Opinion ID: 181571
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The BIA committed an error of statutory interpretation.

Text: If the BIA's reasoning in Lettman were persuasive, we might nonetheless adopt it as our own. But the BIA took a fundamentally wrong turn in its analysis, and so arrived at an interpretation at odds with the plain language of the two statutes. Matter of Lettman concentrated on the except clause in IMMAct § 602(c), which provides: Except as otherwise specifically provided in such section and subsection (d). . . . The BIA determined, first, that the clause excepted from the rest of IMMAct § 602(c) the portions of INA § 241 that otherwise conflicted with § 602(c). But § 602(c) was ambiguous, the agency concluded, about which version of INA § 241 the IMMAct provision referred to in the except clause. 22 I. & N. Dec. at 372-73. Lettman's position was that the except clause referred to the pre -IMMAct version of INA § 241that is, INA § 241 as it stood after the ADAA's passage, before the IMMAct amended it. Id. at 373. The BIA rejected this reading of the statute and instead adopted the Immigration and Naturalization Service's (INS) position that the clause referred to the post -IMMAct version of INA § 241. Id. at 373-74. Having made that determination, the BIA went on to conclude that § 602(c) of the IMMAct overrode § 7344(b) of the ADAA, because the post -IMMAct version of INA § 241 contained no temporal limitation on the application of the aggravated felony ground for deportation. As it turns out, however, it does not matter whether IMMAct § 602(c) should be read to refer to the pre-IMMAct or the post-IMMAct version of § 241(a). Contrary to Lettman's supposition, the answer to that question has no bearing on whether the ADAA's temporal limitation survived the IMMAct's passage. The key to the BIA's mistake is this: ADAA § 7344(b) was never part of the text of INA § 241 at all. True, ADAA § 7344 (a) provided: Section 241(a)(4) [of the INA] (8 U.S.C. 1251(a)(4)) is amended(2) by inserting after the semicolon [the aggravated felony ground for deportation]. But the text of ADAA § 7344 (b), unlike subsection (a), contained no reference to INA § 241, or to its codified version, 8 U.S.C. § 1251. Instead, § 7344(b) reads only: The amendments made by subsection (a) [of ADAA § 7344] shall apply to any alien who has been convicted, on or after the date of the enactment of this Act, of an aggravated felony. [10] In other words, ADAA § 7344(b) was never a subsection of INA § 241. Instead, it was always an entirely free-standing temporal limitation provision. As a result, neither the except clause of IMMAct § 602(c) (Except as otherwise specifically provided in such section and subsection (d). . . .), nor the affirmative provision of § 602(c)'s second sentence (. . . the provisions of such section, as amended by this section, shall apply to all aliens described in subsection (a) thereof), can describe the fate of ADAA § 7344(b), because § 7344(b) was never in such section, preor post-IMMAct. Thus, whichever version of INA § 241 the except clause and the affirmative language of IMMAct § 602(c) refer to, neither reference to such section refers to § 7344(b) or tells us whether § 7344(b) was alive or dead after the enactment of the IMMAct. In sum, Lettman is not entitled to Chevron deference because it involves a question of statutory retroactivity. While we might nonetheless follow its reasoning if it were persuasive, we decline to do so because its reasoning cannot be squared with the statute. [11]