Court Opinion

ID: 9478655
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:54:03.815308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:37.855467
License: Public Domain

D.H. GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Although I agree with the majority of the court’s opinion, I am unconvinced of the need or desirability of expressing a view (as the court does in a footnote, Opinion at 504, n. 2) as to whether the requirement that an immigration judge (IJ) in a deportation hearing proceed to a determination “in like manner as if the alien were present,” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b) (1982), applies to an asylum claim raised in the context of the deportation proceeding.
As the court points out, Reyes-Arias makes a “passing reference” in his reply brief to the suggestion that the “in like manner” clause requires the IJ to proceed to the merits of his asylum claim rather than dismissing it for “lack of prosecution.” At oral argument, however, counsel more clearly disclaimed any reliance whatsoever on such an argument. Whatever counsel’s reason for having done so, I am *505not as certain as apparently is the court that the argument would be, if presented, without merit. Although the court addresses the issue only in dicta, I think it is significant enough to justify a few more words on its merits.
The INS implicitly concedes that, as Reyes-Arias maintains, the first clause of the sentence that contains the “in like manner” clause does apply to this case. The sentence reads:
If any alien has been given a reasonable opportunity to be present at a proceeding under this section, and without reasonable cause fails or refuses to attend or remain in attendance at such proceeding, the special inquiry officer may proceed to a determination in like manner as if the alien were present.
(Emphases added.) In response to Reyes-Arias's argument that he had reasonable cause for his failure to appear at the hearing and that the IJ should therefore not have dismissed his asylum application, the INS never argues that the “reasonable opportunity” or “reasonable cause” standards of section 1252(b) are inapplicable; it claims only that Reyes-Arias did have a “reasonable opportunity to be present” and without “reasonable cause” failed to appear at his deportation hearing.
The court does not gainsay that Reyes-Arias would have been entitled to a reopening of his application had he been able to demonstrate reasonable cause for his absence; but if the first half of the above-quoted sentence governs the asylum claim, then the latter part of the same sentence should presumably govern that claim as well. Neither the INS nor the court may, without a warrant from Congress, cherry-pick the portions of a single statutory sentence; absent a persuasive argument to the contrary, we must assume that Congress intended that the sentence as a whole either apply or not apply to a particular situation.
I am particularly reluctant to join in the court’s offhand dismissal of the section 1252(b) claim in light of our treaty obligations under the United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 19 U.S. T. 6257 (1967). Under the Protocol, a refugee may be expatriated only for being a “danger to the security of the country” or for committing a “particularly serious crime.” 19 U.S.T. at 6276. A procedural error in an immigration proceeding does not constitute such misconduct, and the court does not claim otherwise. What of the alien who, having submitted with his application for asylum sufficient evidence that he is entitled to asylum that the government fails adequately to rebut, fails to appear at his deportation-asylum hearing? Perhaps, like Reyes-Arias here, he is even represented by counsel at the hearing. To permit a dismissal for lack of prosecution in such a case would allow the IJ to ignore the evidence entirely and to deny the asylum application of one who qualifies as a refugee, in the face of a treaty obligation squarely to the contrary. If the IJ decides on the merits of the evidence before him that the alien is not a refugee, on the other hand, the Protocol is irrelevant. It is the failure to decide the potentially meritorious claim on the merits that creates the problem.
The court cites Maldonado-Perez v. INS, 865 F.2d 328 (D.C.Cir.1989) for the proposition that section 1252(b) permits “dismissal of asylum claims for failure to prosecute.” Maj. op. at 504, n. 2. To the extent it is relevant, however, Maldonado-Perez points in the opposite direction. There, the court repeatedly states that, as I argue above, section 1252(b) governs the IJ’s disposition of asylum claims. At 332, 333. In fact, the court directly states that the IJ may deport the alien “in absentia based on the existing record,” that is, on the merits. At 333. Contrary to the court’s implication here, nowhere in Maldonado-Perez did we suggest that section 1252(b) permits the IJ to deny an alien’s asylum application because he failed to appear; rather, the failure to appear creates an opportunity for the IJ to decide the claim in absentia, but on the merits, i.e., “in like manner as if the alien were present.”
I do not know whether, were I required to decide whether section 1252(b) applies here, I would reach a different result than *506does the court. I merely state that, where a serious question could be raised about the meaning of a statute, and where there is nothing more on which to base our decision than a “passing reference” in a reply brief, not even “ris[ing] to the level of an argument,” Maj. op. at 504, n. 2, we should decide the issue only if we must. When he abandoned the argument without making any effort to defend it, Reyes-Arias’s counsel relieved us of that burden. We should not lightly choose to take it up again.