Opinion ID: 147854
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Motion to Reopen Sua Sponte

Text: The government argues that we have no jurisdiction to review the BIA's denial of the untimely motion to reopen because of 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B), which states: Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), including section 2241 of Title 28, or any other habeas corpus provision, and sections 1361 and 1651 of such title, and except as provided in subparagraph (D), and regardless of whether the judgment, decision, or action is made in removal proceedings, no court shall have jurisdiction to review . . . (ii) any other decision or action of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority for which is specified under this subchapter to be in the discretion of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security. ... 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii). The government correctly notes that BIA has discretion to reopen its proceedings on its own at any time. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a) (The Board may at any time reopen or reconsider on its own motion any case in which it has rendered a decision.). Since the agency's regulations characterize the decision as discretionary, the government reasons, section 1252(a)(2)(B) bars review. The government also points out that our precedent indicates that decisions committed to agency discretion by regulation are beyond judicial review. See Barry, 524 F.3d at 724; Harchenko, 379 F.3d at 410-11. In Kucana v. Holder, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 827, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2010), the Supreme Court rejected the idea that an agency can curtail the jurisdiction of an Article III court and held that [a]ction on motions to reopen, made discretionary by the Attorney General only, ... remain subject to judicial review, id. at 840. In Kucana, the Court construed the jurisdiction-stripping provision in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), 110 Stat. 3009-546, relied upon by the government here. That provision is found in 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), quoted above. The Seventh Circuit found this statute to bar review of a decision by the BIA denying the petitioner's late motion to reopen removal proceedings because the Attorney General had made such decisions discretionary by regulation. The Court noted that Congress had not codified the provision in the regulation making such decisions discretionary. The Court read the phrase specified under this subchapter in section 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) to mean that Congress barred court review of discretionary decisions only when Congress itself set out the Attorney General's discretionary authority in the statute. Kucana, 130 S.Ct. at 836-37. The Court concluded that Congress intended judicial review of motions to reopen to be as broad as it was before the IIRIRA was enacted: The BIA has broad discretion, conferred by the Attorney General, `to grant or deny a motion to reopen,' 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a), but courts retain jurisdiction to review, with due respect, the Board's decision. Kucana, 130 S.Ct. at 838. The Court found the idea of an agency regulation placing a matter beyond court jurisdiction to contravene the presumption... `that executive determinations are generally subject to judicial review,' id. at 839 (quoting Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 434, 115 S.Ct. 2227, 132 L.Ed.2d 375 (1995)), the longstanding exercise of judicial review of administrative rulings on reopening motions, id. at 831, and the congressional design that [Congress], and only [Congress], would limit the federal courts' jurisdiction, id. at 839-40. The Court's holding in Kucana was clear: While Congress pared back judicial review in IIRIRA, it did not delegate to the Executive authority to do so. Id. at 840. Were it otherwise, the Executive would have a free hand to shelter its own decisions from abuse-of-discretion appellate court review simply by issuing a regulation declaring those decisions `discretionary.' Ibid. We therefore reject the government's argument that review of the denial of the petitioner's motion to reopen is barred by the confluence of 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) and 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(4). The government also cites our precedents  Harchenko v. INS and Barry v. Mukasey  as an additional ground for finding a lack of jurisdiction to review the denial of the motion to reopen. In Harchenko, a panel of this court was asked to overturn the BIA's refusal to reopen a matter sua sponte. The court observed that the decision whether to reopen was within the BIA's discretion, and looking to the Supreme Court's decision in Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985), held that the court had no jurisdiction to review the administrative decision. The panel stated: The decision whether to invoke sua sponte authority is committed to the unfettered