Pruidze v. Holder

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206
File Name: 11a0030p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
_________________

X
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VAKHTANG PRUIDZE,
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Petitioner,
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No. 09-3836
v.
,
>
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ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., United States Attorney

Respondent. -
General,
N
On Petition for Review of an Order
of the Board of Immigration Appeals.
No. A077 434 982.
Argued: October 18, 2010
Decided and Filed: February 3, 2011
Before: BOGGS, MOORE, and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.

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COUNSEL
ARGUED: Herman S. Dhade, DHADE & ASSOCIATES, Farmington Hills, Michigan,
for Petitioner. Jessica Segall, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
Washington, D.C., for Respondent. Trina Realmuto, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION
PROJECT OF THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD, Boston, Massachusetts, for
Amici Curiae. ON BRIEF: Marshal E. Hyman, Russell Reid Abrutyn, MARSHAL E.
HYMAN & ASSOCIATES, PC, Troy, Michigan, for Petitioner. Anthony J. Messuri,
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
Trina Realmuto, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION PROJECT OF THE NATIONAL
LAWYERS GUILD, Boston, Massachusetts, Beth Werlin, AMERICAN
IMMIGRATION COUNCIL, Washington, D.C., for Amici Curiae.
_________________

OPINION
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SUTTON, Circuit Judge. The Board of Immigration Appeals interprets a
regulation promulgated by the Attorney General to provide that the Board lacks

1
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 2

jurisdiction to review a motion to reopen once an alien leaves the United States, whether
voluntarily or involuntarily. Yet the statute that empowers the Board to consider
motions to reopen says nothing about jurisdictional limitations of any kind, let alone this
kind. Because this regulatory interpretation has no roots in any statutory source and
misapprehends the authority delegated to the Board by Congress, the Board’s order
disclaiming power to consider the motion to reopen filed by Vakhtang Pruidze must be
vacated.

I.

In July 2004, Pruidze, then a green-card holder, returned to the United States and
applied for admission as a lawful permanent resident alien. The Department of
Homeland Security denied his application for admission, explaining that Pruidze’s state
conviction for a controlled-substance crime made him inadmissible. After a merits
hearing, an immigration judge found Pruidze removable and denied his application for
withholding of removal. The Board affirmed the immigration judge’s decision without
opinion, and this court denied Pruidze’s petition for review.

On April 6, 2009, the Department issued a warrant for Pruidze’s removal and
removed him on April 29. Six days later, Pruidze moved the state court to reopen his
criminal proceedings because he had entered his guilty plea without counsel. On May
12, 2009, the state court set aside Pruidze’s conviction and redocketed the case.

On May 29, 2009, Pruidze moved the Board to reopen his removal proceedings
based on the state court’s decision to set aside the conviction. The Board denied his
motion, reasoning that, because Pruidze was no longer in the United States, it did not
have “jurisdiction” to hear Pruidze’s motion. The Board relied on Matter of
Armendarez-Mendez, 24 I. & N. Dec. 646 (B.I.A. 2008), which held that the “departure
bar,” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(d), divested the Board of “jurisdiction” to entertain motions to
reopen filed by aliens who are abroad. The departure bar says that “[a] motion to reopen
. . . shall not be made by . . . a person who is the subject of exclusion, deportation, or
removal proceedings subsequent to his or her departure from the United States.” Id.
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 3

II.

Pruidze’s petition for review raises one question: Does the Board of Immigration
Appeals lack jurisdiction to consider an alien’s motion to reopen once the alien is no
longer in the United States? The answer is no.

A.

Some background is in order. In 1940, Congress put the Attorney General in
charge of immigration matters, giving the office the authority “to make and prescribe,
and from time to time to change and amend, such rules and regulations not in conflict
with this Act as he may deem necessary and proper in aid of the administration and
enforcement of this title.” Pub. L. No. 76-670, 54 Stat. 675, 675, § 37(a) (1940). That
same year, the Attorney General established the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Regulations Governing Departmental Organization and Authority, 5 Fed. Reg. 3502,
3503 (Sept. 4, 1940) (codified at 8 C.F.R. § 90.2). By regulation, the Board may
entertain immigration-related motions on behalf of the Attorney General subject to
limitations that the Attorney General places on that authority. Id. at 3504 (codified at
8 C.F.R. § 90.9 (1941)). In 1952, the Attorney General promulgated the “departure bar,”
a regulation barring the Board from reviewing a motion to reopen filed by a person who
has left the United States. 17 Fed. Reg. 11469, 11475 (Dec. 19, 1952) (codified at 8
C.F.R. § 6.2 (1953)). Then, not unlike today, the regulation read:

