SORIANO

Interim Decision #3289

Interim Decision #3289

In re Bartolome Jhonny SORIANO, Respondent

File A39 186 067 - Napanoch

Decided by Board June 27, 1996
Decided by Attorney General February 21, 1997

U.S. Department of Justice
Executive Office for Immigration Review
Board of Immigration Appeals

(1) The 1996 amendments to section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C.
§ 1182(c) (1994), bar relief to aliens deportable by reason of having committed any of the
criminal offenses described in the amended section 212(c).
(2) The Attorney General vacates the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals and holds
that the bar to relief under the amended section 212(c) applies to all applications pending on
the April 24, 1996, effective date of the amendments.
(3) Pursuant to the order of the Attorney General, aliens who conceded deportability in reli-
ance on the availability of section 212(c) relief before April 24, 1996, may petition the Exec-
utive Office for Immigration Review for reopening of the proceedings for the limited
purpose of permitting the alien to contest deportability.

FOR RESPONDENT: Barry F. Kenyon, Esquire, New York, New York

AMICUS CURIAE FOR THE RESPONDENT: Nadine K. Wettstein, Esquire, Tucson,
Arizona

AMICUS CURIAE FOR THE RESPONDENT: William W. Chip, Esquire, Washington, D.C.

FOR IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE: David M. Dixon, Chief Appel-
late Counsel

BEFORE THE BOARD
(June 27, 1996)
BEFORE: Board En Banc: SCHMIDT, Chairman; HEILMAN, HOLMES, VILLAGELIU,
MATHON, and GUENDELSBERGER, Board Members. Concurring and Dissenting Opinion:
ROSENBERG, Board Member. Dissenting Opinion: VACCA, Board Member, joined by
DUNNE, Vice Chairman; HURWITZ, FILPPU, and COLE, Board Members.

HEILMAN, Board Member:

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In a decision dated October 12, 1995, an Immigration Judge found the
respondent deportable as charged, denied his application for a waiver of inad-
missibility pursuant to section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality
Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c) (1994), and ordered him deported from the United
States to the Dominican Republic. The respondent appealed from that deci-
sion on October 23, 1995. Subsequent to the respondent’s appeal, Congress
amended section 212(c) of the Act, and the Immigration and Naturalization
Service has now filed a supplemental brief in response to the respondent’s
argument, asserting that the recent legislative amendments preclude the
respondent from demonstrating his continuing eligibility for section 212(c)
relief.1 Thus, we are faced with the issue regarding the effective date of sec-
tion 440(d) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,
Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, 1277 (“AEDPA”). We find the respon-
dent eligible for section 212(c) relief, but will deny his appeal as a matter of
discretion.

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The respondent is a native and citizen of the Dominican Republic. He
entered the United States on March 28, 1985, as a lawful permanent resident.
On May 20, 1992, the respondent was convicted under the law of the State of
New York of the offense of attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance.
Based on this conviction, the Service initiated deportation proceedings
against the respondent with the issuance of an Order to Show Cause and
Notice of Hearing (Form I-221) dated June 3, 1994. On April 28, 1995, the
respondent filed an Application for Advance Permission to Return to
Unrelinquished Domicile (Form I-191) pursuant to section 212(c) of the Act.
By order dated October 12, 1995, the Immigration Judge found that the
respondent was eligible for relief under section 212(c) of the Act, but denied
that application in the exercise of discretion. On appeal, the respondent
argues that the Immigration Judge erred in the exercise of that discretion.

II. APPLICABLE LAW
Prior to considering the respondent’s appeal of the Immigration Judge’s
discretionary determination, this Board must first address the Service’s con-
tention that the recent amendments to section 212(c) of the Act statutorily bar
the Board from considering the merits of the respondent’s appeal from his
section 212(c) application. We note initially that the respondent was clearly
eligible for such relief under the law in effect at the time the Immigration
Judge rendered his decision.2
1 We acknowledge the contribution of amici in the briefing of this issue to the Board.
2 Until April 24, 1996, section 212(c) of the Act read as follows:

Aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence who temporarily proceeded abroad
voluntarily and not under an order of deportation, and who are returning to a lawful

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However, during the pendency of the respondent’s appeal from the Immi-
gration Judge’s discretionary denial of his application, Congress amended
section 212(c) of the Act to read as follows:
Aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence who temporarily proceeded abroad vol-
untarily and not under an order of deportation, and who are returning to a lawful
unrelinquished domicile of seven consecutive years, may be admitted in the discretion of
the Attorney General without regard to the provisions of section (a) (other than paragraphs
(3) and (9)(C)). Nothing contained in this subsection shall limit the authority of the Attorney
General to exercise the discretion invested in [her] under section 211(b). This section shall
not apply to an alien who is deportable by reason of having committed any criminal offense
covered in section 241(a)(2)(A)(iii), (B), (C), or (D), or any offense covered by section
241(a)(2)(A)(ii) for which both predicate offenses are covered by section 241(a)(2)(A)(i).

Section 440(d) of the AEDPA, 110 Stat. at 1277 (emphasis added).
The respondent, deportable by reason of having committed an offense
covered by sections 241(a)(2)(A)(iii) and (B) of the Act, falls within the last
sentence of the AEDPA amendment. Thus, we must decide whether Con-
gress intended the respondent to remain eligible for section 212(c) relief after
April 24, 1996.

III. EFFECTIVE DATE
Congress did not incorporate an express provision regarding the effective
date of section 440(d) of the AEDPA. Initially, then, we must discern the date
on which this section of law became effective, and, if effective immediately,
whether it applies to those aliens already in proceedings as of April 24, 1996.
If it does so apply to those aliens in proceedings, we must further determine
whether the amendment applies to those aliens who filed their section 212(c)
applications by April 24, 1996. In resolving these issues of the AEDPA’s
temporal applicability, we first look to the language of the statute itself. We
begin by noting that the paramount index of congressional intent is the plain
meaning of the words used in the statute taken as a whole. See Matter of
Grinberg, 20 I&N Dec. 911 (BIA 1994) (citing INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480
U.S. 421, 431 (1987)); see also K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U.S. 281,
291 (1988) (stating that in ascertaining the “plain meaning” of a statute, one
“must look to the particular statutory language at issue, as well as the lan-
guage and design of the statute as a whole”).

unrelinquished domicile of seven consecutive years, may be admitted in the discretion of
the Attorney General without regard to the provisions of section (a) (other than
paragraphs (3) and (9)(C)). Nothing contained in this subsection shall limit the authority
of the Attorney General to exercise the discretion invested in [her] under section 211(b).
The first sentence of this subsection shall not apply to an alien who has been convicted of
one or more aggravated felonies and has served for such felony or felonies a term of
imprisonment of at least 5 years.

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A. Section 440(d) and Pending Proceedings
Initially, we find persuasive evidence to conclude that Congress intended
section 440(d) to apply immediately, regardless of whether the Service had
placed an alien in proceedings by April 24, 1996. Both general statutory con-
struction and an examination of Congress’ inclusion of other effective dates
in the AEDPA lead us to this result. General rules of statutory construction
hold that the lack of an effective date for legislation indicates that the law
should be effective on the date of passage. See generally 2 C. Sands, Suther-
land Statutory Construction § 33.08 (4th ed. 1973). We find no obstacle to
the application of this rule in the language of the AEDPA; rather, we find
such an interpretation buttressed by Congress’ decision to expressly delay
the effective date of other subsections of the AEDPA. For example, in section
414(b) of the AEDPA, 110 Stat. at 1270, Congress expressly provided that
this amendment “shall take effect on the first day of the first month beginning
more than 180 days after the date of the enactment of [the AEDPA].” Simi-
larly, in section 442 of the AEDPA, 110 Stat. at 1280, Congress amended
section 242A(b) of the Act with regard to certain procedural aspects of depor-
tation hearings and stated, in subsection 442(d), that those amendments
“shall apply to all aliens against whom deportation proceedings are initiated
after the date of the enactment of [the AEDPA].” The absence of similar lan-
guage in section 440(d) supports the conclusion that Congress intended sec-
tion 440(d) of the AEDPA to apply to aliens already in proceedings on April
24, 1996. These express declarations in other subsections of the AEDPA, in
conjunction with Congress’ silence in section 440(d) of the AEDPA, lead us
to conclude that section 440(d) was effective immediately upon enactment
and was not limited in applicability to those aliens whose proceedings were
initiated after that date.

