Opinion ID: 794477
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Our Review of a BIA Member's Affirmance Without Referral to a Three-Member Panel

Text: 32 The threshold question we must address is what recourse a petitioner has, if any, upon a Board member's decision to resolve an appeal himself and not to refer the case to a three-member panel. 33 We observe preliminarily that an alien's right to an administrative appeal from an adverse asylum decision derives from statute rather than from the Constitution. Yu Sheng Zhang, 362 F.3d at 157 (noting that [e]ven a criminal defendant has no constitutional right to appeal (citing Furman v. United States, 720 F.2d 263, 264 (2d Cir.1983))). Kambolli is therefore afforded an opportunity to appeal the IJ's decision only because Congress and the Attorney General have chosen to provide an appeals process by statute and regulation. 34 The Supreme Court has held repeatedly that, in general, decisions by administrative agencies are subject to judicial review, see Lincoln v. Vigil, 508 U.S. 182, 190, 113 S.Ct. 2024, 124 L.Ed.2d 101 (1993) (discussing `basic presumption of review' under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) (quoting Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 140, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967))), and decisions made pursuant to the INA are often subject to this general rule. See INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 298, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 150 L.Ed.2d 347 (2001) (holding that despite specific jurisdiction-denying provisions of the IIRIRA, in immigration cases there still exists a strong presumption in favor of judicial review of administrative action); see also INS v. Doherty, 502 U.S. 314, 330, 112 S.Ct. 719, 116 L.Ed.2d 823 (1992) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part) (citing Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U.S. 48, 75 S.Ct. 591, 99 L.Ed. 868 (1955) and stating that although the INA abrogates the APA's detailed hearing procedures for immigration cases, the APA's judicial review provisions nonetheless apply to hearings under the INA). 35 The INA allows a court considering a final order of removal pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252 to review all questions of law and fact, including interpretation and application of constitutional provisions, arising from any action taken or proceeding brought to remove an alien. Id. § 1252(b)(9); see also 5 U.S.C. § 704 ([Under the APA,] a preliminary, procedural, or intermediate agency action or ruling not directly reviewable is subject to review on the review of the final agency action.). It is therefore the default rule that absent a provision of law to the contrary, action by an IJ or the BIA may be reviewed when the BIA's final action comes before this Court. 36 An exception to the default rule covers decisions committed to agency discretion. Smriko, 387 F.3d at 291 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B) (denials of discretionary relief). The issue before us is whether there exists a meaningful standard against which a Court of Appeals may assess the decision of a single BIA member unilaterally to affirm an IJ's decision without opinion rather than refer it to a three-member BIA panel. Cf. Lincoln, 508 U.S. at 191, 113 S.Ct. 2024 (under 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2), a provision of the APA, `review is not to be had' in those rare circumstances where the relevant [law] `is drawn so a court would have no meaningful standard against which to judge the agency's exercise of discretion.' (quoting Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 830, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985))). 10 We conclude that 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(6) does not provide such a standard. 37 Another argument against our review — which we conclude is persuasive — is that a Board member acting pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(4) is prohibited from making any record whatsoever of his reasoning when deciding to act alone and affirm an IJ's decision without opinion. 11 Pursuant to the streamlining regulation, 38 [i]f the Board member determines that the decision should be affirmed without opinion, the Board shall issue an order that reads as follows: The Board affirms, without opinion, the result of the decision below. The decision below is, therefore, the final agency determination. See 8 CFR [§ 1003.1](e)(4). An order affirming without opinion, issued under authority of this provision, shall not include further explanation or reasoning. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(4)(ii) (emphasis supplied). A reviewing court therefore has no knowledge — and can have no knowledge — of the decision-making process of the BIA member. In addition, the prohibition on explanation clearly indicates that the authors of the regulations did not envisage review of the reasoning behind a BIA member's choice of unilateral affirmance without opinion over reference to a three-member BIA panel. 