discretion of the BIA. ... `Therefore, the very nature of the claim renders it not subject to judicial review.' Harchenko, 379 F.3d at 410-11 (quoting Luis v. INS, 196 F.3d 36, 40 (1st Cir.1999) (reasoning that where there is no meaningful standard against which to judge the agency's exercise of discretion, Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. at 830, 105 S.Ct. 1649, bars judicial review)). Following Harchenko, the court in Barry held that the court of appeals has no jurisdiction to review the denial of a motion to reopen sua sponte. See Barry, 524 F.3d at 724 (stating that where the BIA declines to exercise its sua sponte authority to reopen removal proceedings, irrespective of whether that decision was proper ... the BIA's determination to forgo the exercise of its sua sponte authority is a decision that [courts] are without jurisdiction to review). Those decisions remain the law of this circuit. A published prior panel decision `remains controlling authority unless an inconsistent decision of the United States Supreme Court requires modification of the decision or this Court sitting en banc overrules the prior decision.' Rutherford v. Columbia Gas, 575 F.3d 616, 619 (6th Cir.2009) (quoting Salmi v. Sec'y of Health & Human Servs., 774 F.2d 685, 689 (6th Cir.1985)); see also United States v. Barnwell, 477 F.3d 844, 850 n. 4 (6th Cir. 2007) (citing Meeks v. Illinois Cent. Gulf R.R., 738 F.2d 748, 751 (6th Cir.1984)). The same injunction appears in Sixth Circuit Rule 206(c), which reads: Reported panel opinions are binding on subsequent panels. Kucana cannot fairly be read as overruling those cases, since the Supreme Court specifically expressed no opinion on whether federal courts may review [BIA refusals] to reopen removal proceedings sua sponte.  130 S.Ct. at 839 n. 18. Therefore, we are constrained to hold that we lack jurisdiction to review the BIA's denial of the petitioner's motion to reopen sua sponte. However, we believe the Supreme Court's reasoning set out in Kucana undermines the continuing validity of Harchenko and Barry, since both cases are based on the same premise rejected in Kucana. Barry adopts the holding from Harchenko without analysis or discussion. Harchenko, in turn, after citing cases from other circuits, relies heavily on the Supreme Court's decision in Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985). Heckler held that when Congress commits to an agency discretionary authority to perform an act without prescribing meaningful governing standards, that exercise of discretion is placed beyond judicial review by section 701(a)(2) of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). Id. at 830, 105 S.Ct. 1649; see 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2) (authorizing judicial review of final agency action except to the extent that ... agency action is committed to agency discretion by law). It does not support a conclusion that an agency can strip a court of jurisdiction to review its own actions by enacting regulations that deem these actions discretionary. Barry and Harchenko may have misread Heckler by applying it to agency decisions made discretionary by regulation, that is, by the agency itself, effectively permitting the agency to insulate its own decisions from judicial review  a proposition soundly rejected by the Court in Kucana. Heckler itself rejected a claim by several death row inmates who sought a mandatory injunction to compel the Food and Drug Administration to enforce provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. § 301 et seq., (FDCA) against officials in states that had adopted the lethal injection method for carrying out a death sentence. The inmates argued that the FDCA prohibited off-label use of drugs, and that the drugs chosen by the states could not be used for that purpose until the FDA approved the drugs as safe and effective for human execution. Id. at 827, 105 S.Ct. 2427. The Court held that the FDA's decision not to institute enforcement action was shielded from judicial review by section 701(a)(2) of the APA. In construing that section, the Court cited Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 91 S.Ct. 814, 28 L.Ed.2d 136 (1971), abrogated on other grounds by Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99, 97 S.Ct. 980, 51 L.Ed.2d 192 (1977), which characterized that statutory bar to judicial review as a very narrow exception. Overton Park, 401 U.S. at 410, 91 S.Ct. 814. The Overton Park Court explained, The legislative history of the Administrative Procedure Act indicates that [this exception] is applicable in those rare instances where `statutes are drawn in such broad terms that in a given case there is no law to apply.' Ibid. (citing S.Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1 st Sess., 26 (1945)). The Heckler court stated that under section 702(a)(2), review is not to be had if the statute is drawn so that a court would have no meaningful standard against which to judge the agency's exercise of discretion. In such a case, the statute ( `law' ) can be taken to have `committed' the decisionmaking to the agency's judgment absolutely. Heckler, 470 U.S. at 830, 105 S.Ct. 1649 (emphasis added). The Court concluded that [t]he general exception to reviewability provided by § 701(a)(2) for action `committed to agency discretion' remains a narrow one and left to Congress, and not to the courts, the decision as to whether an agency's refusal to institute proceedings should be judicially reviewable. Id. at 838, 105 S.Ct. 1649 (emphasis added). In Heckler, the Court determined that Congress can restrict the jurisdiction of federal courts over certain agency actions under the APA by deeming them discretionary and drafting statutes that provide a court no meaningful standard against which to judge the agency's exercise of discretion. Id. at 830, 105 S.Ct. 1649. It does not support a conclusion that an agency can strip a court of jurisdiction to review its own actions by enacting regulations that deem these actions discretionary. Recognizing such authority would fundamentally alter the constitutional checks and balances put in place by the separation of powers doctrine. See Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 452, 124 S.Ct. 906, 157 L.Ed.2d 867 (2004) (holding that under the separation of powers doctrine, only Congress can expand or contract the subject-matter jurisdiction of a lower Article III court); Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U.S. 200, 207, 113 S.Ct. 2035, 124 L.Ed.2d 118 (1993) (Congress has the constitutional authority to define the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts.); INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 957-58, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983) (holding that Congress may alter federal court jurisdiction through legislation, but to do so it must satisfy the requirements of bicameralism and presentment). Kucana reinforces Heckler 's prescription that the narrow exception to judicial review of agency decisions must originate from Congress, not the agency itself. The majority of cases finding no jurisdiction to review denials of motions to reopen sua sponte on account of Heckler, including Barry and Harchenko, do so on the basis of standardless regulations. See, e.g., Luis v. INS, 196 F.3d 36, 40 (1st Cir.1999); Ali v. Gonzales, 448 F.3d 515, 518 (2d Cir.2006); Calle-Vujiles v. Ashcroft, 320 F.3d 472, 474-75 (3d Cir.2003); Doh v. Gonzales, 193 Fed.Appx. 245, 246 (4th Cir. 2006) (per curiam); Enriquez-Alvarado v. Ashcroft, 371 F.3d 246, 248-50 (5th Cir. 2004); Harchenko, 379 F.3d at 410-11; Pilch v. Ashcroft, 353 F.3d 585, 586 (7th Cir.2003); Ekimian v. INS, 303 F.3d 1153, 1159 (9th Cir.2002); Belay-Gebru v. INS, 327 F.3d 998, 1000-01 (10th Cir.2003); Anin v. Reno, 188 F.3d 1273, 1279 (11th Cir.1999). The only two cases that cite a statute in concluding that such decisions are unreviewable point to 8 U.S.C. § 1103(g)(2), which generally authorizes [t]he Attorney General [to] establish such regulations ... as the Attorney General determines to be necessary for carrying out this section. See Tamenut v. Mukasey, 521 F.3d 1000, 1004 (8th Cir.2008) (en banc) (per curiam) (The regulation establishing the BIA's authority to reopen sua sponte was promulgated pursuant to a general grant of regulatory authority that sets no standards for this decision. See 8 U.S.C. § 1103(g).); Lenis v. U.S. Attorney Gen., 525 F.3d 1291, 1293 (11th Cir. 2008) ([N]o statute expressly authorizes the BIA to reopen cases sua sponte; rather, the regulation at issue derives from a statute that grants general authority over immigration and nationalization matters to the Attorney General, and sets no standard for the Attorney General's decision-making in this context. See 8 U.S.C. § 1103(g)(2).). Under that rationale, however, any agency decision made under a regulation in which the agency grants itself discretion to act would be beyond judicial review where Congress granted general authority to the agency to make rules, which is to say, in virtually every case. That result directly contradicts Kucana 's central holding. Moreover, the regulation at issue in Kucana, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2, is the same one that the courts of appeals have held defines the BIA's discretion over sua sponte reopening so broadly as to preclude review. In deeming such decisions unreviewable, the courts have pointed to the breadth of the first paragraph of the regulation: (a) General. The Board may at any time reopen or reconsider on its own motion any case in which it has rendered a decision. ... The decision to grant or deny a motion to reopen or reconsider is within the discretion of the Board, subject to the restrictions of this section. The Board has discretion to deny a motion to reopen even if the party moving has made out a prima facie case for relief. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a); see, e.g., Harchenko, 379 F.3d at 411 (No language in the provision requires the BIA to reopen a deportation proceeding under any set of particular circumstances. Instead, the provision merely provides the BIA the discretion to reopen immigration proceedings as it sees fit.) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Yet the BIA's authority to deny motions to reopen, as set out in the second sentence of the regulation, is no less broad. The second sentence states that the BIA's discretion regarding motions to reopen is subject to the restrictions of this section, but the rest of the regulation imposes no limits on the BIA's authority to refuse such motions. Rather, it reads in relevant part: (c) Motion to reopen. (1) A motion to reopen proceedings shall state the new facts that will be proven at a hearing to be held if the motion is granted and shall be supported by affidavits or other evidentiary material. A motion to reopen proceedings for the purpose of submitting an application for relief must be accompanied by the appropriate application for relief and all supporting documentation. A motion to reopen proceedings shall not be granted unless it appears to the Board that evidence sought to be offered is material and was not available and could not have been discovered or presented at the former hearing; nor shall any motion to reopen for the purpose of affording the alien an opportunity to apply for any form of discretionary relief be granted if it appears that the alien's right to apply for such relief was fully explained to him or her and an opportunity to apply therefore was afforded at the former hearing, unless the relief is sought on the basis of circumstances that have arisen subject to the hearing. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c) (emphasis added). As the Supreme Court has noted regarding materially identical language in 8 C.F.R. § 3.2, the predecessor to § 1003.2, the regulation is couched solely in negative terms; it requires that under certain circumstances a motion to reopen be denied, but does not specify the conditions under which it shall be granted. INS v. Doherty, 502 U.S. 314, 323, 112 S.Ct. 719, 116 L.Ed.2d 823 (1992). By consequence, the Court concluded, [t]he granting of a motion to reopen is thus discretionary. Id. at 323, 112 S.Ct. 719. In other words, § 1003.2 no more fetters the BIA's discretion to deny motions to reopen than it does the BIA's discretion to reopen proceedings sua sponte. Nor does the statute pursuant to which this regulation is promulgated, 8 U.S.C. § 1103(g)(2) (The Attorney General shall establish such regulations... as the Attorney General determines to be necessary for carrying out this section.), provide any evident limit to the agency's authority. If courts nonetheless retain jurisdiction to review the BIA's discretionary decision not to grant a motion to reopen, it is difficult to understand how the BIA's equally broad discretion not to reopen proceedings sua sponte entirely bars judicial review. Because Barry and Harchenko stand on the same tenuous foundation that an agency acting on its own can insulate its decisions from judicial review  a foundation to which Heckler lends no support and which has been undermined conclusively by Kucana  we believe those precedents ought to be reexamined by the en banc court. Gor's case provides a clear example of why review of BIA decisions is necessary. The IJ who conducted Gor's hearing violated BIA regulations by neglecting to provide Gor with a list of free legal service-providers or confirm that Gor had received this list. See 8 C.F.R. § 1240.10(a). It is an elemental principle of administrative law that agencies are bound to follow their own regulations. Wilson v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec., 378 F.3d 541, 545 (6th Cir. 2004). Moreover, [w]here a prescribed procedure is intended to protect the interests of a party before the agency, `even though generous beyond the requirements that bind such agency, that procedure must be scrupulously observed.' Id. (quoting Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U.S. 535, 547, 79 S.Ct. 968, 3 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1959) (Frankfurter, J., concurring)). Here, the IJ's failure to abide by the agency's own regulations, insofar as it impeded Gor's ability to retain counsel, likely violated Gor's right to due process. Cf. Picca v. Mukasey, 512 F.3d 75, 78-80 (2d Cir.2008) (vacating removal order where IJ failed to comply with 8 C.F.R. § 1240.10(a)(3) because petitioner's access to counsel in immigration proceedings implicates the `fundamental notions of fair play underlying the concept of due process') (quoting Montilla v. INS, 926 F.2d 162, 167 (2d Cir.1991)); Snajder v. INS, 29 F.3d 1203, 1206-07 (7th Cir.1994) (vacating removal order where IJ violated petitioner's right to counsel by failing to obey BIA regulation requiring re-apprisal of the petitioner's rights following lodging of an additional charge). Had Gor been represented during his hearing, counsel might well have presented the colorable legal arguments, now raised before us, that Gor's convictions for failure to pay child support do not render him subject to deportation under the INA. In other words, but for the IJ's apparent due process violation, there is a strong possibility that Gor could have demonstrated his deportation