Court Opinion

ID: 9468316
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:11:56.476131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:48.747277
License: Public Domain

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I would deny the petition for review and have previously set forth my observations in a dissent reported with the original majority opinion. There I expressed the view that the petitioners had failed to show that the Board abused its discretion in refusing to reopen or reconsider its decision denying adjustment of the petitioners’ status and ordering their deportation. I restate those views here because the original opinions have been withdrawn from publication upon the grant of the government’s motion for rehearing in light of the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in I.N.S. v. Wang, 450 U.S. 139, 101 S.Ct. 1027, 67 L.Ed.2d 123 (1981) (per curiam). In addition to restating my views, I will set forth my disagreements with the recast majority opinion. Essentially, the basis of our disagreement then and now is over the scope of judicial review of INS discretion.
I.
Unlike the majority, I am unable to perform the court’s reviewing function by selectively abstracting a few portions from the entire record before the Board. I am unable to do this because I recognize that the concept of discretion is founded on equitable considerations; a court that reviews for abuse of discretion, like the agency charged with its exercise, must view the totality of circumstances in reaching a decision. It cannot remove the question for decision from the larger context in which it is presented.
In their review of the record, the majority have glossed over a number of facts that I find quite revealing. For example, they ignore the deception of Mrs. Ravancho when she applied to the American consulate for a visa on September 26, 1968. At that time she claimed to be single and to be employed as a sales manager. In fact, she was married and had worked as an accounting clerk for the United States Navy. App. at 45, 111. She repeated these falsehoods on January 21, 1969, when she applied for an extension of her visa. Id. at 113.
The majority also ignore the record of the husband which parallels that of his wife. He first applied for a visa at the American consulate in the Philippines. After he was turned down he arranged for a “travel agency” to obtain a visa for him. He did not disclose the first rejection and, like his wife, he claimed before the authorities that he was single. Mr. Ravancho received a visa for business travel, but at the deportation hearing, he denied having any business in the United States. Id. at 59. At the hearing, Mr. Ravancho at first denied seeking a visa from the embassy, id. at 57, but finally admitted that he had. Id. at 68. Moreover, the evidence disclosed that the visa attached to his passport had been made out in the name of “Avan.” The letters “r” and “cho” had been added in a different ink to change the name to “Ravancho.” 1 Id. at 126-28. When questioned about the alteration, Mr. Ravancho was evasive and denied knowing about it. See id. at 60-61. After his arrival on December 19, 1968, he, too, applied for and received an extension of his stay, again representing that he was single. Id. at 112. He claimed on the application for an extension of his visa that he wished to continue touring the country. Id. The evidence disclosed that at the latest, he began working about six months later. Petitioners’ brief at 84. Less than one year after this extension was granted, the Ravanehos’ child, Patricia, was born. App. at 93. The immigration service thereafter granted another extension of their visas until February 7, 1974. Deportation proceedings for overstay were begun on December 5, 1977. These facts present a serious question about whether the petitioners are sincere in their application for reopening for the sake of their daughter, or *178whether they are stalling for an additional extension of an illegal stay now amounting to over seven years.
The majority have confused the question of statutory eligibility under 8 U.S.C. § 1254 and the question of whether the Board can consider the totality of the circumstances in exercising its discretion. See maj. op. typescript at 172. As the Supreme Court made clear in INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. 24, 25-26, 97 S.Ct. 200-201, 50 L.Ed.2d 190 (1976) (per curiam), the Board may, but need not, exercise its discretion in favor of a petitioner once it is demonstrated that he has met the statutory requirements for relief. On the other hand the Board may properly “ ‘pretermit the question of statutory eligibility and deny the application ... as an exercise of discretion’ ” because of misrepresentations to the immigration authorities. Id. at 25 (quoting the Board’s decision); see Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U.S. 72, 77, 77 S.Ct. 618, 621, 1 L.Ed.2d 652 (1957). Thus, I have no quarrel with the immigration judge’s determination that the petitioners met the technical requirements of 8 U.S.C. § 1254, by proving that for “seven years immediately preceding the date of application” for suspension of deportation they were “person[s] of good moral character.” The undisputed facts are that their lying and cheating, and in Mr. Ravancho’s case, his blatant forgery, took place earlier. I mention their sordid past conduct because the majority’s bland recitation of the background of this case fails to supply the full flavor of the relevant material that was before the Board when it exercised its discretion in denying relief. Recognizing that these facts are not determinative, I nevertheless adhere to the view that the deceptive conduct of the petitioners extending back to 1968 should not be ignored by this court, the Attorney General or the Board. See INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. at 25-26, 97 S.Ct. at 200-201, and the decision it reversed, Bagamasbad v. INS, 531 F.2d 111, 116-18 (3d Cir. 1976) (in banc).