B. Pending Applications
However, this finding that section 440(d) of the AEDPA was effective
immediately and not limited in application to those aliens brought into pro-
ceedings after April 24, 1996, does not finally resolve whether this respon-
dent is barred from section 212(c) relief. There remains a subcategory of
aliens, including the respondent, who already had applications for section
212(c) relief pending on April 24, 1996. Such aliens include those deportable
aliens awaiting their section 212(c) merits hearings, as well as those aliens
who have appealed the Immigration Judge’s denial of their applications, and
those who, having received a grant of section 212(c) relief, are subject to a
Service appeal of the Immigration Judge’s decision. In determining congres-
sional intent from the language and design of the AEDPA as a whole, we do
not find that Congress’ silence regarding the effective date of section 440(d)
reflects an intent for the amendment to bar pending applications for section
212(c) waivers. In reaching this conclusion, we note that in section 413 of the

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AEDPA, which bars alien terrorists from most forms of relief from deporta-
tion, Congress expressly indicated that those bars to relief “shall take effect
on the date of enactment of [the AEDPA] and shall apply to applications filed
before, on, or after such date if final action has not been taken on them before
such date.” See section 413(g) of the AEDPA, 110 Stat. at 1269-70.
Another basic rule of statutory construction instructs that no provision of
law should be so construed as to render a word or clause surplusage. See
Kungys v. United States, 485 U.S. 759 (1988); Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S.
379 (1979). By adding the effective date found at section 413(g) of the
AEDPA, Congress expressed its clear intent that section 413 of the AEDPA
apply specifically to pending applications of alien terrorists. To construe this
same intent by Congress’ silence in section 440(d) of the AEDPA would
require us to conclude that the “before, on, or after” language of section
413(g) of the AEDPA is unnecessary and irrelevant to whether that section
applies to applications for asylum pending before the AEDPA’s enactment.
This we decline to conclude. Rather, we interpret Congress’ omission of the
“before, on, or after” language in section 440(d) to indicate its intent that
aliens with applications pending on April 24, 1996, should not be statutorily
barred from section 212(c) relief by operation of the AEDPA.3
This conclusion is consistent with the approach to statutory interpretation
set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Landgraf v. USI Film Prod-
ucts, 511 U.S. 244 (1994). In that case, the Supreme Court observed that
when deciding whether changes in law should be applied to pending contro-
versies in the absence of express congressional directive, “settled expecta-
tions should not be lightly disrupted.” Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra,
at 265. By applying section 440(d) of the AEDPA to only those applications
for section 212(c) relief filed on or after the date of the enactment of the
AEDPA, the unique expectations of aliens whose applications for section
212(c) relief were pending prior to the enactment of the AEDPA are not dis-
rupted. Such aliens demonstrated, with the filing of their pre-AEDPA appli-
cations, their expectation that although they were deportable under various
provisions of the Act, they would be able to present evidence of favorable
social and humane considerations that might countervail evidence of their
undesirability as lawful permanent residents. See generally Matter of Marin,
3 Similarly, we note that silence cannot reasonably be interpreted as evidencing a

congressional intent to apply the new limitations in section 212(c) only to those aliens whose
convictions for the relevant offenses occurred on or after the date of enactment of the AEDPA
because Congress expressly stated that result in the AEDPA when such was its intent. See
section 440(f) of the AEDPA, 110 Stat. at 1278 (stating that the amendments to the aggravated
felony definition "apply to convictions entered on or after the date of enactment"). Moreover, as
regards the issue of "settled expectations" discussed below, both the Board and the courts have
noted that aliens cannot reasonably argue "'that they somehow relied on the availability of a
discretionary waiver of deportation when choosing to engage in [criminal] activity.'" Matter of
Gomez-Giraldo, 20 I&N Dec. 957, 964 (BIA 1995) (quoting DeOsorio v. United States INS, 10
F.3d 1034, 1042 (4th Cir. 1993)).

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16 I&N Dec. 581 (BIA 1978). The interpretative approach enunciated by the
Supreme Court in Landgraf supports the conclusion that Congress did not
intend by its silence to disrupt the expectations of those aliens whose applica-
tions for section 212(c) relief were pending on April 24, 1996.
Moreover, this conclusion is consistent with the approach adopted by
Congress with its amendment of section 212(c) of the Act by the Immigration
Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-649, 104 Stat. 4978, in which a statutory 5-year
aggravated felony bar to that relief was made applicable to aliens who
applied after the date of the enactment of that 1990 amendment. See Matter of
Gomez-Giraldo, 20 I&N Dec. 957, 963 (BIA 1995).

C. Applicability to Respondent’s Section 212(c) Request
The respondent applied for section 212(c) relief on April 28, 1995, prior to
the April 24, 1996, enactment of the AEDPA. Accordingly, the bar to section
212(c) relief added by the amendment of that section by section 440(d) of the
AEDPA does not apply to the respondent’s application for relief. There is no
question that the respondent is eligible for section 212(c) relief by the version
of that section that was in effect prior to its amendment by section 440(d) of
the AEDPA. That is, the respondent is not an alien convicted of an aggra-
vated felony who served for such felony a term of imprisonment of at least 5
years. Thus, we find the respondent eligible for relief under section 212(c) of
the Act, and we proceed to the question of whether he merits that relief in the
exercise of discretion.

III. DISCRETION
Notwithstanding the respondent’s continued eligibility for a waiver of
inadmissibility, we ultimately disagree with his appellate argument that the
Immigration Judge erred in finding that he did not warrant a discretionary
waiver pursuant to section 212(c) of the Act. As the Immigration Judge cor-
rectly noted, the respondent’s attempted criminal sale of cocaine, in addition
to his three other drug-related felonies, require a demonstration of outstand-
ing or unusual equities before the respondent may receive a section 212(c)
waiver of inadmissibility. See Matter of Marin, supra; cf. Matter of Burbano,
20 I&N Dec. 872, 879 (BIA 1994). We agree with the Immigration Judge that
the respondent has failed to demonstrate such equities so that he may over-
come his serious and recent drug trafficking crimes.
The respondent testified at the hearing that he has various family ties in the
United States, including his mother, two siblings, and his United States citi-
zen son. Moreover, the respondent explained that his son lives with his
ex-wife, and that his family assists them financially. The respondent’s
mother and sister also testified on his behalf, and while we find it noteworthy
that the respondent’s family members attended the hearing, we do not find
that this familial support alone rises to the level of outstanding or unusual.