is contrary to law. In this case, the petitioner's motion to reopen also was based in part on the claim that the IJ failed to develop the record sufficiently to establish that the petitioner's convictions made him removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i). That claim deserves some consideration. Normally, courts use a categorical approach when interpreting a state criminal statute, focusing on the `intrinsic nature of the offense rather than on the factual circumstances surrounding any particular violation'. Patel v. Ashcroft, 401 F.3d 400, 409 (6th Cir.2005) (quoting Chery v. Ashcroft, 347 F.3d 404, 407 (2d Cir.2003)). Under that approach, courts look at the `elements and the nature of the offense of conviction, rather than to the particular facts relating to the petitioner's crime.' Ibid. (quoting Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1, 6-7, 125 S.Ct. 377, 160 L.Ed.2d 271 (2004)); see also Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990). Where the statute punishes diverse categories of criminal acts, some of which would subject an alien to removal and some of which would not, courts and the agency apply the so-called modified categorical approach to analyzing an alien's conduct. See Cuevas-Gaspar v. Gonzales, 430 F.3d 1013, 1020 (9th Cir. 2005); Mehboob v. Attorney Gen., 549 F.3d 272, 275 (3d Cir.2008); James v. Mukasey, 522 F.3d 250, 254-55 (2d Cir.2008); Jaadan v. Gonzales, 211 Fed.Appx. 422, 427 (6th Cir.2006). If the statute is considered divisible, the agency can refer to the record underlying the conviction  the charging document, a plea agreement, a verdict or judgment of conviction, a record of the sentence, or a plea colloquy, but not the underlying facts  to ascertain whether the alien's conviction falls within the part of the statute that permits removal. James, 522 F.3d at 254 (citing Dickson v. Ashcroft, 346 F.3d 44, 48-49 (2d Cir.2003)); Jaadan, 211 Fed.Appx. at 427. `[T]he disjunctive phrasing of the statute of conviction will... invite inquiry into the specifics of the conviction.' Mendieta-Robles v. Gonzales, 226 Fed.Appx. 564, 567 (6th Cir. 2007) (quoting Singh v. Ashcroft, 383 F.3d 144, 148 (3d Cir.2004)). Although the statute under which the petitioner was found to be removable sets forth a clear definition for the term domestic violence, Congress has not defined the terms child abuse, child neglect or child abandonment in the Immigration and Nationality Act. And although the BIA often considers child support arrearage as a negative factor in the exercise of its discretion, see, e.g., In re Vicheth Sek a.k.a. Vicheth Ricky Sek, 2004 WL 1739102 (BIA June 8, 2004), it has never held that a failure to pay child support qualifies as a removable offense on its own. Nor has any court of appeals held so. Recognizing that section 237(a)(2)(E)(i) was enacted in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub.L. 104-208, 110 Stat.2009 (1996) (IIRIRA), as part of an aggressive legislative movement to expand the criminal grounds of deportability in general and to create a `comprehensive statutory scheme to cover crimes against children' in particular, the BIA has defined child abuse broadly as any offense involving an intentional, knowing, reckless, or criminally negligent act or omission that constitutes maltreatment of a person under 18 years old or that impairs such a person's physical or mental well-being, including sexual abuse or exploitation. In re Velazquez-Herrera, 24 I. & N. Dec. 503, 508-09, 517 (BIA 2008). The House conference report on the IIRIRA notes that the grounds for deportability were amended to provide that an alien convicted of crimes of domestic violence, stalking, or child abuse is deportable. The crimes of rape and sexual abuse of a minor are elsewhere classified as aggravated felonies..., thus making aliens convicted of those crimes deportable and ineligible for most forms of immigration benefits or relief from deportation. H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 104-828, 104th Cong., 2d Sess. at 505-06 (Sept. 24, 1996); see In re Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 22 I. & N. Dec. 991, 994-95 (BIA 1999). Congress'[s] intent, then, was to expand the definition of an aggravated felony and to provide a comprehensive statutory scheme to cover crimes against children. In re Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 22 I. & N. Dec. at 994. It is doubtful, however, that the definition is broad enough to include the crime of failing to pay child support, which would expand significantly the grounds for removal. The BIA denied the motion to reopen, determining that the question whether the petitioner actually committed a removable offense was not worthy of consideration because it did not view the issue as an exceptional situation. App'x at 9. That conclusion is difficult to accept. The motion to reopen raised a basic question whether the petitioner had committed an offense that provides a legal basis for removal; removal of a lawful permanent resident absent a statutory basis plainly would amount to an exceptional circumstance.