II.
Turning now to the narrow focus of the majority’s analysis and assuming the validity of that focus, I am unable to agree with their result. The Ravanchos have shifted emphasis in their petition to reopen, but their allegations remain substantially the same. They claim that they meet the statutory requirements, that they have relatives in this country, that they have behaved themselves while residents here, and that deportation would have a traumatic effect on their child. Their argument now, however, centers on the child and the excuse for their petition to reopen is a psychiatric evaluation of the effect of deportation on her.
In my view, the psychiatric evidence does not require the case to be reopened. Motions to reopen are governed by INS regulations, not by statute. They permit, but do not require, the service to re-examine a case previously decided when significant developments have occurred since the case was first heard.2 Jacobe v. INS, 578 F.2d 42, 44 (3d Cir. 1978). This court has observed that the regulations bar consideration of evidence or contentions which could have been presented at the original proceeding. Id. In the present case the record is barren of evidence suggesting that the adjustments Patricia would need to make in moving to the Philippines could not have been presented at that time. The utterly innocuous psychiatric report, set forth in pertinent part in the margin,3 had significance only *179insofar as it confirmed the obvious: child will miss her friends in the United States and will have to adjust to life in the Philippines.” App. at 2. I submit that the symptoms described in this report would parallel those of most ten year olds facing a move to a new neighborhood or to another part of the United States, let alone to a foreign country. In this regard, it should be kept in mind that the Ravanchos are natives of the Philippines with relatives and friends there who undoubtedly could ease the strain of adjustment for their daughter. See app. at 85, 89. To hold that this de minimis showing requires the Board to reopen a deportation hearing is to invite every deportable alien to challenge endlessly the Board’s procedures. My views on this have not changed since the time the petition for review was originally presented. The Board implicitly found that the new evidence failed to meet the threshold requirement of materiality and, therefore, in my view, properly dismissed the motion. the
The majority also consider significant the immigration judge’s error in stating that the Ravanchos have no close relatives in the United States. Maj. op. typescript at 175. The history of § 1254(a) discloses that it was intended to deal with hardships to family relationships which would result from deportation. C. Gordon & H. Rosenfield, Immigration Law and Procedure § 7.9a (1980). The Ravanchos never attempted to demonstrate that they had any relationship with these family members, let alone that they would suffer from moving back to the country where their parents and other relatives live. Because there was no evidence of hardship either to the family members in the United States or to the Ravanchos, the error of the immigration judge was immaterial.4
III.
My principal disagreement with the majority, however, is their cavalier treatment of the Supreme Court’s decision in I. N. S. v. Wang, 450 U.S. 139, 101 S.Ct. 1027, 67 L.Ed.2d 123 (1981) (per curiam). While not identical with the facts presented here, Wang addresses the specific problem before us in this case: the appropriate scope of judicial review of INS discretion. Unlike the majority, I read that decision broadly because I believe that the Court was deciding more than the issue presented by the precise facts before it. The Court was sig*180nailing to the courts of appeals the proper degree of deference to be accorded the Board’s decisions on reopening. This reading is mandated because the Court did not stop with identifying the ninth circuit’s error in ignoring the INS regulation requiring a petition to reopen to be supported by affidavits. That error alone would have justified the decision. Instead, the Court identified what it described as the circuit court’s “fundamental” error of improvidently encroaching on the discretionary authority of the Attorney General and his designees. My reading of Wang convinces me that the majority here commit the same fundamental error as did the ninth circuit.5