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The respondent maintains various family ties in the Dominican Republic,
including three daughters and four siblings. He arrived in the United States
only 10 years ago as a 25-year-old adult, and his employment during his resi-
dence in the United States has been sporadic.
Regarding his rehabilitative efforts, we note that the respondent testified
that he has participated in a drug rehabilitation program while he has been
incarcerated, and that after 18 years of drug use, he has maintained a
drug-free lifestyle while in prison. Moreover, he testified that he has also
received his GED while incarcerated, and he has recently strengthened his
religious beliefs. We agree with the Immigration Judge that the respondent
has demonstrated a willingness to continue his progress towards a drug-free
and crime-free lifestyle and has taken steps towards rehabilitation. See Mat-
ter of Arreguin, 21 I&N Dec. 38 (BIA 1995). However, considering these
factors in conjunction with his family ties here and abroad, and his relatively
short period of residence in the United States, we can not find that the respon-
dent has demonstrated sufficient equities to overcome his four recent drug
trafficking felonies. Cf. Matter of Burbano, supra. Accordingly, we will dis-
miss the respondent’s appeal.
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed.
CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION: Lory D. Rosenberg,
Board Member
I respectfully concur in part and dissent in part.
Our decision today seeks to resolve the ambiguity presented by section
440(d) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L.
No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, 1277 (enacted Apr. 24, 1996) (“AEDPA”),
which amends the category of otherwise eligible lawful permanent resident
aliens precluded from a waiver under section 212(c) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c)(1994).
The text of this section, as set forth by the majority, contains no express pro-
vision specifying an effective date for this amendment. The majority opinion
properly recognizes that the fact that the AEDPA became law on April 24,
1996, is not dispositive of the effect of section 440(d) on an alien who “is
deportable” on the grounds of deportability designated in that section.1
In essence, we hold that two related factors, traditional principles of statu-
tory construction and Supreme Court law interpreting the application of new
statutes to pre-existing circumstances, must control the reach of this
1 This “ill-advised” provision of AEDPA is less than artfully drawn, having been enacted at

the 11th hour as part of a bill ostensibly addressing the deportation of terrorists, not the
deportation of “long-term legal residents.” See President’s Remarks on Signing the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 32 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 717 (Apr.
29, 1996). While section 440(d) refers to those “deportable by reason of having committed any
criminal offense covered” by specified sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the
only aliens so deportable are aliens who actually have been convicted of such offenses.

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provision of the AEDPA. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244
(1994). In the context of the appeal before us, it is necessary only to find, as
the majority does, that the amendment does not apply to pending applications
already filed by aliens in deportation proceedings. Thus, the respondent, who
is deportable by reason of a conviction for a covered offense, remains eligible
to have his pending application for a waiver of deportability under section
212(c) determined. For purposes of the scenario presented in this appeal, I
concur.

I. THE SILENCE OF THE STATUTE
The silence of the statute with regard to its impact upon conduct and other
events which already have taken place is significant. Nothing in the text or
the legislative history of the AEDPA indicates that section 440(d) should be
applied retroactively to pending cases or pre-amendment circumstances, or
that this silence was due to an “accident of draftsmanship.” INS v.
Phinpathya, 464 U.S. 183, 191 (1984). By contrast, as the majority discusses,
other sections of the AEDPA expressly address the effect of the particular
provision on circumstances existing prior to its enactment. See, e.g., section
413(g) of the AEDPA, 110 Stat. at 1269-70.
As recognized consistently by the Supreme Court, retroactivity is not
favored in the law. Bowen v. Georgetown University Hosp., 488 U.S. 204,
208 (1988). A presumption against retroactivity generally is consistent with
legislative and public expectations as a safeguard against unfairness.
Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra, at 272. This principle dates back to
English common law, and even to Roman law. See, e.g., United States v.
Heth, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 399, 413 (1806); Dash v. Van Kleeck, 7 Johns. 477,
502-03, 505 (N.Y. 1811) (the prince may enact a retrospective law as long as
it is done expressly).2
In Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra, the Supreme Court restated the
principle that a statute shall not be given retroactive effect unless expressly
provided by Congress. Specifically, the Supreme Court cautioned that “[a]
statement that a statute will become effective on a certain date does not even
arguably suggest that it has any application to conduct which occurred prior
to that date.” Id. at 1493.
To the extent that the majority decision is understood to mean either that
the language in the statute as a whole is reconciled or that the Landgraf prin-
ciples, discussed below, are properly observed only by finding that aliens
who have filed applications for section 212(c) waivers by April 24, 1996, are

2 See Demelo v. Cobb, 936 F. Supp. 30 (D. Mass. 1996) (discussing the specific language in

the AEDPA relating to restrictions upon release from custody, and concluding that any
interpretation of the Act applying it to offenses committed before April 24, 1996, (and
convictions obtained before that date) would raise serious constitutional issues).

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not subject to section 440(d), I must differ. I write separately because I
believe this Board’s decision requires clarification on these points.

II. STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION AND RETROACTIVITY
As the agency implementing the statute, we recognize that a statutory con-
struct involving silence in one provision but not another requires us to give
effect to each provision. See K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U.S. 281
(1988); see also INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987) (holding that
the Board may not blur the distinctions between two related but separate stat-
utory standards or reduce them into one); Matter of Hou, 20 I&N Dec. 513
(BIA 1992) (recognizing that Congress’ use of different terminology in two
sections of the statute requires the Board to give each independent effect).
In fact, this is precisely what was done by this Board in Matter of A-A-, 20
I&N Dec. 506 (BIA 1992), where we looked to the statutory language in vari-
ous sections of the Immigration Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-649, 104 Stat.
4978, in order to determine the applicability of the amendment of section
212(c) contained in that enactment. Although the section was silent as to its
applicability to prior convictions, the express language of the statute made
that amendment applicable to pending applications.3
Coupled with the principle enunciated by the Supreme Court in Landgraf
v. USI Film Products, supra, at 266, that when new provisions attach new
legal consequences to prior events, “settled expectations should not be lightly
disrupted” (unless Congress expressly states such an intent), these precepts
militate in favor of adjudicating the respondent’s waiver application accord-
ing to the prior law. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to these two consider-
ations—the requirement that we must interpret silence in a provision so as to
give effect to the whole statute, and the doctrine of settled expectations as
foreclosing the retroactive application of a new or amended statute to prior
conduct—as the “Landgraf principles.”
Semantic sparring over whether a new provision can be retroactive
because it is being applied to an adjudication we are conducting in the present
is not a useful exercise. Nonetheless, the dissent focuses on the application,
which is a continuing one, rather than on past events and expectations which
are settled, and avoids addressing the issue. The issue is whether the new
provision operates retroactively. That is, does it affect the settled expecta-
tions of the parties, in this case, the respondent, as best described in the
Landgraf principles.4 Moreover, this Board previously has acknowledged

3 I note that our decision in Matter of A-A-, supra, also involved a situation, not present here,

in which a retroactive application was necessary in order for the law to be effective. See also
Matter of Gomez-Giraldo, 20 I&N Dec. 957 (BIA 1995) (finding 5-year incarceration bar
would be delayed for 5 years if not applied to prior convictions).
4 The predisposition against a retroactive construction of laws which operate to affect prior

conduct is the principle that an individual should be able to act with reasonable certainty of the

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that eliminating section 212(c) relief does have retroactive effect. Matter of
Gomez-Giraldo, 20 I&N Dec. 957, 963 (BIA 1995); Matter of A-A-, supra.
In this instance, even though the determination of eligibility for a waiver
under section 212(c) may be prospective, the restriction in the amended pro-
vision has a retroactive operation or effect as it constitutes a new legal conse-
quence which attaches, at a minimum, to any lawful permanent resident
already subject to an Order To Show Cause or otherwise in the agency “pipe-
line.” It is arguable that the legal consequences attach, in fact, to the convic-
tion itself and even to the commission of the offense. Thus, as I discuss
below, I believe that to find the amended provision applicable to all applica-
tions, as does the dissent, or only to already-filed and pending applications,
as does the majority, falls short of the proper observance of the Landgraf
principles.

