Opinion ID: 791779
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Who Has Jurisdiction Over Zheng's Application?

Text: 104 In order to remand this case, we must determine who has jurisdiction to hear Zheng's applications for adjustment of status. Jurisdiction over applications to adjust status is allocated by regulation: 105 An alien who believes he or she meets the eligibility requirements of section 245 of the Act [8 U.S.C. § 1255] or section 1 of the Act of November 2, 1966 [viz., the Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act], and [8 C.F.R.] § 1245.1 shall apply to the director having jurisdiction over his or her place of residence unless otherwise instructed in 8 CFR part 1245, or by the instruction on the application form. After an alien, other than an arriving alien, is in deportation or removal proceedings, his or her application for adjustment of status under section 245 of the Act ... shall be made and considered only in those proceedings. An arriving alien, other than an alien in removal proceedings, who believes he or she meets the eligibility requirements of section 245 of the Act ... and § 1245.1 shall apply to the director having jurisdiction over his or her place of arrival. 106 8 C.F.R. § 1245.2(a)(1). 107 This regulation appears to create three categories of applicants. First, there is a broad catch-all category of aliens who believe they are eligible. These aliens may apply for adjustment to the district director 18 with jurisdiction over their residence. Second, aliens who are not arriving aliens, but who are in removal proceedings, may apply for adjustment in those proceedings—ordinarily, we expect, to the IJ with jurisdiction over the removal proceedings. Third, arriving aliens who are not in removal proceedings may apply for adjustment to the district director with jurisdiction over their place of arrival. 108 This list seems to omit a fourth category, arriving aliens who are in removal proceedings. Such an omission is, of course, perfectly consistent with § 1245.1(c)(8), which renders that class of aliens ineligible to apply for adjustment of status. Because we have found the eligibility regulation invalid, however, we must consider the impact of our decision on the jurisdictional regulation: if arriving aliens in removal proceedings are eligible to adjust status, then someone must have jurisdiction to consider their applications. 109 In a letter dated February 4, 2005, we asked counsel to address the question of who should have jurisdiction to hear adjustment petitions of arriving aliens in removal proceedings if we were to find that such aliens were eligible to adjust status. Following oral argument, the parties submitted supplemental briefing on this and other questions. Zheng's position is that the Immigration Judge responsible for removal proceedings should have jurisdiction over his adjustment applications. The government's position is less clear, but it appears to ask us to leave to the Attorney General the determination of who has jurisdiction over such applications. 110 The simplest reading of § 1245.2(a)(1) in light of our eligibility holding is that aliens in Zheng's position fall into the catch-all category of aliens who may apply to the USCIS district director responsible for their place of residence. This reading is bolstered by the fact that, prior to the enactment of the eligibility regulation that we have invalidated today, an arriving alien in removal proceedings was required to file his or her adjustment applications with the INS district director rather than the IJ hearing the removal proceedings. See Matter of Castro-Padron, 1996 WL 379828, 21 I. & N. Dec. 379, 380 (BIA 1996) (The applicants can file their adjustment applications with the district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, who has sole jurisdiction over the application and can act on the application independently of [the removal] proceedings.); see also supra note 16. 111 In Succar and Rodriguez de Rivera, the First Circuit invalidated § 1245.1(c)(8) and remanded to the BIA without explaining who had jurisdiction to hear petitioners' adjustment applications. See Succar, 394 F.3d at 36; Rodriguez de Rivera, 394 F.3d at 40. Consistent with our reading above, commentators seem to have assumed that the district director will have exclusive jurisdiction to hear adjustment applications from arriving aliens in removal proceedings. But other conclusions are possible: As a consequence [of Succar ], parolees in proceedings are currently eligible to adjust status before USCIS notwithstanding the fact that the individual is in proceedings. Moreover, it is reported that at least some of the immigration judges in the Boston immigration court are also accepting adjustment applications from arriving alien parolees and adjudicating them. 112 Sarah Ignatius & Elisabeth S. Stickney, Immigration Law & the Family § 8:35 (database updated 2005). 113 Because the plain text of § 1245.2(a)(1) appears to grant the district director the jurisdiction to hear adjustment of status applications from arriving aliens in removal proceedings, and because neither party has provided any convincing argument for granting jurisdiction to any other official, we tentatively conclude that the USCIS district director for Philadelphia should have jurisdiction over Zheng's adjustment application. Nonetheless, we will remand to the BIA for further consideration; if the parties agree, or the BIA is convinced, that the IJ has jurisdiction to hear Zheng's application, then the Board may remand it to the IJ rather than to the district director.