A motion to reopen or a motion to reconsider [before the Board] shall not
be made by or in behalf of a person who is the subject of deportation
proceedings subsequent to his departure from the United States. Any
departure of such person from the United States occurring after the
making of a motion to reopen or a motion to reconsider shall constitute
a withdrawal of such motion.

Id. Early on, the Board construed the departure bar as a limitation on the agency’s
“jurisdiction.” Matter of G-Y-B, 6 I. & N. Dec. 159, 159–60 (B.I.A. 1954). The
substance of the departure bar has not changed, although the Attorney General has
redesignated it several times. See 27 Fed. Reg. 96, 96–97 (Jan. 5, 1962) (codified at 8
C.F.R. § 3.2 (1962)); 61 Fed. Reg. 18900, 18905 (Apr. 29, 1996) (codified at 8 C.F.R.
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 4

§ 3.2(d) (1997)); 68 Fed. Reg. 9824, 9830 (Feb. 28, 2003) (codified at 8 C.F.R.
§ 1003.2(d)).

While continuity has marked the regulation, change has marked the statutory
backdrop to it. In 1961, Congress created a statutory counterpart to the Board’s
departure bar for judicial review of immigration decisions, establishing that federal
courts could not review deportation and exclusion orders if the aliens left the country
after the agency issued the contested orders. Act of Sept. 26, 1961, Pub. L. No. 87-301,
§ 5(a), 75 Stat. 650, 651–53 (1961) (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(c) (1962)) (“An order
of deportation or of exclusion shall not be reviewed by any court if the alien . . . has
departed from the United States. . . .”).

In 1996, Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act, overhauling immigration law in many respects. Pub. L. No. 104-
208, div. C, 110 Stat. 3009, 3009-546 (Sept. 30, 1996). Of import here, Congress

• codified the right to file a motion to reopen, IIRIRA § 304(a)(3) (codified
at 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(6) (1997)) (recodified as § 1229a(c)(7) in 2005
without substantive changes, see REAL ID Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-
13, div. B, § 101(d), 119 Stat. 231, 304 (May 11, 2005));
• repealed the statutory departure bar to judicial review, IIRIRA § 306(b);
and
• adopted a 90-day period for the government to deport a person ordered
removed, IIRIRA § 305(a)(3) (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(1)), and a
60- or 120-day limit for voluntary departures, IIRIRA § 304(a)(3)
(codified at 8 U.S.C. §§ 1229c(a)(2)(A), (b)(2)).

In implementing the Act, the Attorney General promulgated several additional
regulations. Inspection and Expedited Removal of Aliens; Detention and Removal of
Aliens; Conduct of Removal Proceedings; Asylum Procedures, 62 Fed. Reg. 10312 (Mar.
6, 1997). Among other regulatory considerations, the Attorney General, after a notice
and comment period, concluded that the Act did not repeal the departure bar and opted
to maintain the bar on motions to reopen and motions for reconsideration. Id. at 10321,
10331.
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 5

In 2000, Congress made additional revisions to the statute governing motions to
reopen. See Violence Against Women Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-386, div. B,
§ 1506(c), 114 Stat. 1464, 1528 (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(6)(C)(iv) (2000)). In
an effort to aid victims of domestic violence, Congress exempted some alien victims
from the deadlines on motions to reopen. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(6)(C)(iv) (2000). In
2005, Congress added a qualifying requirement to the exemption: the alien victim must
be “physically present in the United States at the time of filing the motion.” See
Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005, Pub.
L. No. 109-162, § 825(a)(2)(F), 119 Stat. 2960, 3063–64 (Jan. 5, 2006) (codified at 8
U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(iv)(IV)).

