Court Opinion

ID: 9463085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:57:43.611745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:55.627910
License: Public Domain

BRYAN, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
Deceit and deception have been the warp and woof of the appellant’s design to obtain permanent residence in the United States. His fraud discovered, he now unashamedly asks for “voluntary departure” so he can reenter this country without procuring the permission of the Attorney General — in order, it is not unlikely, that he may again cheat the United States. A welcome freshening breath is the truth of his conduct as revealed unstintingly in the majority’s statement of the facts.
Appellant suggests that his marriage to a newly admitted citizen, a former national of his native country, and the birth of their child entitled him to an award of voluntary departure. In this he presses the hardship of the wife and child upon his separation from them should he be required to pursue an honest course for entry. If we are persuaded by such arguments, he has established for aliens an imitable pattern of circumvention by all such aliens of the Acts of Congress relating to admission for permanent residency. True, today’s decision does not purport to accord appellant voluntary departure, but it does give him “a leg up” on his override of the immigration authorities. At least, it allows him to parlay his fraud into another year of illegal stay — to a total eight years.
I do not overlook the entitlements of a wife and child. Even assuming his absence would mean the absence of a good influence for the child and mother, a like deprivation follows wherever a parent is imprisoned for an offense. The courts have not yet felt bound to withhold such punishment on this score, particularly when the offense has been so studied and extensive as here. To do othei’wise would reduce the public’s protection by the law to a sentimental concept.
Besides, the remand now ordered amounts to but a procedural formality, unneeded in fact and unnecessary in law, putting ceremony above substance. To begin with, the immigration judge and the Board of Appeals when deciding against the appellant were aware of the developments he now seeks to rehearse before them. It is certain we know of them. In similar administrative proceedings we have deemed it due process if we determine their effect without a remand to the agency — in other words, if we do what the agency should have done. Horton v. Orange County Board of Education, 464 F.2d 536, 538 (4 Cir. 1972).
As I think seven years of fraud is adequate tolerance, I would at once affirm the judgment now on appeal. Cf. Acevedo v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 538 F.2d 918 (2 Cir. 1976, No. 75-4246).