Removal of Aliens; Conduct of Removal Proceedings; Asylum Procedures, 62 Fed. Reg. 10,312 (Mar. 6, 1997). Although some commenters on the proposed regulations had opined that the IIRIRA impliedly invalidated the departure bar, the Attorney General rejected that view: No provision of the [IIRIRA] supports reversing the long established rule that a motion to reopen or reconsider cannot be made in immigration proceedings by or on behalf of a person after that person's departure from the United States. Id. at 10,321. Consequently, the Attorney General retained in her regulations both the departure bar and the BIA's authority to consider a motion to reopen sua sponte. See id. at 10,330-31 (final rule codified at 8 C.F.R. § 3.2(a), (d) (1997)). [6]