In 2008, the Board addressed these revisions in Matter of Armendarez-Mendez.
It concluded that none of the statutory revisions repealed 8 C.F.R.§ 1003.2(d), “that the
departure bar rule remains in full effect” and that it continues to impose a
“jurisdictional” bar on the Board’s authority. 24 I. & N. Dec. 646, 660.

B.

In reviewing an administrative action that turns on the meaning of a federal
statute that Congress has empowered the agency to interpret, we generally give the
agency wide berth in construing the provision. Unless the statute’s terms “directly
address[] the precise question at issue,” we defer to the agency’s “reasonable”
interpretation of the provision. Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc.,
467 U.S. 837, 843–44 (1984). There is some question whether Chevron applies to
disputes about the scope of an agency’s jurisdiction. Although the Supreme Court has
invoked Chevron in resolving some disputes over an agency’s jurisdiction, see, e.g.,
Food & Drug Admin. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120 (2000);
Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833 (1986), it has not
mentioned Chevron in seemingly similar disputes, see Union Pac. R.R. v. Bhd. of
Locomotive Eng’rs, __ U.S. __, 130 S. Ct. 584 (2009); Miss. Power & Light Co. v. Miss.
ex rel. Moore, 487 U.S. 354 (1988), and, so far as we can tell, has yet to resolve the
debate that Justice Scalia and Justice Brennan first waged over the point in 1988. See
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 6

Miss. Power & Light, 487 U.S. at 382–83 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment)
(Chevron applies); id. at 386–87 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (Chevron does not apply). Our
circuit has not taken a position on the issue, see Bush & Burchett, Inc. v. Reich, 117 F.3d
932, 936 (6th Cir. 1997), and as of 2009 two scholars agreed that “[t]he Supreme Court
has yet to resolve whether Chevron deference should apply when an agency is
interpreting the reach of its own jurisdiction.” Nathan Alexander Sales & Jonathan H.
Adler, The Rest Is Silence: Chevron Deference, Agency Jurisdiction, and Statutory
Silences, 2009 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1497, 1500. Today is not the day to stake out a position
on the point because the issue does not affect the outcome of this case. Pruidze wins
either way for two basic reasons.

First, no statute gives the Board purchase for disclaiming jurisdiction to entertain
a motion to reopen filed by aliens who have left the country. The most relevant statute,
adopted in the 1996 Immigration Act, offers nothing to support such an interpretation
of the regulation. “An alien,” it says, “may file one motion to reopen proceedings under
this section, except that this limitation shall not apply so as to prevent the filing of one
motion to reopen described in subparagraph (C)(iv).” 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(A). This
is an empowering, not a divesting, provision, as it grants the Board authority to entertain
a motion to reopen. Even the limitations contained in the provision—permitting the
alien to file just one motion and excepting alien victims of domestic violence from this
limitation, id. §§ 1229a(c)(7)(A), 1229a(c)(7)(C)(iv)—do not purport to be
jurisdictional. The definition of “alien”—“any person not a citizen or national of the
United States,” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(3)—also provides no basis for saying that the Board
lacks jurisdiction over certain types of motions to reopen.

The only other clue provided by the 1996 Immigration Act is that Congress
repealed the one statutory departure bar then in existence, the one applicable to judicial
review. Pub. L. No. 104-208, div. C, § 306(b), 110 Stat. 3009, 3009-612. Even if an
alien’s departure from the United States had legal significance at one point in time under
the statutory scheme, the repeal of this departure bar in 1996 eliminates that potential
handhold for the Board’s interpretation. Not one of the relevant statutory provisions,
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 7

then, gives the Board authority “to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given.”
Union Pac., 130 S. Ct. at 590 (quoting Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 404
(1821)).

Second, even if doubt lingered about the Board’s authority to interpret the
regulation as jurisdictional, a recent line of Supreme Court decisions removes it. Over
the last decade or so, the Court has been vigilant in clarifying the distinction between
jurisdictional requirements on the one hand and claim-processing and other mandatory
rules on the other. See, e.g., Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, __ U.S. __, 130 S. Ct.
1237 (2010); Union Pac., 130 S. Ct. 584; Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205 (2007);
Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 510 (2006); Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443
(2004); Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 90 (1998). Not all mandatory
requirements, these decisions make clear, establish jurisdictional prerequisites.

