Eid v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 10 January 2014
• Docket Number: No. 12–4271.,12–4271.
• Citation: 740 F.3d 118
• Parties: Elias Halim EID; Gwen Packard–Eid, Appellants v. John THOMPSON, District Director, Newark District; US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

740 F.3d 118

Elias Halim EID; Gwen Packard–Eid, Appellants

v.John THOMPSON, District Director, Newark District; US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

No. 12–4271.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued Sept. 25, 2013.

Opinion filed: Jan. 10, 2014.

Thomas E. Moseley, Esquire (Argued), Newark, NJ, for Appellants.

Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General, David J. Kline, Director, Jeffrey S. Robins, Assistant Director, Kirsten L. Daeubler, Esquire (Argued), United States Department of Justice, Civil Division, Office of Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, for Appellees.

Before: AMBRO, FISHER, and HARDIMAN, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

AMBRO, Circuit Judge.

Elias Eid and Gwen Packard–Eid filed a complaint challenging the denial by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) of the I–130 Petition for Alien Relative filed by Packard–Eid, a United States citizen, that would accord Eid, her husband and a non-citizen, preference status as the spouse of a citizen. The BIA denied the Petition under 8 U.S.C. § 1154(c), which requires denying the petitions of aliens who had previously received or attempted to receive immigration benefits based on a marriage “entered into for the purpose of evading the immigration laws.” Eid and Packard–Eid contended that, because Eid did not intend to break the law through his first marriage, § 1154(c) should not apply to him. The District Court disagreed, granting summary judgment for the Government on one count of the complaint and dismissed the remaining counts for failure to state a claim. Despite facts favoring a better result, the statute's text leads us to conclude that neither the District Court nor the BIA erred, as, among other things, the intent to enter into a marriage solely to gain immigration benefits is sufficient to establish intent to evade the immigration laws.

I. BackgroundA. Factual and Administrative Background

Eid is a Lebanese national who entered the U.S. as a non-immigrant under an Hl–B visa issued based on a petition by Eid's employer Carolyn Pickett, ¹ a U.S. citizen. In October 1999, Eid married Pickett and they began living together as roommates. Pickett filed an I–130 Petition the next month to have Eid legally established as her husband for immigration purposes. It was granted in December 1999.

Obtaining permanent residence based on marriage to an American citizen or legal permanent resident is a multi-step process. First, the citizen or permanent resident spouse must sponsor the alien by filing an I–130 Petition (if granted, it legally classifies the alien as the spouse of the sponsor). Once (or at the same time as) the sponsor files an I–130 Petition, the alien must file an I–485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status.

On the basis of his classification as Pickett's husband, per the granting of the I–130 Petition, Eid filed an I–485 Application. During his interview with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) in February 2001 as part of the application for permanent residence, and presumably in response to immigration officers questioning the legitimacy of the marriage, Eid withdrew his I–485 Application. At the same time, Pickett requested the withdrawal of her I–130 Petition already granted in 1999, a request the CIS granted. Accompanying the withdrawal of the I–485 application, both Eid and Pickett gave sworn affidavits to the INS officer. In his sworn statement, Eid said that he married Pickett in order to stay in the U.S., the marriage was never consummated, and the two had “no intention on living together as husband and wife.” Pickett's sworn statement was to similar effect. Their marriage was annulled in December 2002.

Removal proceedings began against Eid in December 2001. In November 2003, he married Packard–Eid, an American citizen, with whom he had a son in 2006. Packard–Eid filed a new I–130 Petition on Eid's behalf in September 2004. Citizenship and Immigration Services (the “CIS”) determined the marriage of Eid and Packard–Eid (collectively the “Eids”) to be genuine, but denied the I–130 Petition in December 2006. It concluded that it must deny Packard–Eid's Petition under § 1154(c) because of Pickett's “sham” Petition on Eid's behalf and their respective statements to the INS.

