Johnson v. Ashcroft, 01-1331.

• Decision Date: 16 April 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-1331.,01-1331.
• Parties: Jimmy JOHNSON, Petitioner, v. John ASHCROFT, Attorney General of the United States.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

286 F.3d 696

Jimmy JOHNSON, Petitioner, v. John ASHCROFT, Attorney General of the United States.

No. 01-1331.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued November 7, 2001.

Filed April 16, 2002.

Appeal from the Court of Appeals, Rendell, Circuit Judge.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Visuvanthan Rudrakumaran [ARGUED], New York, NY, Counsel for Petitioner.

Jimmy Johnson, William C. Minick [ARGUED], Michael P. Lindemann, Christopher C. Fuller, Alison M. Igoe, Office of Immigration Litigation Civil Division, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, Counsel for Respondent.

Before BECKER, Chief Judge, and McKEE and RENDELL, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

RENDELL, Circuit Judge.

Jimmy Johnson petitions for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA" or "Board") order reversing a grant of asylum and withholding of deportation based on changed country conditions.

The BIA held that the Immigration Judge did not have jurisdiction over these claims at the time he considered Johnson's application for relief under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment ("CAT")¹ because the case had been reopened and remanded for the "sole purpose" of considering the CAT claim. The question before us is whether on remand the Immigration Judge's jurisdiction was limited to the CAT issue. For the reasons below, we conclude that, in deciding that it was limited, the Board departed without reasonable explanation from its own policy that it established in Matter of Patel, 16 I. & N. Dec. 600, 1978 WL 36476 (BIA 1978). Accordingly, the Petition for Review will be granted and we will vacate the Board's order and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

When Johnson entered the United States from Liberia in 1994 without a valid visa or travel documents, he was placed in exclusion proceedings and taken into custody by the Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS"). His initial application for asylum under Immigration and Naturalization Act ("INA") § 208, 8 U.S.C. § 1158, and withholding of deportation under former INA § 243(h), 8 U.S.C. § 1253(h) (1995), was denied and he was ordered excluded. The Board affirmed on appeal.

Johnson then filed a motion with the Board to reopen and/or reconsider asylum and withholding of deportation in 1996. In a published opinion, the Board denied the motion as untimely, holding that the motion to reconsider was more than 60 days late, that the motion to reopen was 2 days late, and that a motion is "filed" when it is received rather than when an applicant in custody sends it. See In re J-J-, 21 I. & N. Dec. 976, 1997 WL 434418 (BIA 1997). The Board considered the exception to the timeliness requirements for motions to apply for asylum based on changed circumstances in the applicant's country of nationality, see 8 C.F.R. S 3.2(c)(3)(ii), but concluded that the exception did not apply because Johnson failed to provide material evidence of changed conditions that was unavailable at prior hearings. See In re J-J-, 21 I. & N. Dec. at 981-82.

In 1999, Johnson filed a motion with the Board to reopen for consideration of relief under CAT, which the Board granted. The Board's order provided that

[W]e ... remand this matter to the Immigration Court for consideration of the respondent's claim pursuant to [CAT] regulations.

. . .

FURTHER ORDER: The record is remanded to the Immigration Judge for further proceedings consistent with the foregoing opinion and for the entry of a new decision.

The effect of this remand order is at issue here.

While the case was on remand, Johnson made a written motion before the Immigration Judge urging the court "to consider the respondent's eligibility for asylum in the proceedings based on changed country conditions." The Immigration Judge considered this motion as well as the motion to withhold deportation under CAT, ultimately granting both. In his decision, the Immigration Judge addressed whether his jurisdiction was limited to the CAT claim. While acknowledging that the Board and the Supreme Court have set a high standard for reopening immigration proceedings because of the interest in finality, see, e.g., INS v. Abudu, 485 U.S. 94, 107, 108 S.Ct. 904, 99 L.Ed.2d 90 (1988); In re A-G-, 19 I. & N. Dec. 502, 503-04, 1987 WL 108955 (BIA 1987), he reasoned that the decision was no longer final once the case had been reopened, so that this interest was not implicated. Moreover, he made the point — uncontested by the INS — that if Johnson had become eligible for adjustment of status in the meantime, that matter could have been entertained by him on remand. This, he stated, supported his view that "issues besides that for which the Board specifically reopened the case" could be heard on remand. He found that application of this principle was particularly appropriate in these circumstances, where so much of the evidence of the CAT claim was relevant to the asylum claim as well.

