Opinion ID: 173076
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Court decisions have rejected the date-of-adjudication approach.

Text: The decisions of the immigration judge and the BIA are further undermined by the only circuit court decision that has addressed the date-of-adjudication theory under 8 U.S.C. § 1255(d). In Choin, 537 F.3d 1116, the INS denied the application for an adjustment of status of a K-1 visa holder who had divorced her husband five days before the two-year anniversary of the date that she filed her application. The BIA affirmed that denial, applying (1) the IMFA provision that grants K-1 visa holders only conditional permanent residence status, 537 F.3d at 1119, until the second anniversary of the alien's obtaining the status of lawful admission for permanent residence[,] 8 U.S.C. § 1186(d)(2); and (2) the provision of § 1255(d) that allows adjustments of status on a conditional basis . . . as a result of the marriage of the nonimmigrant . . . to the citizen who filed the petition [for a K-1 visa]. In the BIA's view, § 1255(d) barred adjustments of status of K-1 visa holders whose marriages no longer existed on the date their applications were adjudicated. The Ninth Circuit disagreed with the BIA, concluding that a K-1 visa holder who marries a United States citizen in good faith remains eligible for an adjustment of status even if he or she is divorced before the petition is adjudicated. Choin, 537 F.3d at 1121. The Choin panel found nothing in the plain language of § 254(d) [8 U.S.C. § 1255(d)] nor in [t]he purpose and context of that provision suggesting that an application that was valid when submitted should be automatically invalid when the petitioner's marriage ends in divorce two years later. Id. (emphasis added). The panel discerned no legal justification for the automatic removal of immigrants whose marriages end in divorce while their application for adjustment of status languishes in the agency's filing cabinet. Id. Although Mr. Colmenares's case involves age rather than marital status, the Ninth Circuit's reasoning is equally applicable here. Mr. Colmenares's application, like Ms. Choin's, was valid when submitted. Contrary to the view of the immigration judge and the BIA, there is no indication in the statutory language that Mr. Colmenares became ineligible for an adjustment of status merely because he turned twenty-one (and twenty-two and twenty three) while waiting for an adjudication. Additionally, a federal district court in California has rejected the BIA's date-of-adjudication theory in a case involving a K-2 visa holder like Mr. Colmenares i.e., one who turned twenty-one while his application for adjustment of status was pending. See Verovkin, 2007 WL 4557782, at -8. In that court's view, there is no statutory requirement that K-2 visa holders demonstrate that they are still under twenty-one when they apply for permanent residence and [b]y imposing such a requirement, [the] USCIS applied an unreasonable interpretation of the [Immigration and Nationality Act]. Id. at ; see also id. at  (reasoning that [a]t the time he was issued a K-2 visa, [the plaintiff] had already been determined presumptively eligible for permanent residence, conditioned only on the conclusion of his mother's marriage and the completion of a two-year probationary period and that [the plaintiff] thus could not have `aged-out' after he applied for adjustment of status because his age was relevant neither at the time his I129F petition was submitted nor at the time it was adjudicated). The Verovkin court relied on the same step-by-step process for obtaining K visas and filing applications for adjustment of status that we have considered here. See id. at  (discussing the regulations governing applications for K visas and concluding that presumptive eligibility for permanent residence [including the under-twenty-one requirement for minor children] is determined prior to the applicant's entry into the United States).