Opinion ID: 217729
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Electronic Filing

Text: In Gonzalez-Julio v. INS , [39] we went so far as to hold that the then-ten-day limit for filing notices of appeal denied due process of law. The reason was that there were two risks of delay which [were] not in the [alien's] control: delay in mail delivery and delay in filing after receipt by the Office. [40] Applying the principle enunciated by the Supreme Court in Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Company [41] we held that the alien was entitled by the Due Process Clause to an opportunity to be heard on his appeal at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. [42] Because the BIA erred as a matter of law, we need not decide whether arbitrary application of the time limit denied Irigoyen-Briones due process of law. The issue lurks though if the time limit is applied arbitrarily. The BIA argues that the alien should file as far in advance of the deadline as possible. [43] That answer is unsatisfactory because a person with fundamental interests at stake is entitled to certainty about when he must ask to be heard in order to get a hearing. Nor is thirty days so long a time that a few days here or there should not matter to the alien. The alien owns the thirty days, and all of them are likely to be essential. Aliens' appeals are not, by and large, handled by giant spare-no-expense law firms, in which a partner can command a senior associate who can command a junior associate to have something on his desk by 9:00 A.M. Monday without fail, and then fly a courier to Washington D.C. to assure timely filing in Falls Church. [44] The record here describes the details of a typical case. The pro se alien had lost his case before the IJ just before Christmas and came to a lawyer's office during her first appointment slot right after New Year's. The lawyer could not do anything without listening to the Immigration Court's tapes, and the alien needed a few days to raise the money for her retainer. By the following Monday, the money had been obtained and by Thursday, counsel drove the 45 miles to the court to listen to the tapes. Over the next 48 hours, counsel researched the applicable law necessary to formulate the notice of appeal and prepared the notice. Monday was a holiday, so counsel drove to the post office herself first thing in the morning Tuesday, and sent the papers express mail for guaranteed delivery Wednesday, when they were due. Both client and lawyer acted with reasonable diligence to comply with the filing deadline. As is common, all thirty days were reasonably necessary for the task (too short, actuallythe tapes ran longer than the time the Immigration Court had for counsel to listen to them on Thursday). An appellant who has deposited his notice of appeal to the BIA with the U.S. Postal Service or an approved carrier the day before it is due, for guaranteed next-day delivery, has done all that reasonable diligence requires. Requiring some uncertain earlier date would deprive him both of notice of the due date and of time often necessary to perform the necessary work. The Board tosses an additional red herring across the path to justice by arguing it does not have a mailbox rule. This argument is irrelevant, because petitioner has never argued that it does. A mailbox rule means that an act is deemed accomplished when the required submission is mailed as opposed to when it is received or filed. For example, a mailbox rule lets us comply with the April 15 due date for tax returns by mailing them that day, [45] and lets attorneys comply with motion and opposition deadlines by service, that is, mailing, rather than receipt or filing. [46] In this case, Irigoyen-Briones's lawyer does not contend that the notice of appeal should be deemed filed when she sent it, but rather that her client ought to be relieved from lateness because his attorney sent it such that in the absence of an extraordinary delay by the carrier, it would have been received on time. In Gonzalez-Julio, more than fifteen years ago, we noted that the BIA could obviate much of the problem by allowing filing within a reasonable distance of the alien's residence instead of limiting it to Falls Church, Virginia. Now, fifteen years later, the government's justification for requiring physical filing in Falls Church has become technologically obsolete. The Board could easily adopt electronic filing. [47] Were it to do so, the occasions for exercising discretion regarding late filing would become far rarer. Doubtless electronic filing saves attorneys in places like Alaska, or for that matter most of the rest of the country, and their clients from the risk of arbitrary horrendous consequences due to chance post office and delivery delays. It was not Irigoyen-Briones's error that made the Postal Service delay delivery of his package, but the consequence of that late delivery fell on him, not the post office, and the catastrophic consequence was easily avoidable by people at the agency. Just as we have for many decades assumed the availability of telephones, automobiles, and airplanes, we ought now to assume the availability of email and the internet when we assess the reasonableness of government action.