Nothing in the statutory scheme suggests that the Board lacks jurisdiction—the
legal power or adjudicative competence, see Reed Elsevier, 130 S. Ct. at 1243—to issue
decisions that affect the legal rights of aliens abroad. Whether the regulation
itself—essentially a mandatory claim-processing rule to the effect that the Board
categorically will reject motions to reopen filed by aliens who have left the country or
will always treat such motions as withdrawn upon the alien’s departure—is valid is a
different matter, one that has divided the lower courts, compare Coyt v. Holder, 593 F.3d
902 (9th Cir. 2010), and Contreras-Bocanegra v. Holder, __ F.3d __, 2010 WL 5209228
(10th Cir. 2010), with William v. Gonzales, 499 F.3d 329 (4th Cir. 2007), and one on
which this court has taken a partial position, see Madrigal v. Holder, 572 F.3d 239 (6th
Cir. 2009) (holding that the departure bar does not apply to the involuntary removal of
aliens). What matters here is that the Board has assumed authority to interpret the
regulation as a jurisdictional rule, not a mandatory rule, and we cannot ignore the
difference between the two. “As a rule about subject-matter jurisdiction,” the departure
bar “is untenable.” Marin-Rodriguez v. Holder, 612 F.3d 591, 593 (7th Cir. 2010).

Union Pacific R.R. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 130 S. Ct. 584,
shows why. Congress delegated authority to the National Railroad Adjustment Board
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 8

over “all disputes,” 45 U.S.C. § 152 First, between carriers and their employees, 45
U.S.C. § 153(h) First, (i). The Adjustment Board promulgated a regulation saying that
“No petition shall be considered . . . unless the subject matter has been handled in
accordance with the provisions of the [statute].” 29 C.F.R. § 301.2(b). One of those
provisions required the parties to conference before submitting a dispute to the
Adjustment Board for arbitration, 29 C.F.R. pt. 301 (2009); 45 U.S.C. § 152, and the
Adjustment Board construed the requirement as a jurisdictional prerequisite. 130 S. Ct.
at 593–94. After explaining that legal rules can be mandatory without being
jurisdictional, the Court held that the Adjustment Board could not curtail its own
jurisdiction in this manner. Id. at 596–98. Nothing in the statute, the Court reasoned,
linked this conferencing requirement with the Adjustment Board’s powers, and no
statute authorized the Board to create jurisdictional rules. Id.

Union Pacific proves Pruidze’s point. The statute in Union Pacific vested the
agency with broad authority over “all disputes,” which the agency nonetheless declined
to exercise. Union Pac., 130 S. Ct. at 597 (emphasis added); see 45 U.S.C. § 153(h)
First. Just so here: Congress empowered the Board to consider motions to reopen filed
by “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(3)
(emphasis added); see also id. § 1229a(c)(7)(A). Yet, as in Union Pacific, the Board of
Immigration Appeals construed one of its legal rules as jurisdictional. See 8 C.F.R.
§ 1003.2(d); see also 29 C.F.R. § 301.2(b); Matter of Armendarez-Mendez, 24 I. & N.
Dec. 646. The Board of Immigration Appeals, just like the National Railroad
Adjustment Board, cannot point to any statute indicating, or even suggesting, that the
relevant requirement—the physical-presence requirement in one instance, the
conferencing one in the other—is jurisdictional. On this statutory slate, the agency may
not disclaim jurisdiction to handle a motion to reopen that Congress empowered it to
resolve. See Union Pac., 130 S. Ct. at 596.

Even the Board does not buy everything it is trying to sell. In Matter of Bulnes-
Nolasco, 25 I. & N. Dec. 57 (B.I.A. 2009), the Board held that it could take action with
respect to a motion to reopen filed by an alien who has left the United States if the alien
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 9

claims not to have received notice of the warrant of removal. Id. at 58–60. Yet if the
Board lacks the “adjudicatory authority,” Reed Elsevier, 130 S. Ct. at 1243, to hear
motions to reopen filed by aliens who are abroad, it follows that it lacks jurisdiction to
hear a subset of those motions. See Marin-Rodriguez, 612 F.3d at 595. Bulnes-Nolasco
suggests that the departure bar does not deprive the Board of jurisdiction to handle all
matters relating to removed aliens, which is the explanation the Board gave for declining
to hear Pruidze’s motion to reopen. And the reasons the Board gave for its decision are
what we must review. See Sec. & Exch. Comm’n v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194,
196–97 (1947).

