Opinion ID: 788787
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts and administrative history

Text: 2 Honggang Yu (Yu) is a citizen of China who currently resides in the United States. Yu was a senior executive with Anshan AEC Group Corporation (Anshan) when he entered the United States legally on a non-immigrant business visitor visa in June 1994. Yu's purpose in coming to the United States was to investigate business opportunities for Anshan. 1 3 As a result of Yu's investigations, Anshan decided to expand its operations to the United States in April 1995. To this end, Yu incorporated ANA in Oregon as a wholly owned subsidiary of Anshan. ANA's primary business is importing and exporting electronic and magnetic materials. 4 In May 1995, ANA filed a non-immigrant L1-A visa petition with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), 2 seeking approval for Yu's stay as a new office intracompany multinational executive or manager transferee. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(L) (establishing this visa category); 8 C.F.R. § 214.2( l ) (2003) (regulations for admission within the category). The INS approved Yu's L-1A petition on June 10, 1995. On May 28, 1996, ANA applied to extend Yu's L-1A visa. The INS approved the application and extended the visa for two years, until June 10, 1998. On March 27, 1997, ANA filed an I-140 visa petition — an Immigrant Worker petition — on Yu's behalf. ANA requested that Yu, as President of ANA, be classified as a multinational executive or manager under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(44) and 1153(b)(1)(C). The INS approved this petition on July 31, 1997. 5 On December 31, 1997, Yu — seeking his green card — filed an I-485 application to adjust his status to lawful permanent resident. After a lengthy delay, the INS notified Yu and ANA on March 13, 2001 that it intended to revoke its previous approval of the I-140 petition. The notice of intent to revoke stated that [t]he record contains insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the beneficiary will be employed in a primarily managerial capacity. ANA responded with rebuttal documents. On April 26, 2001, the INS nevertheless affirmed its decision to revoke its prior approval of the I-140 petition, stating that it appears that the beneficiary will be involved in the performance of routine operational activities of the company rather than in the management of a function of the business. 6 ANA appealed to the Administrative Appeals Unit (AAU) of the INS. The AAU upheld the adjudication officer's determination that ANA had failed to establish that Yu was to be employed in a primarily managerial or executive capacity as defined in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(44). The AAU also stated that there was no evidence that Yu had been employed in a managerial or executive capacity for at least one year prior to his entry into the United States, as required by 8 C.F.R § 204.5(j)(3)(i)(B), and that there was conflicting evidence about whether ANA was genuinely a 100-percent owned subsidiary of a Chinese company, as required by 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(3)(i)(C). 7 Yu and ANA filed the present action in district court, challenging the AAU's final revocation decision as unsupported by substantial evidence. The government argued that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction on the grounds that the revocation decision is committed to agency discretion under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2), and that, in the alternative, review was barred by 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii). 8 The district court agreed that 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) precluded judicial review and dismissed the action in a published opinion. ANA Int'l, Inc. v. Way, 242 F.Supp.2d 906 (D.Or.2002). Yu and ANA timely appeal. Whether we have jurisdiction is a question of law that we review de novo. See Luong v. Circuit City Stores, Inc., 368 F.3d 1109, 1111 n. 2 (9th Cir.2004).