The INS appealed the Immigration Judge's decision to the Board, which affirmed the grant of withholding relief under CAT, but vacated the grant of asylum and withholding of deportation. The Board did not address the merits of the asylum claim, but rather vacated on the ground that the Immigration Judge had lacked jurisdiction to consider the motion because the Board's remand referred jurisdiction back to the Immigration Judge only as to the CAT motion.

In its opinion, the Board began by citing the general rule that "a remand, unless the Board qualifies or limits it for a specific purpose, is effective for the stated purpose and for consideration of any and all matters which the Immigration Judge deems appropriate in the exercise of his administrative discretion or which are brought to his attention in compliance with the appropriate regulations." Citing Matter of Patel, 16 I. & N. Dec. 600, 1978 WL 36476 (BIA 1978) (Board's emphasis). It then pointed out that the standards to reopen for relief under CAT are more easily satisfied than those to reopen for other purposes.

Finally, the Board looked to the background regulations and the relief sought in Johnson's motion to reopen for consideration under CAT, reasoning that both indicated that "the applicant's motion was filed to pursue this limited form of relief and, thus, was granted and remanded to the Immigration Judge for the limited purpose of entertaining his application for relief pursuant to [CAT]." Specifically, the Board pointed to the regulation providing that an alien under final order of exclusion "may move to reopen proceedings for the sole purpose of seeking" withholding of removal under CAT. 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(b)(2).² For all of these reasons, it concluded that the Immigration Judge's jurisdiction on remand was limited to the CAT claim.

Johnson filed a timely appeal of the portion of the Board's order vacating the Immigration Judge's grant of asylum and withholding of deportation.

II.

We have jurisdiction under INA § 106, 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(a), as modified by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 ("IIRIRA").³ While we will often defer to agency interpretations in the immigration context, see Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984); Abdille v. Ashcroft, 242 F.3d 477, 484-85 (3d Cir. 2001) (citing INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415, 424-25, 119 S.Ct. 1439, 143 L.Ed.2d 590 (1999)), this case concerns the scope of jurisdiction of the Immigration Judge and the BIA as it has been interpreted in the BIA's own precedent. The parties and the Board agree that it rests essentially on one decision — Matter of Patel, 16 I. & N. Dec. 600, 1978 WL 36476 (BIA 1978). Immigration regulations provide that Patel, because it is a published opinion, "shall serve as precedent[ ] in all proceedings involving the same issue or issues." 8 C.F.R. § 3.1(g). The issue before us, therefore, is whether the Board departed from its own precedent.

Although an agency can change or adapt its policies, it acts arbitrarily if it departs from its established precedents without "announcing a principled reason" for the departure. Fertilizer Inst. v. Browner, 163 F.3d 774, 778 (3d Cir.1998) (noting the well-established rule that an agency can depart from precedent only with explanation); see also Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 41-43, 103 S.Ct. 2856, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983); Chisholm v. Defense Logistics Agency, 656 F.2d 42, 47 (3d Cir. 1981) (agencies must follow, distinguish, or overrule their own precedent). Numerous courts have applied this principle in the immigration context,⁴ as we do here. Further, if it departs from an announced rule without explanation or an "avowed alteration," such action could be viewed as "arbitrary, capricious, [or] an abuse of discretion." INS v. Yang, 519 U.S. 26, 32, 117 S.Ct. 350, 136 L.Ed.2d 288 (1996). Here, the Board has not announced an alteration of the policy set forth in Patel. Thus, if the Board did in fact depart from Patel, it acted arbitrarily and we should overturn its ruling.

III.

We begin our analysis with a discussion of the Board's opinion in Matter of Patel, 16 I. & N. Dec. 600, 1978 WL 36476 (BIA 1978), in which the Board established the standard for the scope of remand orders in immigration proceedings. While few cases or Board decisions elaborate on Patel's standard, and its language is often quoted without elaboration,⁵ it is widely acknowledged to govern this situation. This is not disputed here: the parties and the Board simply offer competing interpretations of the standard the case sets forth.

Before the Board in Patel was a motion to reopen proceedings so that the respondent could apply for relief under § 244(a)(1) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. § 1254(a)(1). In a two-page decision, the Board found that it lacked jurisdiction to decide this motion because it had previously reopened the case for...