A. Landgraf Principles and Board Precedent
Previously, the Board held that where new statutory provisions affecting
eligibility for relief from deportation come into effect during the pendency of
a deportation hearing or an administrative appeal to this Board, and there
exists no statutory directive to the contrary, the new statutory provisions shall
be applied to the application for relief before us, and the application may be
denied on the basis of the statutory amendment. Cf. Matter of U-M-, 20 I&N
Dec. 327 (BIA 1991), aff’d, 989 F.2d 1085 (9th Cir. 1993). Although the dis-
sent clings to this position, it simply is not applicable here.
Since our decision in Matter of U-M-, supra, the United States Supreme
Court issued its decision in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra, in which it
comprehensively discussed the issue of the application of statutory amend-
ments to pending controversies. As I understand the dissent to assert that a
silent statute is not only effective when signed by the President, but applies to
all prior or pending events or conduct, I note that in Landgraf, the Supreme
Court reconciled the apparent conflict between the presumption that “a court
must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision,” and the pre-
sumption against retroactivity. Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra, at 245
(citing Bradley v. Richmond School Board, 416 U.S. 696, 711 (1974)).
In fact, in Matter of Gomez-Giraldo, supra, in which we last visited the
impact of the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Landgraf v. USI Film Products,
supra, we held that the aggravated felony bar added to section 212(c) of the
Act by a previous amendment implicated none of the concerns enunciated in
Landgraf. We reasoned that, because that amendment, by its express terms,
applied only to those applications for relief made on or after the effective date

legal consequences. See Chew Heong v. United States, 112 U.S. 536, 559 (1884); see also
Charles B. Hochman, The Supreme Court and the Constitutionality of Retroactive Legislation,
73 Harv. L. Rev. 692 (1960).

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of the amendment, it would not disturb a lawful permanent resident’s settled
expectations that he or she could apply for and be granted a waiver under sec-
tion 212(c). Matter of Gomez-Giraldo, supra, at 963-64. Our holding today,
relating to an amendment with no express language, is entirely consistent
with that decision and the reasoning underlying it.

B. Landgraf Principles and Factual Scenarios Under Section 440(d)
In Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra, the Supreme Court set out a
basic test to determine whether a statute would operate “retroactively” or
“retrospectively” if applied to a case pending at the time of the statute’s
enactment. The Court stated that the question a body must ask is “whether the
provision attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its
enactment.” Id. at 1499.
The first question presented is, which cases, if any, in the agency “pipe-
line” are affected? The majority limits its determination to persons who have
already filed applications for relief under section 212(c). There remains an
open question, however, whether the amendment applies to all potential can-
didates for the waiver already “in the pipeline.”
Arguably, the “pipeline” could include various categories of individuals
who are alleged to be deportable under the pertinent sections of the statute,
and who are otherwise eligible for and require the grant of a waiver under
section 212(c) in order not to be deported. Assuming the main, more compre-
hensive group to be putative candidates who have been identified by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service as deportable aliens is consistent
with the Landgraf principles.
This could encompass aliens who are the subject of a “detainer” placed
against them during their incarceration for a criminal offense as the result of a
request by the Service; it could include those served with an Order to Show
Cause issued by the Service; and it could include those subject to an Order to
Show Cause against whom deportation proceedings have commenced as
defined under the regulations. It could include those who have filed an appli-
cation for a waiver under section 212(c) in proceedings before an Immigra-
tion Judge; those who are seeking to reopen to apply for 212(c) relief; and
those who have received an order from an Immigration Judge from which an
appeal has been taken to the Board and/or to the circuit courts of appeal.
In particular, this Board only recently recognized decisions of the United
States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, which
hold that the statutory language of section 212(c) makes plain that an alien
may establish lawful domicile while in a status other than that of a permanent
resident. See Matter of Cazares, 21 I&N Dec. 188 (BIA 1996) (holding that a
temporary resident under section 245A of the Act may accrue time towards
7-year lawful domicile requirement of section 212(c)). Further, the Fifth Cir-
cuit held specifically that temporary residents under both the legalization

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(section 245A) and special agricultural worker (“SAW”)(section 210) provi-
sions may accrue lawful domicile while in that status. See White v. INS, 75
F.3d 213 (5th Cir. 1996).
This Board has remanded appeals from decisions arising in those circuits
to allow applications for section 212(c) to be filed and heard in the first
instance or for a hearing on the merits when such was pretermitted by the
Immigration Judge. The majority overlooks these cases; while not explicitly
implicated in our decision today, the truncated interpretation of the majority
leaves unresolved hundreds of cases of individuals who we found to have
been entitled to consideration at least under controlling circuit law, but whose
applications were unlawfully pretermitted and foreclosed. In my view, such
applicants are entitled to the opportunity to seek relief from deportation
under section 212(c) whether or not they have a pending application on file.
See Snajder v. INS, 29 F.3d 1203 (7th Cir. 1994).
The next question is whether the amendment applies to aliens convicted of
any offense which would render them subject to deportation proceedings on
charges referenced in section 212(c), as amended, and ineligible to apply for
or be granted a waiver under that section. In the first published opinion on a
provision of the AEDPA, the District Court of Massachusetts, construing sec-
tion 440(c), posited that it was untenable that Congress could have intended
that the terms of the provision apply other than to persons convicted on or
after the April 24, 1996 effective date. Demelo v. Cobb, 936 F. Supp. 30 (D.
Mass. 1996). Section 440(c) refers to custody requirements applicable to the
exact same categories of aliens affected by the operation of section 440(d).
One difference between the language in section 440(c) and that in section
440(d) is that the plain language of section 440(c) amends section 242(a)(2)
of the Act, which mandates the Attorney General to take into custody any
alien “convicted of [the same offenses specified in amended section
212(c)]. . . upon release of the alien from incarceration.” (Emphasis added.)
By contrast, the language of section 440(d) amends section 212(c) to read
that the provision “shall not apply to an alien who is deportable by reason of
having committed an offense.” (Emphasis added.)
As the majority states, silence cannot reasonably be interpreted as sup-
porting a “settled expectation” of being able to engage in criminal activity
without consequences. However, I part ways with the majority when they
declare that individuals may not have “settled expectations” with regard to an
opportunity to seek a section 212(c) waiver that affects a plea of guilty or
other trial or appellate choices.

III. LANDGRAF PRINCIPLES AND MANIFEST INJUSTICE
In the absence of specific language, the reach of the statute depends upon
settled expectations. This doctrine is different from, but enhanced by, that of
“manifest injustice.”

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The human consequences of the AEDPA which are implicated by the legal
question before us are compelling. I believe this is especially important to
note in light of the fact that our decision today denies the requested relief
from deportation. Waivers under section 212(c) are not easily obtained; to the
contrary, they are perhaps the most difficult and hard won of any forms of
discretionary relief over which we exercise our jurisdiction. At stake is an
alien’s ability to remain in this country as a permanent resident, which is
determined by balancing the good of society as a whole against the individual
social and humane considerations that may pertain to any one case. Matter of
Marin, 16 I&N Dec. 581 (BIA 1978).
Such waiver applications are individual and fact bound, and they are prop-
erly left to the exercise of discretion by Immigration Judges in individual
cases, subject to the de novo review authority of this Board. While applicants
for section 212(c) waivers share the adverse factor of having been convicted
of a criminal or other immigration offense or offenses which renders them
subject to deportation, they are as individual as humans can be and as human
experience allows.
Applicants for waivers under section 212(c), until now, have included per-
sons convicted of a single, possibly victimless or nonviolent crime or crimes
over a discrete period of their stay in the United States, who have acknowl-
edged their wrongdoing and changed their behavior. They include individu-
als who came to this country with their families as infants; adults who have
neither spoken their native language nor been in their native country since
childhood; fathers, mothers, and single parents of United States citizen chil-
dren; businessmen and women who employ United States citizen workers in
legitimate occupations; caretakers of elderly United States citizen parents;
victims of domestic violence; and refugees. While they are not free of
responsibility for their mistakes, they have paid, often dearly, for their trans-
gressions in the criminal justice system, and they cannot all be said to unilat-
erally present a menace or threat to our society such that deportation is
warranted.
I find compelling policy and practical reasons to go beyond such a limited
interpretation as the one the majority proposes in this case. All of these peo-
ple, and no doubt many others, had settled expectations to which they con-
formed their conduct. Landgraf v. USA Film Products, supra, at 265,
instructs that those “settled expectations should not be lightly disrupted.”
“Retroactive application of laws is undesirable where advance notice of the
change in the law would motivate a change in an individual’s behavior or
conduct.” Griffon v. United States Dept. of Health and Human Services, 802
F.2d 146, 153 (5th Cir. 1986) (citing Alexander v. Robinson, 756 F.2d 1153
(5th Cir. 1985)).
Statutes may not be applied retroactively where doing so would result in
manifest injustice to those affected. Bradley v. Richmond School Board, 416
U.S. 696 (1974). Here, manifest injustice would result to a significant

