Cacho v. Immigration & Naturalization Service

547 F.2d 1057
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedNovember 18, 1976
DocketNos. 75-2319, 75-2535
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 547 F.2d 1057 (Cacho v. Immigration & Naturalization Service) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cacho v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 547 F.2d 1057 (9th Cir. 1976).

Opinion

MERRILL, Circuit Judge:

These consolidated petitions seek this court’s review of final decisions of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service ordering deportation of the petitioners. The issue presented is whether the Board of Immigration Appeals erred in not applying the waiver of deportation provisions of § 241(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1251(f), to aliens who were excludable. at the time of entry by virtue of the provisions of § 212(a) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a), and thus were deportable under § 241(a)(1) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1251(a)(1).

The cases involve a multitude of statutory provisions whose very citation is enough to discourage the reader and create confusion. We start with § 212(a), which provides that aliens in 31 specified classes “shall be excluded from admission into the United States.”1 We move then to § 241(a), [1059]*1059which provides for deportation of aliens who suffer certain disabilities, one of which is that they were “excludable” at the time of entry.2

At the heart of the issues presented here is the waiver of deportation provided by § 241(f). That subsection reads:

“(f) The provisions of this section relating to the deportation of aliens within the United States on the ground that they were excludable at the time of entry as aliens who have sought to procure, or have procured visas or other documentation, or entry into the United States by fraud or misrepresentation shall not apply to an alien otherwise admissible at the time of entry who is the spouse, parent, or a child of a United States citizen or of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence.”

Rudy Cacho was admitted to the United States in September of 1971 for permanent residence as the spouse of Barbara Pimental, a United States citizen. In 1974 the Service charged that Cacho had married Barbara Pimental for the purpose of entering the United States to work and reside here permanently, and that at the time of their purported marriage both were lawfully married to other spouses. The immigration judge found that the evidence sustained the charge and ordered Cacho deported on the ground that he had obtained his immediate relative immigrant visa by fraud, the ground specified in § 212(a)(19), and had not obtained the labor certificate required by § 212(a)(14), both grounds being made bases for deportation under § 241(a)(1). The Board affirmed, enlarging the basis of the charge to include Cacho’s failure to have a valid immigration visa pursuant to § 212(a)(20).

Before Cacho’s deportation he divorced his prior wives and married a permanent resident alien. He then filed a motion to reopen the termination, claiming exemption from deportation under § 241(f). The Board denied the motion and Cacho seeks review.

Vilma Aida Alvarenga de Paz was admitted to the United States for permanent residence in 1957. During her residence in this country she had three children. In 1964 she left the United States, going to Honduras to live with her husband, whom she later divorced. On her return to this country in 1968 she applied for an immigrant visa, but encountered delay. Her children were sick and she became desperate. She took a bus to Tijuana, and on October 1,1970, applied for admission to the United States at San Ysidro, California. She displayed her old passport and applied for a new Alien Registration Receipt Card, stating that she had lost her old card after departing the United States only three days before. This statement was false, but she made it because she was afraid that if she told the truth she would not be admitted to the United States.

When the Service sought to deport her she invoked § 241(f) for her defense on the basis of her relationship to her children born in the United States. The immigration judge ordered her deported on the basis of her failure to have an immigrant visa when she entered the United States, a ground for exclusion under § 212(a)(20), made a basis for deportation by § 241(a)(1). Accordingly, he rejected her § 241(f) defense. The Board affirmed.

INS v. Errico, 385 U.S. 214, 87 S.Ct. 473, 17 L.Ed.2d 318 (1966), bears upon the issues presented by these facts. There the Supreme Court considered the companion cases of two aliens. One had fraudulently represented himself to be a skilled mechanic, thereby obtaining a quota preference. [1060]*1060He had then entered the United States with his wife and fathered a child by her. The other alien had contracted a marriage by proxy for the sole purpose of obtaining nonquota status. She then entered the United States but never lived with her husband and had never intended to do so. After her entry she gave birth to a child. The Service in each case, on discovering the fraud, sought deportation of the alien. It proceeded, however, not under § 212(a)(19) of the Act, relating to fraudulent entry, but under § 211(a) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1181(a).3 The Court held the waiver provisions of § 241(f) to apply to § 211(a), and that where an alien evaded quota restrictions by fraud, he was still “otherwise admissible at the time of entry” within the meaning of § 241(f).

Since that decision confusion has reigned in the courts of appeals as to the meaning of the phrase “otherwise admissible.” In Reid v. INS, 420 U.S. 619, 95 S.Ct. 1164, 43 L.Ed.2d 501 (1975), the Court sought to bring confusion to an end.

In that case the alien had secured admission by falsely representing himself to be a citizen of the United States. On discovery of the fraud the Service had sought to deport him under § 241(a)(2) of the Act, as one who had entered without inspection. (See footnote 1, supra.) The Court distinguished between the terms “deportability” and “excludability” as used in the Act, the latter being but one ground for the former. The waiver afforded by § 241(f), the Court pointed out, was confined to the provisions of § 241 relating to the deportation of aliens “excludable at the time of entry.” This, the Court held, had reference only to § 241(a)(1) and did not have reference to § 241(a)(2), where the specified grounds for deportation had nothing to do with “excludability.” It held that § 241(f) did not forgive fraud used by an alien to avoid inspection, rendering him deportable under § 241(a)(2).

The Court in Reid dealt at length with Errico, and the confusion resulting from its holding. To clarify the holding it stated:

“We adhere to the holding of that case, which we take to be that where the INS chooses not to seek deportation under the obviously available provisions of § 212(a)(19) relating to the fraudulent procurement of visas, documentation, or entry, but instead asserts a failure to comply with those separate requirements of § 211(a), dealing with compliance with quota requirements, as a ground for deportation under § 241(a)(1), § 241(f) waives

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