Mendez v. Major

226 F. Supp. 364, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6226
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedDecember 20, 1963
DocketNo. 63 C 4(2)
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 226 F. Supp. 364 (Mendez v. Major) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mendez v. Major, 226 F. Supp. 364, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6226 (E.D. Mo. 1963).

Opinion

MEREDITH, District Judge.

Defendant District Director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service has moved for summary judgment, filing therewith a certified copy of the administrative record involved. Plaintiffs, husband and wife, who are natives and nationals of the Republic of Mexico, entered the United States under the Exchange Visitors Program in 1955. Their amended petition is in two counts. Count 1, basing jurisdiction on Section 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C.A. § 1009, seeks judicial review and reversal of defendant’s refusal to submit with favorable recommendation to the Secretary of State their application for waiver of the two-year foreign residence requirement of § 212(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S. C.A. § 1182(e), based on the alleged exceptional hardship for their United States citizen son. In Count 2, plaintiffs alleging an innocent mistake of fact or law, seek to invoke the equitable powers of the Court to the end that the defendant’s department be directed to receive plaintiffs’ application for visas as immigrants pursuant to 8 U.S.C.A. § 1101(a) (27) (C) and be ordered to desist from any action toward deportation pending the proposed issuance of their visas as immigrants.

The material facts are not in dispute and we shall refer to them in the discussion of the statutes involved.

In 1955, when plaintiffs entered the United States as exchange visitors, the two-year foreign residence requirement for exchange visitors was not in effect. In 1956 restrictions were imposed by 22 U.S.C. § 1446(b) which provided in substance that no person admitted as an exchange visitor or acquiring exchange-visitor status subsequent to June 4, 1956, should be eligible to apply for an immigrant visa or for a nonimmigrant visa under 8 U.S.C.A. § 1101(a) (15) (H), or for adjustment of status to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence until it was established that such person had resided in a cooperating country or countries for an aggregate of at least two years following departure from the United States. By this 1956 amendment, it was also provided that upon the request of an interested government agency and the recommendation of the Secretary of State, the Attorney General “may waive such two-year period of residence abroad in the case of any alien whose admission to the United States is found by the Attorney General to be in the public interest * * *

In 1957 plaintiff Manuel Mendez applied for an extension of his temporary stay as an exchange visitor. The administrative record shows that his application was returned to him by the defendant with written notification that the two-year foreign residence limitation created by the afore discussed 1956 amendment would be applicable to him if he resubmitted the extension application and it was granted. On October 2, 1957, he resubmitted the extension application with an acknowledgment that he had been informed that by so doing he was required to spend two years in a foreign country after his departure from the United States as an exchange visitor and prior to being eligible to apply for an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa or for adjustment of status to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence. Plaintiff could have returned [366]*366to Mexico at that time and would not have been subject to the two-year foreign residence limitation. However, he did not do so but elected to extend his stay under the condition attached. Assuming as fact that no one explained to them at the time of their entry into the United States that they had an option to enter as immigrants pursuant to the provisions of 8 U.S.C.A. § 1101(a) (27) (C) rather than as exchange visitors, and assuming that they, in fact, had such an option, there was no innocent mistake at the time of their entry regarding the two-year foreign residence requirement of exchange visitors since that provision did not exist at the time of entry. Subsequently when the two-year foreign residence requirement became applicable by plaintiff Manuel Mendez’ election to apply for an extension, there was no innocent mistake of fact or law on which the second count of the complaint could be based. Plaintiff was informed, acknowledged the conditions under which the application for extension would be received and granted and elected to pursue that course. Consequently, assuming that the second count of plaintiffs’ complaint states an equitable claim cognizable in this Court, even though matters there presented are completely outside the scope of judicial review of this administrative determination, there is no innocent mistake of fact or of mixed fact and law which would operate to invoke the equity powers of this Court. Defendant’s motion for summary judgment as to Count 2 of the complaint will be sustained.

In 1961 the restrictions imposed by the 1956 amendments were continued in revised and amplified form in the codification of the Exchange Visitor Program in 8 U.S.C.A. § 1182(e). It is the waiver provision of the two-year foreign residence requirement contained in that section 1 with which we are presently concerned under Count 1 of plaintiffs’ complaint.

Under the statute, the ultimate determination as to waiver of the two-year foreign residence requirement lies in the discretion of the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. Where the basis of the requested waiver is exceptional hardship to a United States citizen who is a spouse or child of an exchange visitor, the defendant was authorized to request the Secretary of State to recommend waiver after defendant had determined that departure would impose “exceptional hardship”.

Plaintiffs have two sons, one a native of Mexico, the other a United States citizen, born at Baltimore, Maryland, on August 81, 1956. In August, 1962, plaintiff Manuel Mendez applied to defendant for a waiver of the two-years’ foreign residence requirement under 8 U.S.C.A. § 1182(e) on the basis of the alleged exceptional hardship for his United States citizen son, Fernando. In his application, he stated that Fernando understood only English and that to begin his elementary education in a school in a land which is foreign to him would cause him nervous and emotional disturbances aggravated by the fact that his nine-year old brother would be accepted as a native. The alternative, to leave Fernando in the United States without his parents and in a foster home, would be equally disturbing emotionally. In either case it was stated the son’s [367]*367situation would be aggravated by economic hardship because the plaintiff father, a physician, had concluded that there was no employment opportunity for him in Mexico in the area of his greatest interest, the practice of psychiatry in the treatment of institutionalized, chronic mental cases. Such therapy, it was stated, has scarcely started in Mexico and was limited to a few government hospitals to which the plaintiff-f ather had applied without success. Although employment opportunity in the plaintiff-physician’s special field existed in Canada, he would not find it wise to accept it because a move to a northern climate posed potential health problems for the three members of the family who are natives of a tropical region.

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226 F. Supp. 364, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6226, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mendez-v-major-moed-1963.