Alsagladi v. Gonzales
| Decision Date | 13 June 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-2070.,05-2070. |
| Citation | 450 F.3d 700 |
| Parties | Abdalla ALSAGLADI, Petitioner, v. Alberto R. GONZALES, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Kevin A. Raica (argued), Azulay, Horn & Seiden, Chicago, IL, for Petitioner.
Karen Lundgren, Department of Homeland Security, Chicago, IL, Asheesh Agarwal (argued), Department of Justice Civil Division, Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
Before COFFEY, EASTERBROOK, and MANION, Circuit Judges.
Abdalla Alsagladi, a citizen of Yemen, arrived in the United States on a visa issued by the Embassy in Saudi Arabia. Alsagladi told the consular staff that he wanted to come as a tourist; the visa he received was so limited. His representations were false; Alsagladi now concedes that his plan was emigration. He did not depart when the visa expired. After 10 months in the United States he applied for asylum, contending that Yemen had persecuted him for his socialist politics. He testified at a removal hearing that thugs in the employ of Yemen's government repeatedly tried to kill him. An immigration judge disbelieved his story, observing that Alsagladi had been a responsible public official (Yemen's equivalent of a clerk of court with a joint appointment as a magistrate judge), and that it is hard to understand why a nation would employ someone in a high-ranking position while trying to bump him off because his politics were repugnant. Yemen recognizes the Socialist Party as legitimate. It operates openly and publishes a newspaper; some of its members are serving in that nation's parliament. The immigration judge added that, even if Alsagladi were eligible for refugee status, his use of deceit to obtain a visa would lead to an adverse exercise of discretion. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed summarily, making the IJ's opinion the agency's final word.
Status as a victim of persecution makes an alien eligible for asylum but does not compel an exercise of discretion in his favor. An alien who enters the United States by fraud must show strong equities to merit a favorable exercise of that discretion. See Matter of Pula, 19 I. & N. Dec. 467 (1987). This is so not only because the United States seeks to encourage candor in visa applications but also because someone who concedes willingness to lie in order to obtain residence in this nation (as Alsagladi does) may well be trying to pull the wool over the agency's eyes in support of his application for asylum as well as in his application for a visa. We limit our attention to this subject because, when an agency is entitled to deny relief as an exercise of discretion, it is always unnecessary and often inappropriate for a court to discuss the eligibility issue. See INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. 24, 97 S.Ct. 200, 50 L.Ed.2d 190 (1976) ().
Alsagladi does not deny that immigration officials are entitled to remove refugees who entered the United States by fraud. Fraud in obtaining a visa renders any alien inadmissible, see 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(C); it requires a favorable exercise of discretion to relieve the alien of this bar and allow a grant of asylum. The immigration judge decided not to exercise discretion in Alsagladi's favor. He maintains that discretion was abused, see 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(D), because the IJ's supposed errors in evaluating his credibility (the ground on which asylum was denied on the merits) influenced the weight given to the equities on his side. This amounts to little more than a plea that we disregard Bagamasbad and adopt a rule that full treatment of entitlement issues precede any exercise of administrative discretion. The Supreme Court held, however, that immigration judges and federal courts are entitled to pretermit comprehensive treatment of the merits if they have decided to deny relief on discretionary grounds in any event.
The sort of countervailing equities that the Board of Immigration Appeals discussed in Pula are limited to the circumstances of the...
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