Opinion ID: 691011
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Developments in INS Policy.

Text: 11 Prior to the issuance of the May 1, 1987 regulations, groups representing aliens had commented that the proposed public charge regulations unlawfully conditioned a showing of self-support upon the non-receipt of public assistance by family members. Just over four months into the application period, the INS began a series of clarifications and amendments of the public charge provisions. A September 23, 1987 memorandum from Associate Commissioner Norton to the four regional commissioners removed the regulatory special rule's waiver requirement, stating that [n]o waiver application is necessary to apply the special rule for determination of public charge. Commissioner Norton repeated this instruction in an October 1, 1987 letter to Edward J. Wildblood, the Regional Legalization Officer of the Eastern Regional Office. On November 17, 1987, the INS formalized this policy, issuing a technical amendment that deleted the waiver requirement from its special rule. 52 Fed.Reg. 43,843 (Nov. 17, 1987) (codified at 8 C.F.R. Sec. 245a.2(k)(4) (1992)). 12 The INS also revised its definition of public cash assistance. A November 23, 1987 memorandum from Commissioner Norton to the four regional commissioners explained that SSI [Supplemental Security Income] should be considered as public cash assistance only with regard to the person who receives it. SSI should not be attributed as public cash assistance to the immediate family members who reside with the recipient, but who themselves are non-recipients. The agency's position with respect to Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) developed more slowly. A December 9, 1987 memorandum from Paul Virtue, INS General Counsel, to Terry O'Reilly, Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Legalization, explained that 13 if a family of three applied for AFDC and the parents were both ineligible aliens the benefit would still be granted to the United States Citizen child and that the child is considered the recipient.... For our purposes, it would seem to me that the parents in such a situation would not be considered to have received public cash assistance. 14 In a February 12, 1988 letter responding to questions from a District of Columbia Official, Assistant Commissioner William Slattery indicated that [p]ublic charge status is not conveyed to the parent-payee if the United States citizen child is the recipient [of AFDC]. Finally, on April 21, 1988, just two weeks before the close of the application period, Commissioner Norton adopted this position in a memorandum to the four Regional Commissioners: 15 As a general rule, the receipt of AFDC benefits by a member of the legalization applicant's family is not attributed to the applicant for purposes of determining the likelihood that the applicant will become a public charge.... If, however, the family is reliant on the AFDC benefits as its sole means of support, the legalization applicant may be considered to have received public cash assistance. This determination must be made on a case-by-case basis and upon consideration of the totality of the applicant's circumstances. 16 Following the May 4, 1988 close of the application period, in a written decision dated December 29, 1988, Commissioner Norton broadened the April 21, 1988 position. He held that even a non-working applicant whose children had received public cash assistance would not be excludable as likely to become a public charge, since 17 [i]t is not unusual for a mother to stay at home to care for her children, especially when the children have not started school. A mother's absence from the work force to care for her children is not by itself sufficient basis to find the mother likely to become a public charge. 18 Matter of A., Interim Decision No. 3097 at 4 (Imm. Nat. Serv. Dec. 29, 1988). Finally, in July of 1989, more than one year after the May 5, 1988 application cutoff date, the INS formally amended its regulatory definition of public cash assistance to delete all reference to the alien's immediate family members. The Federal Register notice explained that [t]he receipt of public cash assistance by immediate family members will not have a bearing on an applicant's eligibility for legalization. 54 Fed.Reg. 29,442, 29,443 (1989). 19 The July 1989 amendments also removed from the regulatory special rule references to an alien applicant's family. From that point on an applicant need[ed] only [to] demonstrate a consistent employment history that shows the ability to support himself or herself. Id. at 29,443-44. 20 967 F.2d at 801-04. 21 Because a full recitation of the procedural history of this litigation is not necessary to our current decision, we briefly summarize only the central events in this lawsuit. Our prior opinion contains a more complete description. 967 F.2d at 804-05. 22 This lawsuit was commenced on April 1, 1988 by the State of New York, the City of New York, and a class of plaintiffs later certified as 23 [a]ll undocumented aliens residing in New York State who may be excludable from the Legalization Program established by IRCA as likely to become public charges under the standards set forth in INS regulations 8 C.F.R. Secs. 245a.1(i), 245a.2(d)(4) and 245a.2(k)(4) based in whole or in part upon the receipt of public cash assistance by the applicant's U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident family members, including but not limited to those individuals who were deterred from filing applications for legalization under the Legalization program. 24 Plaintiffs asserted that the public charge regulations facially violated IRCA, the Fifth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act's proscription against arbitrary and capricious action because they included consideration of public assistance by an alien's family members in determining whether the alien herself was self-supporting. Plaintiffs further alleged that the INS failed to broadly disseminate complete and accurate information regarding the public charge regulations and that this failure violated the class members' due process rights and the INS's duty to administer a full twelve-month application period. See 8 U.S.C. Secs. 1255a(a), 1255a(i). 