Packard–Eid appealed to the BIA, which remanded to the CIS with instructions to issue a Notice of Intent to Deny (“NOID”) and to allow the Eids to present evidence in support of the I–130 Petition. The CIS issued the NOID in July 2009. In response, Packard–Eid provided declarations from Pickett and Eid that they married out of a “naive” belief that formal marriage and shared residence were sufficient to obtain permanent residence, along with a statement of Packard–Eid's legal arguments against the denial. The CIS denied the I–130 Petition in September 2009, and Packard–Eid appealed to the BIA. It affirmed the CIS's conclusion that § 1154(c) barred the I–130 Petition, termed Pickett and Eid's marriage “fraudulent,” and dismissed the appeal.

B. Legal Background

The Eids filed a complaint with the District Court challenging the denial of the I–130 Petition in July 2011 and an amended complaint five months later. The first count of the amended complaint sought review of the BIA's denial of the I–130 Petition under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 706, while the remaining counts charged that the decision violated various constitutional provisions and international law.

Both the Eids and the CIS filed motions for summary judgment on the first count of the complaint (the “APA claim”), and the CIS filed a motion to dismiss the constitutional and international law counts for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The District Court granted the CIS's motion for summaryjudgment and dismissed the remaining counts for failure to state a claim. Eid and Packard–Eid filed a notice of appeal, and in their subsequent brief they challenged both the order for summary judgment and the dismissal of the other counts.²

III. Jurisdiction and Standards of Review

The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. See Chehazeh v. Att'y Gen., 666 F.3d 118, 139 (3d Cir.2012) (holding that district courts have jurisdiction under the APA to review BIA decisions other than a final order of removal). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. In cases reviewing final administrative decisions under the APA, “we review the district court's summary judgment decision de novo, while ‘applying the appropriate standard of review to the agency's decision.’ ” Concerned Citizens Alliance, Inc. v. Slater, 176 F.3d 686, 693 (3d Cir.1999) (quoting Sierra Club v. Slater, 120 F.3d 623, 632 (6th Cir.1997)). Under the APA, we review agency actions to determine whether they were “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law[.]” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).³

Our Court “exercise[s] plenary review over a district court's grant of a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6).” Fleisher v. Standard Ins. Co., 679 F.3d 116, 120 (3d Cir.2012). In this review, “courts ‘accept all factual allegations as true, construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and determine whether, under any reasonable reading of the complaint, the plaintiff may be entitled to relief.’ ” Phillips v. Cnty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 233 (3d Cir.2008) (quoting Pinker v. Roche Holdings Ltd., 292 F.3d 361, 374 n. 7 (3d Cir.2002)). In order to defeat a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, plaintiffs' “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level....” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). Thus, “only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009).

III. AnalysisA. APA Claim

The Eids assert several reasons why they believe the BIA's denial of the I–130 Petition was arbitrary and capricious. We deal with each in turn.

1. Level of Intent Required for “Purpose of Evading the Immigration Laws”

The Eids' first argument is that the BIA's rejection of their I–130 Petition was improper because the statutory bar of 8 U.S.C. § 1154(c)⁴ did not apply. It states in pertinent part:

[N]o petition shall be approved if (1) the alien has previously been accorded, or has sought to be accorded, an immediate relative or preference status as the spouse of a citizen of the United States ... by reason of a marriage determined by the Attorney General to have been entered into for the purpose of evading the immigration laws ....

8 U.S.C. § 1154(c) (emphasis added). At base is the level of intent necessary for a marriage to be “for the purpose of evading the immigration laws.” The Eids argue specific intent to break immigration laws is required. The BIA, in contrast, concluded that Eid and Pickett's “admissions that their marriage was entered for the sole purpose of procuring the beneficiary's lawful status in the United States are sufficient basis” to trigger the § 1154(c) bar (emphasis added).

We defer to the BIA's reasonable interpretation of ambiguous provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) pursuant to Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). See INS v. Aguirre–Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415, 424, 119 S.Ct. 1439, 143 L.Ed.2d 590 (1999); Sarango v. Att'y Gen., 651 F.3d 380, 383 (3d Cir.2011). Under the familiar Chevron analysis, we ask first “whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If so, courts, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” United States v. Geiser, 527 F.3d 288, 292 (3d Cir.2008) (quoting Chen v. Ashcroft, 381 F.3d 221, 224 (3d Cir.2004)) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). If, however, the...