Of particular relevance to the case before us is the language quoted by the Court in Wang from Judge Wallace’s dissent in Villena v. INS, 622 F.2d 1352, 1362 (9th Cir. 1980) (in banc), decided by the ninth circuit with Wang:
If INS discretion is to mean anything, it must be that the INS has some latitude in deciding when to reopen a case. The INS should have the right to be restrictive. Granting such motions too freely will permit endless delays of deportation by aliens creative and fertile enough to continuously produce new and material facts sufficient to establish a prima facie case. It will also waste the time and efforts of immigration judges called upon to preside at hearings automatically required by the prima facie allegations.
Quoted 450 U.S. at 143 fn. 5, 101 S.Ct. at 1031 fn. 5. The Court quoted this language in connection with its recognition that the regulation providing for a procedure to reopen is framed negatively; it directs that the Board may not reopen absent a showing of specified conditions: “Thus the regulations may be construed to provide the Board with discretion in determining under what circumstances a proceeding should be reopened.” Id. The Court then explained the legitimate government interest in limiting conditions on which reopening would be granted. The majority here, like the discredited ninth circuit Wang court, would require a reopening upon a minimal showing. See 450 U.S. at 144, 101 S.Ct. at 1031. This deprives the Board of its discretionary authority to determine under what circumstances reopening should be granted.
The majority pay only lip service to the legitimate interest of the government “in creating official procedures for handling motions to reopen deportation proceedings so as readily to identify those cases raising new and meritorious considerations.” Wang, 450 U.S. at 145, 101 S.Ct. at 1031. The reason for according such procedures deference is clear: it is unfair to allow those aliens who have deliberately flouted the immigration laws to find shelter in those same laws, absent extraordinary circumstances, while requiring patient, law-abiding citizens of foreign states to follow the letter and spirit of the laws while awaiting a quota. See Acosta v. Gaffney, 558 F.2d 1153 (3d Cir. 1977). The minimal showing that satisfies the majority will in*181evitably bring about further delays in this case, and worse, the decision invites any similarly situated alien to begin anew a groundless course of agency and judicial proceedings.
IV.
Notwithstanding my conviction that the majority have erred, I note that they have now narrowed their holding. The former decision was a “remand so that deportation proceedings can be reopened to permit consideration of the newly proffered evidence together with all of the prior evidence in determining whether deportation will cause extreme hardship to Patricia and/or the Ravanchos.” This decision assumed the materiality of the psychiatric report without accounting for INS discretion in this regard and, for all practical purposes, would have required reopening in every case. The new majority opinion is more cautious. It directs a remand “so that the Board can determine whether, taking into consideration all of the relevant factors on this record, the facts set forth in the psychiatric evaluation could not have affected the substantive decision on the petition for suspension of deportation, and whether reopening would be appropriate.” Maj. op. at 176-177 (my emphasis).
As I understand the majority, the remand is for a determination of whether the new evidence meets the test of materiality set forth in 8 C.F.R. § 3.2. See note 2, supra. If the evidence is immaterial, the Board need not reopen. Considering all of the factors presented, the standard of materiality is the extent u> which the facts could have an effect on the decision if reopening were granted. I remain convinced that the Board has already made this determination by its statement that the psychiatric report “indicates no more than that the child will miss her friends in the United States and will have to adjust to life in the Philippines.” App. at 2. In light of this statement, a remand for the sole purpose of stating in exquisite detail what is so plain on its face seems at best frivolous, and at worst to play squarely into the hands of petitioners’ strategy to delay their inevitable deportation and to make a mockery of the judicial process.
I trust that the mandate will issue in due course in this case so that the petitioners will profit no more by their delay strategy. With a view toward hastening the termination of these proceedings, I note that rehearing in banc is not indicated here because what separates the court is not the choice or interpretation of a legal precept, but only its application to the facts at bar. See United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Internal Operating Procedures, § VIII. What the majority have done is, in Karl Llewellyn’s words, to treat the Supreme Court’s decision in Wang as an “unwelcome precedent.” Their grudging use of that decision seems to say that “[t]he rule holds only of redheaded Walpoles in pale magenta Buick cars.”6 I am confident that the majority’s singular treatment of the Supreme Court’s direction will have little precedential or institutional value in this or in other courts.