25 In early April, 1988, plaintiffs applied for a temporary restraining order directing the INS to disseminate its revised policy that a child's receipt of public cash assistance does not convey public charge status to the parent. The district court denied the application based on the INS's assertion that it would disseminate new instructions on this issue, which it did through the April 21, 1988 memorandum to the four regional commissioners referenced above. Dissatisfied with this action, plaintiffs immediately applied for a preliminary injunction to extend the application period, which the district court denied. We subsequently affirmed this denial. Perales v. Meese, 847 F.2d 55 (2d Cir.1988). 26 On March 29, 1989, the district court denied the parties' cross-motions for partial summary judgment. Upon plaintiffs' filing of a motion for reargument, the parties entered into a Stipulation and Order, filed July 21, 1989, which required defendants to publish amended regulations deleting the references to family members from the definition of public cash assistance and from the regulatory special rule and to readjudicate all timely filed applications that had been denied on public charge grounds. The INS thereupon issued the July, 1989 amendments discussed above and readjudicated the pertinent applications, approving all but one. 27 After holding a six-day bench trial, the district court issued the opinion currently under review, which held that the INS public charge regulations were neither facially invalid nor unlawful as applied. Perales v. Thornburgh, 762 F.Supp. 1036, 1061 (S.D.N.Y.1991). The district court also rejected plaintiffs' claim that the INS disseminated misinformation concerning the public charge regulations in violation of IRCA and the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Id. at 1064-65. 28 On appeal, we held that the public charge regulations violated IRCA for two reasons: the regulatory special rule required an applicant to demonstrate the ability to support her family as well as herself and further required an applicant who satisfied the regulatory special rule to apply for a discretionary waiver from the Attorney General. 967 F.2d at 808-10. We found that there was no support in IRCA for either requirement. Under the statute, an applicant needed only to demonstrate evidence of self-support to satisfy the statutory special rule and, upon doing so, was exempt from public charge excludability without having to undergo an additional waiver process. We ordered the INS to disseminate information regarding the effect of our decision and to sponsor a new twelve-month application period for class members who had been dissuaded from applying for amnesty during the original application period because of the unlawful regulations. Id. at 813-14. Given this holding, it was unnecessary for us to address plaintiffs' dissemination and due process claims. 29 In June, 1993, the Supreme Court vacated our opinion and remanded the case for further consideration in light of CSS. Reno v. Perales, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 3027, 125 L.Ed.2d 716 (1993). CSS held that aliens challenging regulations promulgated pursuant to IRCA (in that case, regulations regarding the continuous residence and continuous physical presence requirements) were required to show that their claims were ripe by demonstrating that they had taken every affirmative step possible in applying for legalization but were blocked because of the challenged regulations. The Court reasoned that because there were several criteria for determining whether an alien would be eligible for legalization, the plaintiffs could not show that they were concretely affected by the challenged regulations unless their applications had been denied by virtue of the [challenged] rule, and not by virtue of some other, unchallenged rule. CSS, --- U.S. at ---- n. 19, 113 S.Ct. at 2496 n. 19 (quotation marks omitted). Plaintiffs who could demonstrate that their applications were denied because of the rule would then be subject to IRCA's exclusive review provisions; as such, these plaintiffs could only raise their challenge to the questioned regulations as part of an appeal from an order of deportation. 30 The Court recognized an exception to this scheme of review for aliens who could show that they were front-desked by INS officials--i.e., whose applications were rejected at INS offices on the basis that they were statutorily ineligible for legalization--or who could show that even though they were not front-desked, the front-desking policy was nevertheless a substantial cause of their failure ... to apply. CSS, --- U.S. at ---- n. 28, 113 S.Ct. at 2500 n. 28. The Court observed that these aliens would have ripe claims because they would have felt the regulations' effects concretely. Furthermore, they would be able to maintain an action in the district court because they would not come under IRCA's exclusive review procedures, which applied only to aliens whose applications had been denied in an administrative proceeding. Because the record was unclear as to whether any of the plaintiffs had been subjected to front-desking, the Court remanded for further factual findings. 31 When this case was remanded to this court, we in turn remanded it to the district court for a determination as to which, if any, of the plaintiff class members were front-desked or could otherwise show that the challenged regulations applied to them  'in a sufficiently concrete manner to satisfy ripeness concerns.'  4 F.3d at 100 (quoting CSS, --- U.S. at ---- n. 28, 113 S.Ct. at 2500 n. 28). The parties subsequently petitioned for us to recall this mandate and to decide the questions we had not addressed in our first opinion. We granted their petitions and now proceed to rule on the merits of plaintiffs' unresolved claims.