No doubt, the agency is not required—by statute or by this decision—to grant
Pruidze’s motion to reopen. But it is required—by both—to consider it. When the
Board reconsiders Pruidze’s motion to reopen, it has authority to determine whether the
motion is untimely and, if so, whether the departure bar limits the Board’s ability to
grant Pruidze relief. Cf. Zhang v. Holder, 617 F.3d 650 (2d Cir. 2010) (examining
validity of departure bar as applied to Board’s sua sponte authority to grant motions to
reopen). If, on the other hand, the Board finds that Pruidze’s motion is not time-barred,
it may wish to consider whether the departure bar is a mandatory rule. Cf. Madrigal, 572
F.3d at 245–46. These are all things the Board may do, but because we review what the
Board did do—improperly deny Pruidze’s motion on the invalid ground that it does not
have jurisdiction over motions to reopen filed by aliens abroad—they are questions for
another day. See Chenery, 332 U.S. at 196–97.

Perhaps, one might say, we have stretched the analogy to Union Pacific. While
Congress gave the Adjustment Board power to “adopt such rules as it deems necessary
to control proceedings,” 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (v) (2006), it gave the Attorney General
power to “establish such regulations, . . . review such administrative determinations in
immigration proceedings, delegate such authority, and perform such other acts as the
Attorney General determines to be necessary for carrying out this section.” 8 U.S.C.
§ 1103(g)(2). The latter delegation of authority, we acknowledge, is broader than the
former. But that reality misses the larger point, the one dispositive here—that an agency
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 10

cannot contract its power to hear claims that fall plainly within its statutory jurisdiction.
See Union Pac., 130 S. Ct. at 596–98; Arbaugh, 546 U.S. at 510, 514.

The Attorney General adds that, under Chevron, we must defer to its
interpretation of § 1229a(c)(7) because the provision is silent—or at least
ambiguous—on whether an alien abroad may file a motion to reopen. See 467 U.S. at
843–44. But the Board cannot clear the first step of Chevron because the Court has
drawn a line between mandatory rules and claim-processing rules on the one side and
jurisdictional ones on the other. Union Pac., 130 S. Ct. at 596. Whatever powers of
interpretation Chevron gives agencies, it does not allow them to alchemize the authority
to pass a mandatory rule into the authority to pass a jurisdictional one. We defer to an
agency’s efforts to fill statutory gaps, not to create them, and in this instance Congress
left no gap to fill when it empowered the agency to consider all motions to reopen filed
by an alien, not just those filed by aliens who remain in the United States up to the time
of decision. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(A). The Attorney General may be right that there
is “silence” in the statutory scheme. But the relevant silence goes to the alleged
authority to disclaim jurisdiction over motions to reopen in the face of clear language
giving the Board jurisdiction over all motions to reopen. That is not the kind of silence
that aids an agency.

The Attorney General takes a different tack in leaning on Commodity Futures
Trading Commission v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833. “[W]hen Congress revisits a statute giving
rise to a longstanding administrative interpretation without pertinent change,” Schor says
that “the congressional failure to revise or repeal the agency’s interpretation is
persuasive evidence that the interpretation is the one intended by Congress.” Id. at 846.
Yet when Congress enacted the 1996 Immigration Act, there was no statutory provision
to “revisit.” Until then, Congress had not spoken about motions to reopen and thus it
had said nothing that could give rise to an agency interpretation that Congress could
codify. The Attorney General had adopted the departure bar in accordance with his
then-unlimited authority over motions to reopen, see 17 Fed. Reg. 11469, 11475 (Dec.
19, 1952) (codified at 8 C.F.R. § 6.2 (1953)), and Congress created a statutory right to
No. 09-3836 Pruidze v. Holder Page 11

file a motion to reopen for the first time in 1996. No less importantly, the Schor
presumption is just that, a presumption, and the Board can point to nothing in positive
law suggesting that the Board does not have the power to consider motions to reopen in
this setting. See Union Pac., 130 S. Ct. at 596.

III.

We vacate the Board’s order and remand the case to the agency for further
proceedings.