Court Opinion

ID: 9460890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:02:07.391039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:49.119340
License: Public Domain

FAIRCHILD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority may well be correct in holding that approval of Mr. Figueroa’s petition under 8 U.S.C. § 1154(a) neither vested in Mrs. Figueroa the right to a nonquota immigrant visa, nor mooted (under the circumstances here) the charge of deportability in the February 17 order to show cause. I believe, however, that due process required a fuller notice of the matters to be considered at the hearing on August 1, and therefore respectfully dissent from denial of the petition to review.
In view of the severity of the remedy, procedural fairness is essential at a hearing culminating in a deportation order. Once an alien has been lawfully admitted to the United States, “ ‘not even Congress may expel him without allowing him a fair opportunity to be heard.’ Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding [344 U.S. 590, 597-598, 73 S.Ct. 472, 97 L.Ed. 576 (1953)] (Emphasis added). It is likewise axiomatic that adequate notice is the first and foremost prerequisite of a fair hearing.” Aalund v. Marshall, 461 F.2d 710, 712 (5th Cir., 1972).
Petitioner and her surety received a written demand that the surety produce petitioner “for hearing” August 1, before a special inquiry officer. This document was silent as to the purpose of the hearing. At the hearing it developed that the allegations of deportability set forth in the February 17 order and the question of permitting voluntary departure would be considered and determined; that the Service regarded petitioner’s marriage as a subterfuge to circumvent the immigration laws; that the Service had, on the morning of the hearing, obtained from Mr. Figueroa a revocation of the visa petition earlier filed and approved; and that Mr. Figueroa testified as a witness for the Service on the matter of the purpose of the marriage. The basis for the denial of voluntary departure is the finding that petitioner’s testimony at the hearing concerning the bona fides of the marriage constituted false testimony for the purpose of obtaining benefits under the immigration laws.
Perhaps it can be parsed out that (1) the demand to the surety reasonably implied that the August 1 hearing would constitute a delayed hearing on the February 17 order to show cause; (2) that since it is now held that the approval of the visa petition is not relevant to petitioner’s deportability, petitioner was not entitled to advance notice that the Service would so contend; (3) that in testi*196fying in support of voluntary departure, petitioner assumed the risk that the special inquiry officer could be convinced that her testimony was false; and (4) that she was not entitled to advance notice of the proof the Service would use to challenge her testimony in support of voluntary departure.1
In practical terms, however, the position of the Service concerning the marriage and the visa petition probably brought about the holding of the August 1 hearing, and dominated, if not controlled, the result. It seems to me that fundamental fairness required that petitioner be given advance notice of the position the Service would take on those matters.

. Cf. Aalund, supra, 461 F.2d at 713.