Opinion ID: 2960264
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: On July 31, 1992, Samuels, a native and citizen of Jamaica, entered the United States illegally with a passport and non-immigrant visa issued under the false name, “Michael Bryan.” Once here, Samuels moved in with his long-term partner, Mauverine Bryan (“Mauverine”), who is also the mother of Samuels’s twenty-two-year-old son, Jumaine, and seven-year-old daughter, Brianna. Mauverine has been a citizen of the United States since May 1, 1996, and before then was a lawful permanent resident (“LPR”). Mauverine sponsored Jumaine for LPR status, and he arrived in the United States in November 1996. On January 13, 1995, Samuels pleaded guilty to attempted robbery in the first degree under Sections 110 and 160.15(2) of the New York Penal Law. He was sentenced to an 3 indeterminate term of one-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years of imprisonment. On March 10, 1995, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service served an order on Samuels requiring him to show cause why he should not be deported as a non-immigrant who had remained in the United States longer than permitted. Six months later, Samuels married Mauverine. At a July 1996 hearing before Immigration Judge (“IJ”) Alan Page, Samuels conceded that he was deportable but indicated that he intended to apply for adjustment of status pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1255 based on his wife’s citizenship and for a Section 212(h) waiver of the bar to adjustment of status created by his conviction. On March 28, 1997, the INS added a new charge of deportability based on Samuels’s admission under a false name. IJ Page sustained this charge and advised Samuels that he would require a Section 212(i) waiver of the fraud charge in order to pursue his adjustment of status application. IJ Page granted Samuels both waivers in a September 25, 1997, decision. He found that “[Samuels’s] emotional and financial support is essential to his wife’s and his son’s wellbeing, and that [Samuels’s] deportation and the resulting separation from his immediate family would result in extreme hardship particularly to [his] wife as well as to his son.” The IJ also found that the positive factors affecting the discretionary decision of whether to grant the waivers outweighed the negative factors. The BIA reversed in a February 4, 2000, decision. Although the Board applied the same test as the IJ—extreme hardship—in determining whether Samuels was eligible for consideration for a waiver, it found that Samuels had not demonstrated extreme hardship. The BIA also found that Samuels did not merit a favorable exercise of discretion because his criminal and immigration history manifested “a pattern of unlawful behavior” that was not outweighed by 4 favorable equities. In May 2000, Samuels moved to reopen the BIA’s decision. In support of his application, he submitted a letter from a family therapist, Dr. Bonnie Weil, who had seen the Samuels family twice in March 2000. Weil stated that Jumaine was experiencing severe separation anxiety and that both Jumaine and Mauverine would suffer extreme hardship if Samuels were deported. The Board granted reopening and remanded to the IJ after finding that (1) the letter constituted new evidence that could not have been offered previously and (2) Jumaine’s psychological problems were likely the result of the Board’s reversal of the IJ’s grant of discretionary relief. Samuels and Mauverine testified at a hearing on remand on March 11, 2002. After hearing Samuels’s and Mauverine’s testimony, IJ Page adjourned for the submission of certain records. At the next appearance on January 12, 2003, the government informed the IJ that the Attorney General had recently adopted a new regulation, effective January 27, 2003, to govern Section 212(h) waivers. In pertinent part, this regulation, now 8 C.F.R. § 1212.7(d), provides: The Attorney General, in general, will not favorably exercise discretion under section 212(h)(2) of the Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(h)(2)) to consent to an application . . . for . . . adjustment of status, with respect to immigrant aliens who are inadmissible under section 212(a)(2) of the Act in cases involving violent or dangerous crimes, 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 the application for adjustment of status . . . would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship. Moreover, depending on the gravity of the alien’s underlying criminal offense, a showing of extraordinary circumstances might still be insufficient to warrant a favorable exercise of discretion under section 212(h)(2) of the Act. The IJ offered the parties an opportunity to brief the applicability of the new regulation. In response, Samuels argued that in departing from the statutory standard of “extreme hardship,” 5 the Attorney General had gone outside his statutory authority. In addition, Samuels contended that the new rule could not be applied retroactively to his conviction. In his April 1, 2003, decision, IJ Page denied Samuels a Section 212(h) waiver and therefore pretermitted his application for adjustment of status. Although the IJ found that Samuels had demonstrated that his wife and children would experience extreme hardship if he were deported, the IJ also found that the equities did not weigh in Samuels’s favor, making the grant of a waiver inappropriate. Because of the result he reached on the discretionary factors, the IJ found it unnecessary to determine whether Section 1212.7(d) applied retroactively. On appeal to the Board, Samuels argued that the IJ’s discretionary decision was clearly erroneous. The government also appealed, arguing that the IJ’s “extreme hardship” finding was erroneous. However, the government did not ask the BIA to apply the new regulation. The BIA upheld the IJ’s finding of extreme hardship but held that Section 1212.7(d) applied to govern the exercise of discretion that occurs after “extreme hardship” is found. After considering the arguments Samuels had made to the IJ, the Board found that (1) it had no jurisdiction to consider whether the regulation was beyond the Attorney General’s statutory authority, and (2) the regulation did not have an impermissibly retroactive effect because an application for adjustment of status is a continuing application. Applying the regulation, the Board held that Samuels did not merit a favorable exercise of discretion because he did not show that his family would suffer “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” following his deportation. Because Samuels did not show “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship,” the BIA considered it unnecessary to consider any other discretionary factors. Samuels filed a habeas petition in district court, which was transferred to this court 6 pursuant to Section 106(c) of the REAL ID Act, Pub. L. No. 109-13, Div. B, 119 Stat 231, 31011 (2005). Samuels argues that (1) Section 1212.7(d) should not be accorded deference under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), because it is inconsistent with the statutory structure and irrationally departs from the BIA’s prior case law; (2) the regulation is impermissibly retroactive as applied to him; (3) he is entitled to a remand because he had no notice that the Board would apply the regulation to him; and (4) the Board misinterpreted Section 1212.7(d).