Court Opinion

ID: 9486055
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:36:50.952729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:30.570144
License: Public Domain

*704R.YMER, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur because the BIA erroneously relied on Casern’s original fraudulent entry to deny her waiver of deportation.
As we first stated in Hernandez-Robledo v. INS, 777 F.2d 536, 540 (9th Cir.1985), an alien’s original mistake, illegal entry through fraud, may not be held against her in considering waiver of deportation.
In its decision the BIA noted petitioner’s lengthy residence and employment as favorable factors, but undercut that by noting that both were achieved illegally. The latter conclusion is improper since the inquiry is not into the illegality of his or her presence in the United States but the reasons that an alien should be allowed to stay, despite the illegality.
Id. at 540-41. Likewise in Braun v. INS, 992 F.2d 1016 (9th Cir.1993), the BIA imper-missibly gave weight to the original fraud when it stated that the alien “not only entered into a fraudulent marriage upon his initial entry, but he pursued an elaborate plan by which he eventually brought his first wife to the United States sometime after he had committed the fraud by which he obtained his own status.” Id. at 1020 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The BIA’s opinion suffers the same infirmity in this case. It adopts the Administrative Law Judge’s conclusion that Casern achieved one of the equities in her favor — her United States citizen son — through the original fraudulent entry. In addition, the BIA states that “the timing of the [wedding] ceremony and the filing of the visa petition indicate that her purpose was to obtain immigration benefits for her husband based upon her own fraudulently obtained visa.” These statements indicate that the BIA relied on Casern’s original fraudulent entry. As this runs afoul of Braun, we must remand for the BIA to consider the equities, including Ca-sern’s citizen child, afresh, without regard to the initial fraud.
As Casern’s appeal is clearly controlled by Braun, it is unnecessary to decide, as the majority does, that the BIA must consider the effect of deportation on children when considering an 8 U.S.C. § 1251(a)(1)(H) waiver of deportation. That statute, unlike 8 U.S.C. § 1254(a), says nothing about the effects of deportation on children. Though the delay here is atrocious, and the result reached by the majority may seem felicitous, neither justifies reading into § 1251(a)(1)(H) an implicit requirement that the Congress itself chose not to impose.