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number of legal residents, because, while otherwise eligible, their right to
apply for a section 212(c) waiver will have been infringed. Moreover, I note
the inevitable disparity in treatment accorded different individuals that
would result, because otherwise eligible legal residents requiring a waiver
have no control over when proceedings are commenced or how quickly or in
what order hearings and appeals are set or adjudicated. See Dion v. Secretary
of Health and Human Services, 823 F.2d 669, 672 (1st Cir. 1987) (finding a
retroactive application inappropriate where a disparity among applicants
would result).
Further, although no legal resident has the absolute right to be granted sec-
tion 212(c) relief, eligible residents do have a vested right to apply and be
considered for such relief. See, e.g., Rabiu v. INS, 41 F.3d 879 (2d Cir. 1994);
Snajder v. INS, supra, at 1207-08; Batanic v. INS, 12 F.3d 662, 667 (7th Cir.
1993). For example, a respondent’s counsel might have been ineffective in
failing to file a section 212(c) application on behalf of an otherwise eligible
respondent. Rabiu v. INS, supra. The Service may have violated a regulation
denying the respondent the right to counsel. Snajder v. INS, supra; Batanic v.
INS, supra. The Immigration Judge might have wrongfully denied the
respondent’s motion for a change in venue that prejudiced his or her rights to
a fair hearing. Campos v. Nail, 43 F.3d 1285 (9th Cir. 1994). The Immigra-
tion Judge might have failed to notify the respondent of relief for which he or
she was apparently eligible. Bui v. INS, 76 F.3d 268 (9th Cir. 1996).
In any of these cases, I believe due process and fundamental fairness
would dictate that we accept the case for consideration of section 212(c)
relief, nunc pro tunc. Even while acknowledging the absence of statutory
authority to do so, this Board has long granted nunc pro tunc relief to cure
various defects in proceedings, if such treatment would dispose of a case.
Matter of Garcia, 21 I&N Dec. 254 (BIA 1996); see also Matter of Lok, 18
I&N Dec. 101, 107 (BIA 1981), aff’d, 681 F.2d 107 (2d Cir. 1982).

IV. CONCLUSION
I would find that section 440(d) of the AEDPA operates retroactively if
applied not only to pending section 212(c) applications, but to other prior
events. It would attach a new legal consequence to both a pre-amendment
charge or finding of deportability under most of the provisions found at sec-
tion 241(a)(2) of the Act. Prior to the amendment, a person entering into plea
agreements or found deportable under those sections who were otherwise eli-
gible could rely upon an opportunity to present evidence of social and
humane considerations to countervail evidence of their undesirability as a
permanent resident in order to demonstrate that the granting of section 212(c)
relief appeared to be in the best interest of the United States. Matter of Marin,
supra, at 584. To upset those settled expectations by retroactively applying
section 440(d) of the AEDPA, without the express directive of Congress

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requiring such an application, attaches a new legal consequence to conduct
and events already completed by April 24, 1996. It would require us to disre-
gard the concerns articulated by the Supreme Court in Landgraf v. USI Film
Products, supra, and, in my view, would contravene both practical consider-
ations and fundamental fairness.

DISSENTING OPINION: Fred W. Vacca, Board Member, in which
Mary Maguire Dunne, Vice Chairman, Gerald S. Hurwitz, Lauri S.
Filppu, and Patricia A. Cole, Board Members, joined.
I respectfully dissent.
As stated by the majority, the issue before us is to determine the effective
date of section 440(d) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, 1277 (enacted Apr. 24, 1996)
(“AEDPA”), and if effective on enactment, to decide which aliens who were
eligible for relief under section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality
Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c) (1994), are affected by the amendment. I agree with
the majority’s finding that general principles of statutory construction lead
directly to the conclusion that the amendment took effect on the date of enact-
ment, absent the inclusion of an alternative effective date. Therefore section
440(d) of the AEDPA applies immediately to aliens in proceedings. See Mat-
ter of U-M-, 20 I&N Dec. 327, 332 (BIA 1991), aff’d, 989 F.2d 1085 (9th Cir.
1993).
However, I part company with the remainder of the analysis employed by
the majority with respect to the applicability of section 440(d) to pending
applications for section 212(c) relief. I do not view the fact that Congress spe-
cifically barred pending applications for relief by alien terrorists, as set forth
in section 413(g) of the AEDPA, 110 Stat. at 1269-70, to in any way dictate
or even guide us in determining whether section 440(d) applies to pending
section 212(c) applications. For comparison purposes, I cannot determine the
relevant effective date from looking at the four corners of the statute to the
extent that Congress employed a wide variety of effective dates throughout
the AEDPA, including prospective dates. I conclude that we are compelled to
apply the provisions of section 440(d) to all pending section 212(c)
applications.
This Board has consistently held that an application for relief from depor-
tation is an ongoing application. Matter of U-M-, supra, at 332. The law that
applies to the application is the law that exists at the time the final administra-
tive decision is made. Ziffrin v. United States, 318 U.S. 73 (1943); Matter of
U-M-, supra. A final administrative decision is made when the Board renders
its decision in a case on appeal or certification, or where no appeal is taken,
the right to appeal is waived, or the time allotted for appeal has expired. See
Matter of Lok, 18 I&N Dec. 101 (BIA 1981), aff’d, 681 F.2d 107 (2d Cir.
1982); 8 C.F.R. §§ 3.1(d)(2), 3.39 (1995).

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This Board has also held that an application for section 212(c) relief filed
in the context of deportation proceedings is equivalent to one made at the
time an alien physically seeks admission into the United States. Matter of
A-A-, 20 I&N Dec. 492, 502 n.22 (BIA 1992). Thus, in addition to qualifying
as a person whose ongoing application for relief is subject to the existing law
while under administrative review, the section 212(c) applicant also stands as
an individual seeking entry to the United States, and his admissibility is
determined on the basis of the facts and the law that exist at the time the appli-
cation is finally considered. Matter of Alarcon, 20 I&N Dec. 557 (BIA 1992).
Furthermore, like the majority, I find additional support for my position in
Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244 (1994). In Landgraf the
Supreme Court stated:
Even absent specific legislative authorization, application of new statutes passed after the
events in suit is unquestionably proper in many situations. When the intervening statute
authorizes or affects the propriety of prospective relief, application of the new provision is
not retroactive.
Id. at 1501.
Prospective relief has been defined by the Supreme Court as relief that
operates in futuro, such as injunctive relief. See American Steel Foundaries v.
Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U.S. 184 (1921). This is in contrast to
relief that operates “retroactively,” such as damages and restitution. See
Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 695 n. 24 (1978).
The Supreme Court has specifically held that statutory provisions that
alter or affect forms of prospective relief are to be given effect upon the effec-
tive date of the legislation and should be applied to pending suits. American
Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, supra, at 201; Duplex
Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U.S. 443, 464 (1921); see also Hall v.
Beals, 396 U.S. 45 (1969). The Court has further held that parties to an action
do not have vested rights to prior judgments conferring forms of prospective
relief while their cases remain subject to appellate review. See American
Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, supra; Duplex Co. v.
Deering, supra; see also Raferty V. Smith Bell & Co., 257 U.S. 226 (1921).
Therefore, the ultimate right to prospective relief must be determined at the
time of final administrative or judicial review.
Like injunctive relief, relief from deportation under section 212(c) of the
Act is prospective in nature. See Matter of K-L-, 20 I&N Dec. 654, 658 (BIA
1993), aff’d, Lee v. INS, 12 F.3d 1102 (8th Cir. 1993) (referring to section
212(c) relief as prospective). Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, an
alien’s right to benefit from a waiver under section 212(c) can only be deter-
mined at the time of a hearing and upon a finding of excludability or
deportability. Relief under section 212(c) therefore operates in futuro and
does not nullify the fact that the alien, prior to applying for the waiver, was
either excludable or deportable. Convictions alleged to be grounds for
excludability or deportability do not disappear from an alien’s record for