12 39 Petitioner argues that 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e) itself provides a sufficient benchmark for a reviewing court to evaluate a decision to affirm unilaterally without opinion. Under subsection (e)(6), certain categories of cases may be directed to three-member panels, and subsection (e)(4) describes those cases in which a BIA member shall affirm without opinion. According to petitioner, a reviewing court can therefore review the record against the factors in subsection (e)(6) to see if a unilateral decision without reference to a three-member BIA panel was truly warranted. If the reviewing court finds that a Board member erred in not determining that, for example, there existed a need to settle inconsistencies among the rulings of different immigration judges, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(6)(i), remand would be appropriate for consideration by a three-member BIA panel. 13 40 We reject this argument — and therefore conclude that we lack jurisdiction to review decisions by BIA members to affirm IJ decisions without opinion without reference to a three-member BIA panel — substantially for the reasons articulated by our sister circuits reaching the same result. 14 See Ngure, 367 F.3d at 983; Tsegay, 386 F.3d at 1353-58. Any review by a Court of Appeals of BIA members' decisions to decide cases without referral to three-member panels would undermine the BIA's streamlining scheme, inasmuch as Board members, who are prohibited by regulation from explaining a decision to act alone under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(4) and produce only a brief order when acting alone under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(5), would be encouraged to refer cases to three-member panels in an effort to prevent unnecessary remanding of cases. 15 In addition, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(6) states that a BIA member may refer a case to a three-member panel in certain circumstances — not that he must do so — and provides no guidance concerning when such reference is appropriate, making it even more difficult for a Court of Appeals to review a single member's decision to dispose of an appeal unilaterally. Because it is absolutely clear that [a]bsent constitutional constraints or extremely compelling circumstances the administrative agencies should be free to fashion their own rules of procedure and to pursue methods of inquiry capable of permitting them to discharge their multitudinous duties, Vt. Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 435 U.S. 519, 543, 98 S.Ct. 1197, 55 L.Ed.2d 460 (1978) (internal quotation marks omitted), we decline the invitation to cripple the streamlining process by assuming authority to review these routine BIA procedural decisions. 41 We note as well that were we to have such jurisdiction, we would sorely lack the expertise necessary to evaluate whether a particular case warranted a hearing before a three-member BIA panel. For example, one ground for referring a case to a three-member panel is the need to settle inconsistencies among the rulings of different immigration judges. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(6)(i). BIA members, who review thousands of IJ decisions, know better than any reviewing court of appeals whether a given issue has generated inconsistencies among IJs that require rectification. For instance, were a petitioner to seek review of a unilateral affirmance on the ground that three-member review was necessary to settle conflicting IJ rulings because a similarly-situated applicant received asylum whereas the petitioner did not, we could not decide the case without canvassing the landscape of IJ decisions to determine whether the case before us truly represented an aberration. 16 Similarly, a petition for review based on the regulatory provision authorizing three-member review of a case or controversy of major national import, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(6)(iv), would require that we compare the national import of a petitioner's asylum case to those of other applicants. The difficulty of these endeavors would be compounded by the fact that most IJ decisions are unpublished. 42 Our lack of jurisdiction to review decisions by single BIA members to affirm without referral to three-member BIA panels does not, we emphasize, prevent us from reviewing the merits of IJ decisions that are not correct, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(4), are based on a clearly erroneous factual determination by an immigration judge, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(6)(v), are not in conformity with the law, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(6)(iii), or which for any other reason may have merited three-member panel review by the BIA — subject, of course, to the jurisdiction-denying provisions of the INA as amended by the IIRIRA. 17 Although our jurisdiction, where it exists, is designed to protect the substantive rights of applicants, the streamlining procedures were certainly not intended to create additional rights. 18 It is not the role of the federal courts to dictate the internal operating rules of the BIA. We therefore hold that we lack jurisdiction to review a claim that a single BIA member erred in deciding to resolve unilaterally an appeal of an IJ's order and not to refer the case to a three-member BIA panel.