Court Opinion

ID: 9629178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:38:45.185088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:16.632484
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This immigration case is about the courts and family values and the tradition that administrative and judicial institutions should exercise restraint and give deference to the judgment of Congress, the elected representatives of the people. Congress has mandated that in immigration cases administrative and judicial institutions should observe the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman so that the families of American citizens who take a foreign spouse will not be split up by deportation, that mothers will not be separated from fathers and children and made refugees in a foreign land by the heavy hand of the federal government.
For reasons quite similar to those given by the court in Subhan v. Ashcroft, 383 *1053F.3d 591 (7th Cir.2004), Benslimane v. Gonzales, 430 F.3d 828 (7th Cir.2005), and Badwan v. Gonzales, 494 F.3d 566 (6th Cir.2007), I would conclude that the refusal to grant a continuance in the case was a gross abuse of discretion. The record is full of documentation that petitioner and her husband were married legally, legitimately and in good faith. The immigration judge should have given petitioner a continuance to dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s” so that she could get her status adjusted to become a permanent resident. The majority opinion is inconsistent with the three cases cited above. The marriage records recited in the majority opinion (ie., a marriage license, husband’s affidavit, children’s green cards, mortgage company letter concerning a home loan, rental agreement, joint bills, joint bank statement) convince me that the couple were legally married and living together as husband and wife and should have convinced the immigration judge at least to grant a continuance to the petitioner to supplement the record with the additional information necessary to either quiet or prove whatever doubts the judge had about the legitimacy of their marriage. I would not create a circuit and intercircuit conflict on the question of the application of the standard for a continuance in these administrative cases. The result seems to show anti-immigrant bias in the administrative agency or a complete disinterest in reaching a just result that avoids breaking up a family. The case again demonstrates the rote way the immigration courts are treating the family values that Congress was trying to promote in creating the marriage exception to deportation.