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immigration purposes upon a grant of relief under section 212(c). Matter of
Balderas, 20 I&N Dec. 389 (BIA 1991). Hence, section 440(d) of the
AEDPA amends a prospective form of relief and accordingly should be
applied to all cases before this Board that remain subject to our appellate
review. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra; American Steel
Foundaries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, supra.
In light of the above case law, I am hard pressed to identify a basis for not
applying section 440(d) of the AEDPA to all section 212(c) applications that
are pending adjudication or review. The weight of authority clearly requires
the Board to apply the new law, as the law was changed before a final admin-
istrative decision had been rendered. Furthermore, applying the amended
section 212(c) provisions to pending applications does not offend any of the
concerns underlying the retroactive operation of new statutes. Matter of
Gomez-Giraldo, 20 I&N Dec. 957, 963 (BIA 1995).
Due to the nature of an application for a waiver under section 212(c),
which is a continuous application until the conclusion of final administrative
action, the effect of applying section 440(d) to pending applications is not
retroactive. The only expectation an alien seeking to apply for section 212(c)
waiver can rely on is that his application will be considered according to the
law and facts as they stand at the time of final administrative review. In this
context, it has long been true that an alien whose circumstances improve
through the acquisition of an additional equity can move the Board to remand
a pending matter for reconsideration of the discretionary aspect of his section
212(c) application in light of the new evidence. Matter of Coelho, 20 I&N
Dec. 464 (BIA 1992).
Finally, I am concerned with the majority’s preferred choice of the date of
filing the section 212(c) application as being determinative of which applica-
tions can be evaluated under the pre-AEDPA statutory provisions. This
effective date is not contained elsewhere in the AEDPA. Moreover, there are
numerous other dates that could be selected, e.g., the date the crime giving
rise to the ground of deportability occurred, the date of issuance of the Order
to Show Cause, the date on which a finding of deportability was rendered,
and the date of filing the application.
The majority claims support for its selected effective date in the Supreme
Court’s analysis in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra. However, under
Landgraf, we consider whether the new statute “would impair rights a party
possessed when he acted, increase a party’s liability for past conduct, or
impose new duties with respect to transactions already completed” in deter-
mining whether a statute would have retroactive effect. Id. at 280. These con-
cerns of retroactivity, as enunciated in Landgraf, apply to the relevant past
act. For section 440(d) purposes, this act occurs when the alien committed the
crime that underlies the charge of deportability.
The majority appears to neglect this aspect of the retroactivity issue in its
determination that applications filed by the date of enactment of the AEDPA

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are to be adjudicated under the former section 212(c) provisions so as not to
unfairly disrupt the “unique expectations” of aliens at the time of filing. In
my opinion, the expectations that an alien has at the time of filing an applica-
tion under section 212(c) of the Act are largely irrelevant in determining
whether section 440(d) of the AEDPA operates retroactively. Section 440(d)
does not alter the rights an alien had at the time he committed the crime. Upon
the commission of a criminal act that triggers deportability, an alien now
stands, as he would have stood before, facing the prospect of criminal liabil-
ity, as well as deportation from the United States. See Scheidemann v. INS, 83
F.3d 1517 (3d Cir. 1996).
In the face of congressional silence as to the effective date of section
440(d), the judicial default rules direct us to apply the law as of the date of
enactment absent retroactive effect, which is not implicated here. The major-
ity offers no persuasive analysis to support its conclusion that the traditional
default rules do not govern here. Accordingly, I dissent.

BEFORE THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
(February 21, 1997)

At the request of the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization,
the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) referred its decision in this matter
pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 3.1(h)(iii). Respondent Soriano, a native and citizen of
the Dominican Republic, was admitted to the United States in 1985 as a law-
ful permanent resident alien. In 1992, he was convicted under New York law
of the offense of an attempted sale of a controlled substance. Based on that
conviction, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) instituted
deportation proceedings against him in 1994.
In 1995, Respondent sought the relief of waiver of inadmissibility under
section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C.
§ 1182(c). Section 212(c) grants the Attorney General discretionary authority
to admit otherwise excludable permanent resident aliens. Although the stat-
ute expressly authorizes only a waiver of exclusion, courts have interpreted it
to authorize relief in deportation proceedings as well. See Francis v. INS, 532
F.2d 268, 273 (2d Cir. 1976); De Osorio v. INS, 10 F.3d 1034, 1039 (4th Cir.
1993). The Immigration Judge found that the respondent was eligible for that
relief, but, in the exercise of discretion, denied his application. See Matter of
Soriano, File No. A39 186 067 (Executive Office for Immigration Review
(“EOIR”), Office of the Immigration Judge, Oct. 12, 1995). Respondent
appealed from that decision on October 23, 1995.
On April 24, 1996, while Respondent’s appeal was pending, the President
signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,
Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (“AEDPA”). Section 440(d) of AEDPA
amended INA § 212(c). The amendment provides in relevant part that section

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212(c) relief shall not be available to aliens who are deportable by reason of
having committed certain specified criminal offenses. Respondent’s offense
is among those specified.1 Thus, a threshold issue on appeal was whether the
amendment to section 212(c) applied to foreclose Respondent’s application
for relief from deportation.2
The BIA was unanimous in concluding that AEDPA § 440(d) was effec-
tive immediately upon enactment on April 24, 1996. The BIA was divided,
however, as to whether AEDPA § 440(d) applied to applications for section
212(c) relief that were pending on the effective date of AEDPA. Six mem-
bers of the BIA concluded that Congress did not intend that aliens who had
applications pending on April 24, 1996, should be barred from seeking that
relief. Accordingly, they found that Respondent continued to be eligible for
waiver of inadmissibility.3 Five members of the BIA dissented. They would
have held that section 440(d) did apply to pending applications for section
212(c) relief. One member of the BIA concurred in part and dissented in part.
That member agreed with the majority that AEDPA § 440(d) should not be
applied to pending section 212(c) applications, but would also have declined
to apply it to other cases, such as those of permanent resident aliens subject to
an Order to Show Cause.
For the reasons stated below, I conclude that the amendment to INA
§ 212(c) made by AEDPA § 440(d) applies to proceedings such as Respon-
dent’s, in which an application for relief under section 212(c) was pending
when AEDPA was signed into law.4

1 The amendment provides in relevant part that section 212(c) relief shall not be available to

an alien who “is deportable by reason of having committed any criminal offense covered in
[INA] section 241(a)(2)(A)(iii), (B), (C), or (D), or any offense covered by section
241(a)(2)(A)(ii) for which both predicate offenses are, without regard to the date of their
commission, otherwise covered by section 241(a)(2)(A)(i).” 110 Stat. at 1277, as amended by
Section 306(d) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996,
Div. C., Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 1997, Pub. L. No. 104-208, 1996
U.S.C.C.A.N. Vol. 9B (110 Stat.) 1672. Respondent’s offense is covered by sections
241(a)(2)(A)(iii) and (B) of the INA. See 8 U.S.C. § 1251.
2 It is important to note as a threshold matter that deportation proceedings are civil actions,

and, thus, the constitutional bars to retroactive application of penal legislation do not apply.
INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1038 (1984); Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580,
594-95 (1952). Moreover, it is well settled that Congress may legislate to alter the immigration
consequences of past criminal convictions or acts. Lehman v. Carson, 353 U.S. 685, 690
(1957); Mulcahey v. Catalanotte, 353 U.S. 692, 694 (1957).
3 The majority agreed with the Immigration Judge’s conclusions that Respondent’s

attempted criminal sale of cocaine, together with his three other drug-related felonies, required
a demonstration of outstanding equities before he could receive a waiver of inadmissibility, and
that Respondent had not made such a demonstration.
4 By Order dated September 12, 1996, I granted the request for review and vacated the

opinion of the BIA in Matter of Bartolome Jhonny Soriano (A39 186 067).