. Evidently this visa was one of many originating in the Philippines that had been altered in a similar manner. App. at 119.

. The regulation provides that:
Motions to reopen in deportation proceedings shall not be granted unless it appears to the Board that the evidence sought to be offered is material and was not available and could not have been discovered or presented at the former hearing; nor shall any motion to reopen for the purpose of affording the alien an opportunity to apply for any form of discretionary relief be granted ... unless the relief is sought on the basis of circumstances which have arisen subsequent to the hearing.
8 C.F.R. § 3.2 (1980).

. The relevant portions of the report follow:
Psychiatric Evaluation of Patricia Ravancho This 10 year old, fifth grade student was referred for psychiatric evaluation to determine [the] effect on her physical, mental and emotional stability if she is forced to return *179to the Philippines. Patricia was born in the United States and does not [speak] Tugallah.

Interview with Patricia:

This clean, neat, well developed and well nourished, quiet, inhibited 10 year old sat anxiously awaiting her turn to be interviewed. She wrote her name very neatly in script, gave her age, grade, date of birth, address and school. Anxiety was revealed in her voice.
She was able to talk about her friends and her interests.
School has been all right for her except “arithmetic”, “fractions”, and “measurement”.
This year her grades have gone down.
Fears are of “being frightened by other people”, “heights”, “bugs”, “beetles”, “wild animals”, and “dying”.
Ambition is to be a doctor.
When asked about her 3 wishes, she was able to state only one “Not have to go to the Philippines”. When asked why she would not want to go there, she replied, “I would have to leave all of my friends whom I have known since kindergarten.” She also mentioned the language problem, climate, and food.
Health: Health has been good. Sometimes she has trouble sleeping when weather is hot. Her insecurities were revealed in her HTP drawings. It took her a while to do the person, and she was so fearful of making a mistake that she traced the figure in the air first. When she called it “finished” there was no face or hands.
The house and tree showed isolation and inaccessibility.
Impression: Insecure child who relies on known friends and relatives for guidance and security.
App. at 8, 9.

. The majority conclude that the Board did not consider the residence of these family members in its decision to reopen “because it limited its consideration to the psychiatric evaluation alone.” Maj. op., at 176. I read the record differently. The residential status of the Ravanchos’ relatives was set forth in the affidavit appended to their motion to reopen. App. at 6. The Board then considered both the affidavit and the psychiatric evaluation. See note 5, infra.

. The majority attempt to distinguish Wang on the ground that there the Board undertook a cumulative review of the evidence presented, whereas here the Board reviewed only the new evidence. Maj. op., typescript at 11. The majority indicates the Board’s reference to the psychiatric report and its statement that “[t]his is not the type of extreme hardship necessary for a grant of suspension of deportation .... ” Id. A reading of the entire paragraph reveals that this was not the case. The Board considered both the Ravanchos’ affidavit which set forth the facts on which they based their initial petition for relief, and the psychiatric report:
The only evidence submitted in support of the respondents’ motion is their own affidavit and a psychiatric evaluation of their ten-yearoid United States citizen child. This evidence does not establish the necessary hardship to the respondents or to their daughter for the purposes of relief from deportation under section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1254. Although the respondents have placed great reliance on the report of Dr. Prystowsky on their daughter, we find that it indicates no more than that the child will miss her friends in the United States and will have to adjust to life in the Philippines. This is not the type of extreme hardship necessary for a grant of suspension of deportation and, accordingly, we will deny the respondents’ request for reconsideration.
App. at 2 (my emphasis).

. K. Llewellyn, The Bramble Bush 66-67 (1960).