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

Heading: Zheng's Adjustment Applications

Text: 97 Zheng presses two adjustment applications. One is based on his approved employment-based immigrant visa petition. Zheng's employment-based adjustment application was first raised in his motion to reopen before the BIA. As far as we can determine, neither the DHS, the IJ, nor the BIA has considered this application. Because we have found that Zheng is eligible to apply for adjustment, we will remand this application for further consideration by the proper authorities. See infra Part VI.C. 98 Zheng's second adjustment claim is a renewal of his application to adjust status pursuant to the CSPA, which was previously denied because Zheng had submitted fraudulent documents in support of his claim. Indeed, the 1999 denial of Zheng's adjustment petition is what precipitated these removal proceedings. 99 We are sympathetic to the government's position that the statute does not mandate that Zheng, or any other alien, be given a second chance to apply for adjustment of status. But the BIA explicitly rejected Zheng's CSPA adjustment application, not because it was duplicative, but because the Board found that Zheng, as an arriving alien in removal proceedings, is ineligible for adjustment of status. We are bound to review the agency's decision based solely on the stated grounds for that decision. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 95, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943); Li v. Attorney General, 400 F.3d 157, 163 (3d Cir.2005). Here, the BIA's stated basis for denying relief was the § 1245.1(c)(8) eligibility regulation, which we have found invalid. 100 As the First Circuit put it in the companion case to Succar: 101 Since the agency action ... cannot be sustained on the stated grounds, the appropriate remedy is to remand to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with the holding [on the eligibility issue]. We do not address any other issues. 102 We do not, for example, address the issue of whether Rivera's application for adjustment of status is somehow number-barred because she already filed one earlier application, which was denied. None of the IJ, the BIA, or the government in its brief to this court have suggested that any such number bar exists. 103 Rodriguez de Rivera, 394 F.3d at 40. Similarly, here, although the government has in its brief argued the unfairness of giving Zheng multiple chances to submit credible evidence of his CSPA claim, it has not pointed to any provision of the statute or regulations that would bar Zheng from renewing his application for adjustment of status. We must therefore remand that application to the immigration authorities.