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Analysis
In Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244 (1994), the Supreme
Court sought to “reconcile two seemingly contradictory statements found in
[the Court’s] decisions concerning the effect of intervening changes in the
law”: that “’a court is to apply the law in effect at the time it renders its deci-
sion,’” and that “‘[r]etroactivity is not favored in the law.’” Id. at 263-64
(citations omitted).
The Court set forth the method for analyzing the temporal reach of a
statute:
When a case implicates a federal statute enacted after the events in suit, the court’s first task
is to determine whether Congress has expressly prescribed the statute’s proper reach. If
Congress has done so, of course, there is no need to resort to judicial default rules. When,
however, the statute contains no such express command, the court must determine whether
the new statute would have retroactive effect, i.e., whether it would impair rights a party
possessed when he acted, increase a party’s liability for past conduct, or impose new duties
with respect to transactions already completed. If the statute would operate retroactively,
our traditional presumption teaches that it does not govern absent clear congressional intent
favoring such a result.
Id. at 280.
In the present case, nothing in the language of the newly enacted statute,
AEDPA § 440(d), specifies either that it is to be applied in pending deporta-
tion proceedings, or that it is not to be. Thus, the next task is to determine
whether the statute would be given retroactive effect if applied in pending
deportation proceedings. In this regard, the Court observed that “[w]hile stat-
utory retroactivity has long been disfavored, deciding when a statute operates
‘retroactively’ is not always a simple or mechanical task.” Id. at 268. A stat-
ute does not operate retroactively “merely because it is applied in a case aris-
ing from conduct antedating the statute’s enactment, or upsets expectations
based in prior law. Rather, the court must ask whether the new provision atta-
ches new legal consequences to events completed before its enactment.” Id.
at 269-70 (citation and footnote omitted).
Of particular relevance here, the Court suggested that changes in the law
affecting prospective relief, as well as those affecting jurisdiction and proce-
dure, are generally not to be considered “retroactive.” Specifically, the Court
said:
Even absent specific legislative authorization, application of new statutes passed after the
events in suit is unquestionably proper in many situations. When the intervening statute
authorizes or affects the propriety of prospective relief, application of the new provision is
not retroactive. Thus, in American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257
U.S. 184 (1921), we held that § 20 of the Clayton Act, enacted while the case was pending
on appeal, governed the propriety of injunctive relief against labor picketing. In remanding
the suit for application of the intervening statute, we observed that “relief by injunction
operates in futuro,” and that the plaintiff had no “vested right” in the decree entered by the
trial court.
Id. at 273-74.

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Similarly, the three separately concurring Justices (Scalia, J., joined by
Kennedy and Thomas, JJ., concurring in the judgment), emphasized that
intervening law was typically applied to pending applications for prospective
relief:
Courts traditionally withhold requested injunctions that are not authorized by then-current
law, even if they were authorized at the time suit commenced and at the time the primary
conduct sought to be enjoined was first engaged in. The reason, which has nothing to do
with whether it is possible to have a vested right to prospective relief, is that “[o]bviously,
this form of relief operated only in futuro.” Since the purpose of prospective relief is to
affect the future rather than to remedy the past, the relevant time for judging its retroactivity
is the very moment at which it is ordered.
Id. at 293 (citations omitted).
Both the majority and concurring Justices identified another set of inter-
vening statutes—those that confer or eliminate jurisdiction—that do not
operate retroactively merely because they are applied to conduct arising
before the statute’s enactment. Justice Scalia explained the Court’s “consis-
tent practice of giving immediate effect to statutes that alter a court’s juris-
diction . . . by the fact that the purpose of provisions conferring or
eliminating jurisdiction is to permit or forbid the exercise of judicial
power—so that the relevant event for retroactivity purposes is the moment
at which that power is sought to be exercised.” Landgraf, 511 U.S. 286,
292-93 (Scalia, J. concurring).5
In summary, under Landgraf, a new statute does not have retroactive
effect if it does not impair rights a party possessed when he or she acted,
increase a party’s liability for past conduct, or impose new duties with
respect to transactions already completed. More specifically, an intervening
statute that either alters jurisdiction or affects prospective injunctive relief
generally does not raise retroactivity concerns, and, thus, presumptively is to
be applied in pending cases. As discussed below, the application of AEDPA
§ 440(d) to pending applications for section 212(c) relief does not impair a
right, increase a liability, or impose new duties on criminal aliens. The conse-
quences of Respondent’s conduct remain the same before and after the pas-
sage of AEDPA: criminal sanctions and deportation. AEDPA § 404(d) is best
understood as Congress’s withdrawal of the Attorney General’s authority to
grant prospective relief. Thus, the statute alters both jurisdiction and the

5 The single dissenting Justice in Landgraf was of the opinion that the presumption against

retroactive legislation, “which serves to protect settled expectations,” and which “is grounded
in a respect for vested rights,” “need not be applied to remedial legislation . . . that does not
proscribe any conduct that was previously legal.” Id. at 296-97 (Blackmun, J., dissenting)
(citing Sampeyreac v. United States, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 222, 238 (1833) (“Almost every law, by
providing a new remedy, affects and operates upon causes of action existing at the time the law
is passed”) and Hastings v. Earth Satellite Corp., 628 F.2d 85, 93 (D.C. Cir.) (“Modification of
remedy merely adjusts the extent, or method of enforcement, of liability in instances in which
the possibility of liability previously was known.”), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 905 (1980)).

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availability of future relief, and should be applied to pending applications for
relief.6
The relief sought in a section 212(c) application, waiver of inadmissibil-
ity, is prospective in nature. A successful applicant for relief under section
212(c) will not, as a matter of the sovereign’s discretion, be deported from the
country, even though his or her past criminal convictions would otherwise
lead to deportation. See INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1038 (1984)
(“The deportation hearing looks prospectively to the respondent’s right to
remain in this country in the future. Past conduct is relevant only insofar as it
may shed light on the respondent’s right to remain.”); De Osorio v. INS, 10
F.3d at 1042 (holding that an amendment barring applications for waivers of
deportations filed after the effective date of the amendment to 212(c) is not
made retroactive merely because it applies to convictions for aggravated fel-
onies before that time: “The past aggravated felony conviction is only the
prerequisite for the prospective denial of discretionary relief. . . . Congress
did not attach additional consequences, but merely withdrew a previously
available form of discretionary relief.”).
Moreover, Congress’s modification of section 212(c) operates to elimi-
nate the discretionary authority of the Attorney General to grant relief in cer-
tain cases, and, thus, its effect is to remove jurisdiction. As the Solicitor
General argued in the brief of the United States to the Supreme Court in INS
v. Elramly, 73 F.3d 220 (9th Cir. 1995), cert. granted, 516 U.S. 1170, and
vacated, 518 U.S. 1051 (1996), a case raising the issue whether AEDPA
divested the Attorney General of authority to grant section 212(c) relief in
pending cases, “[j]ust as new ‘jurisdictional statutes ‘speak to the power of
the court rather than to the rights or obligations of the parties,’’ Landgraf, 511
U.S. at 274, section 212(c) speaks to the power of the Attorney General to
waive deportation, not to any right of an alien to such relief.” Supplemental
Brief for the Petitioner at 18. The majority opinion in Landgraf explains the
practice of applying new jurisdictional statutes to pending cases by the fact
that “a new jurisdictional rule usually ‘takes away no substantive right but
simply changes the tribunal that is to hear the case.’” Id. at 274 (quoting
6 One formulation articulated in Landgraf for determining whether a statute operates

