Opinion ID: 2799581
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Matter of Jean and Matter of Arai

Text: Matter of Jean involved a refugee’s applications for adjustment of status under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(a) and for asylum under 8 U.S.C. § 1158. 23 I. & N. Dec. at 375–76. However, Jean was statutorily ineligible for adjustment of status due to a manslaughter conviction, which qualified as a crime involving moral turpitude rendering Jean inadmissible under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I). Id. As a predicate to her adjustment of status application, she was therefore also applying for a waiver of inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(c)—the so-called § 209(c) waiver, named for the corresponding INA section. Id. at 376. The BIA, balancing the equities in the exercise of its discretion, granted her the waiver and adjustment of status. Id. at 378. The Attorney General then stepped in to reverse the BIA. Id. at 389. In doing so, the Attorney General articulated the applicable standard for guiding the BIA’s exercise of discretion as follows: It would not be a prudent exercise of the discretion afforded to me by [§ 1159(c)] to grant favorable adjustments of status to violent or dangerous individuals except in extraordinary circumstances, such as those involving national security or foreign policy TORRES-VALDIVIAS V. LYNCH 15 considerations, or cases in which an alien clearly demonstrates that the denial of status adjustment would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship. Id. at 383. In addition, the Attorney General applied the same standard in denying, as a matter of discretion, Jean’s application for asylum under § 1158. Id. at 385 (“For the same reasons articulated in the earlier discussion of the respondent’s application for adjustment of status, I am highly disinclined to exercise my discretion—except, again, in extraordinary circumstances, such as those involving national security or foreign policy considerations, or cases in which an alien clearly demonstrates that the denial of relief would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship—on behalf of dangerous or violent felons seeking asylum.”). This standard may differ from the Matter of Arai standard that Torres-Valdivias argues the BIA should have applied. Matter of Arai, unlike Matter of Jean, involved the same kind of application involved in this case—namely, an application for adjustment of status under 8 U.S.C. § 1255. In that context, the BIA articulated the following standard: Where adverse factors are present in a given application, it may be necessary for the applicant to offset these by a showing of unusual or even outstanding equities. Generally, favorable factors such as family ties, hardship, length of residence in the United States, etc., will be considered as countervailing factors meriting favorable exercise of administrative discretion. In the absence of adverse factors, adjustment will 16 TORRES-VALDIVIAS V. LYNCH ordinarily be granted, still as a matter of discretion. Matter of Arai, 13 I. & N. Dec. at 496. We proceed by assuming arguendo that the standards articulated in these two cases are sufficiently different so as to potentially make a difference in Torres-Valdivias’s case.