Court Opinion

ID: 9490486
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:44:58.224092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:07.742616
License: Public Domain

OBERDORFER, District Judge,
concurring:
I concur fully with the per curiam opinion and its judgment that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) acted within its discretion when it refused to classify appellant’s husband as her “immediate relative.” At this time they are, and apparently have been for several years, husband and wife under Connecticut law. In addition, a Customary Court in Oyo, Nigeria has confirmed, apparently to the satisfaction of the Nigerian process requirements, that despite the husband’s earlier (and fraudulent) representations to the contrary, he was never married before he left Nigeria. It is one thing for the INS to challenge his credibility, but quite another to disparage the official act of the Oyo Customary Court.
However, neither appellant nor her husband submitted to the INS a Foreign Service Officer’s certification of the Oyo Customary Court decree as required by 8 C.F.R. § 287.6 (1996). This omission justifies the decision of the District Court to affirm the INS’s ruling and dismiss the complaint. In view of the foregoing, it is not necessary to reach the issue that would be presented if appellant furnished the INS with an appropriate Foreign Service Officer’s certification, and the INS nonetheless sought to “tear asunder” an apparently long-standing, valid Connecticut marriage by deporting her husband.