retroactively—“whether [it] attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its
enactment”—could be interpreted as compelling the conclusion that AEDPA § 404(d) should
not be applied to pending applications for section 212(c) relief. Id. at 269-70. Because the
statute eliminates eligibility for a previously available form of relief from the immigration
consequences of a prior criminal conviction, it could be argued that it attaches new legal
consequence to a prior event. Elimination of a form of relief in this context, however, is not the
same as the attachment of new legal consequences in the sense that the Court meant in
Landgraf. If it were, most cases in the three categories that the Court identified as not
constituting retroactive application when applied to past events—statutes that alter jurisdiction,
procedural rules, and statutes affecting the availability of prospective injunctive relief—would
also have to be understood as attaching new legal consequences to prior events and, hence,
constituting retroactive application.

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Hallowell v. Commons, 239 U.S. 506, 508 (1916)). Here, in contrast to the
cases cited by the Court, there is no alternative tribunal to which the criminal
alien may petition. Even assuming that the lack of an alternative tribunal
would be relevant to retroactivity analysis where a substantive right is at
stake, eligibility for a congressionally created form of purely discretionary
relief from the immigration consequences of a prior criminal conviction can-
not properly be characterized as a substantive right.7
The Third Circuit’s discussion of the application of an earlier amendment
to section 212(c) to make an applicant ineligible for relief based on a prior
criminal conviction applies equally here:
In this case, the consequences of petitioner’s criminal conduct were clear at the time of that
conduct and they remain unchanged today. He was subject to possible criminal sanctions
and deportation. The only relevant change in the law relates to the permissible scope of the
Attorney General’s discretion to grant relief from one of those consequences. Like statutes
altering the standards for injunctive relief, this change has only a prospective impact. It is
not designed to remedy the past but only to affect petitioner’s future status with respect to
the legality of his presence in the United States. Like statutes constricting the jurisdiction of
a judicial body, these changes speak only to the power of a public agency. . . . Given the
facts that petitioner’s pre-1987 conduct clearly subjected him to deportation as well as crim-
inal sanctions, and that § 212(c), as it then existed, offered relief from the former only at the
unfettered discretion of the Attorney General, petitioner does not, and could not, contend
that his conduct was undertaken in reliance on the then current version of § 212(c).

Scheidemann v. INS, 83 F.3d 1517, 1523 (3rd Cir. 1996).
The Seventh Circuit has expressed a contrary view in Reyes- Hernandez v.
INS, 89 F.3d 490 (7th Cir. 1996), at least with respect to a narrow category of
cases. In that case the petitioner had conceded deportability before the enact-
ment of AEDPA, when he was still eligible for section 212(c) relief. The
court speculated that had the petitioner known that this relief would no longer
be available to him, he might have contested deportability.
Considering the fell consequences of deportation, especially in cases of
exceptional hardship, which are precisely the cases in which an appeal to sec-
tion 212(c) would have a chance of success, we think it unlikely that Con-
gress intended to mousetrap aliens into conceding deportability by holding
out to them the hope of relief under section 212(c) only to dash that hope after
they had conceded deportability. No such ignoble intention appears in the
statute. Its absence is determinative under Landgraf because to make the con-
cession of deportability a bar to relief under section 212(c) would be to attach

7 The concurring opinion further notes that while there may sometimes be an alternative

forum, there is not always one, and even where there is, it may deny relief for some collateral
reason such as a statute of limitations bar. “Our jurisdiction cases are explained, I think, by the
fact that the purpose of provisions conferring or eliminating jurisdiction is to permit or forbid
the exercise of judicial power—so that the relevant event for retroactivity purposes is the
moment at which that power is sought to be exercised.” Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 293 (Scalia, J.
concurring).

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a new legal consequence to the concession, an event that occurred before the
new law came into existence.
Id. at 492-93. The court held that section 440(d) of AEDPA does not apply
to cases in which deportability was conceded before AEDPA became law,
“provided that the applicant for discretionary relief would have had at least a
colorable defense to deportability; for if not, he lost nothing by conceding
deportability.” Id. at 493.8
Amici curiae in the current case also emphasized the reliance aliens may
have placed on the availability of section 212(c) relief. Amici argue that
aliens may rely on the possibility of obtaining section 212(c) relief not only
when deciding whether to contest deportability, but also when deciding
whether to litigate their criminal liability or enter into a plea agreement. It is
true that the majority opinion in Landgraf notes that “familiar considerations
of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled expectations” are factors offer-
ing “sound guidance” in “hard cases.” Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 270. However,
the Court states expressly that a statute does not operate retroactively merely
because it “upsets expectations based in prior law.” Landgraf, 511 U.S. at
270.
In any event, it is difficult to see how the possibility of obtaining section
212(c) relief would affect an alien’s decision whether to concede or contest
deportability. First, the criteria for determining whether someone is
deportable as a criminal alien are specific and fixed, and the grounds for chal-
lenging deportability are quite narrow. See Rabiu v. INS, 41 F.3d 879, 881
(2d Cir. 1994) (record of conviction sufficient to overcome alien’s challenge
to deportability); Ortega de Robles v. INS, 58 F.3d 1355, 1358 (9th Cir. 1995)
(criminal convictions may not be collaterally challenged in deportation pro-
ceeding as ground for contesting deportability). Second, an alien need not
choose between contesting deportability and seeking section 212(c) relief; an
alien may pursue both.
It seems more plausible that an alien may enter a plea bargain hoping to
obtain relief from deportation, but even so, the alien could not have reason-
ably relied upon the availability of that relief. For the past forty years, the law
has been settled that Congress may legislate to alter the immigration conse-
quences of past criminal convictions or acts. Moreover, as the Supreme Court
recently unanimously reaffirmed in the context of analyzing a similar provi-
sion conferring discretionary authority upon the Attorney General, “suspen-
sion of deportation [is]. . . ‘an act of grace’ which is accorded pursuant to her
‘unfettered discretion’ and is similar to ‘a judge’s power to suspend the exe-
cution of a sentence, or the President’s to pardon a convict.’” INS v. Yueh-
Shaio Yang, 519 U.S. 26, 28-29 (1996) (citations omitted). Therefore, a

8 The Seventh Circuit has confirmed that Reyes-Hernandez applies only in cases where the

petitioner conceded deportability and had a colorable defense to deportability. Arevalo-Lopez
v. INS, 104 F.3d 100, 101 (7th Cir., 1997).

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criminal alien could not reasonably rely on the availability of section 212(c)
relief in determining whether to plead guilty to a criminal offense or in deter-
mining whether to concede deportability.
Accordingly, the application of AEDPA § 440(d) to section 212(c) appli-
cations pending before the EOIR would not be retroactive. However, to elim-
inate even the remote possibility that an alien who had a colorable defense to
deportability may have conceded deportability in reliance on the availability
of section 212(c) relief, I direct the EOIR to reopen cases upon petition by an
alien who conceded deportability before the effective date of AEDPA for the
limited purpose of permitting him or her to contest deportability.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, AEDPA § 440(d) should be applied to INA
§ 212(c) cases pending before the EOIR on the effective date of AEDPA.
EOIR shall reopen cases upon petition by an alien who conceded
deportability before April 24, 1996, the effective date of AEDPA, for the lim-
ited purpose of permitting the alien to contest deportability.

540