Fano v. O'Neill

• Decision Date: 05 January 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-2164,86-2164
• Citation: 806 F.2d 1262
• Parties: Federico FANO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Paul B. O'NEILL, Individually and As District Director of the Immigration & Naturalization Service for the Houston Division, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1262

806 F.2d 1262

95 A.L.R.Fed. 253

Federico FANO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Paul B. O'NEILL, Individually and As District Director of

the Immigration & Naturalization Service for the

Houston Division, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 86-2164.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 5, 1987.

Alan Vomacka, M. Edwin Prud'homme, Houston, Tex., for plaintiff-appellant.

Samuel G. Longora, Asst. U.S. Atty., Henry K. Oncken, U.S. Atty., Frank A. Conforti, James R. Gough, Asst. U.S. Attys., Houston, Tex., for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before CLARK, Chief Judge, REAVLEY and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

REAVLEY, Circuit Judge:

Federico Fano claims he lost an opportunity to obtain permanent resident status in this country because the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), violating its internal procedures, wilfully delayed the processing of his application. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the government. We reverse.

I

Fano is a citizen of Mexico by birth. His father is employed in Houston, Texas as vice president of a subsidiary of a Mexican oil and gas concern. On August 10, 1983, Fano's father applied for permanent resident status based on his professional qualifications and a petition filed by his employer. See 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1153(a)(3). On that same date, Fano, his mother, and other members of the immediate family also applied for permanent resident status under statutory provisions allowing them to claim derivative status. 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1153(a)(8). For the children to qualify, they had to be under twenty-one years of age and unmarried. 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1101(b)(1).

At the time of application, Fano's twenty-first birthday was only eight months away. Moreover, beginning October 1, 1983, visa numbers for applicants such as Fano's father would be unavailable for a period of one year. Since Fano would turn twenty-one years old during this year, he would lose the opportunity to obtain derivative resident status unless his application was adjudicated prior to October 1, 1983. With these considerations in mind, Fano's attorney urged the INS officer to expedite the handling of Fano's application.

In urging prompt action, Fano relied on what he alleges is the INS' common practice in such situations. In particular, Fano pointed to an INS Operations Instruction (OI) that provides:

When during August or September, a visa number is urgently needed in a case in which all Service action has been completed, a request shall be submitted to the Associate Commissioner, Examinations, for allocation of a number.

INS Operations Instruction 245.4(a)(2). Fano claims that had the INS followed this provision, he would have received his visa number prior to his twenty-first birthday.

The INS did not act on Fano's application prior to October 1, 1983. In November 1984, Fano's father, mother, and five siblings were notified that their applications were approved. Fano was told, however, that his application was denied because he was over twenty-one years old. The INS insists that Fano must now reapply for resident alien status under a separate statutory provision. Although the INS has suggested it will not deport Fano absent some misconduct, it is undisputed that this reapplication process will involve considerable delay and several interim restrictions on Fano's ability to work and live in the United States. The INS has not offered any explanation for its delay in processing Fano's original application.

Shortly after filing a complaint in the district court, Fano moved for summary judgment on the ground that the INS is bound by the OI and cannot now deny him the resident status he would have obtained had the OI been followed. The district court denied this motion, and instead granted the INS' motion for summary judgment, primarily on the ground that Fano had failed to show unreasonable delay by the INS. Fano appeals this ruling.

II

Fano argues that summary judgment was improper because of fact issues surrounding the effect of the OI. He argues that the OI was in fact violated, that it binds the INS, and that he is therefore entitled to relief. We can assume that the OI was violated. However, we agree with the district court that the OI does not bind the INS and that its violation, by itself, does not entitle Fano to relief.

The Supreme Court has stated that "[w]here the rights of individuals are affected, it is incumbent upon agencies to follow their own procedures." Morton v. Ruiz, 415 U.S. 199, 235, 94 S.Ct. 1055, 1074, 39 L.Ed.2d 270 (1974). As the Court has made clear in subsequent cases, however, "not all agency publications are of binding force." Lyng v. Payne, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 2333, 2341, 90 L.Ed.2d 921 (1986). In Schweiker v. Hansen, 450 U.S. 785, 101 S.Ct. 1468, 67 L.Ed.2d 685 (1981), the Court held that a provision in a Social Security Administration (SSA) Claims Manual instructing SSA employees to encourage claimants to file written applications was not a binding agency rule. The Court stated that the manual was for the internal use of SSA employees and its violation did not entitle the claimant in that case to relief from her failure to file a written application.

In accord with Schweiker, this circuit has on at least three occasions concluded that INS OI's do not have the force of law. In Ponce-Gonzalez v. INS, 775 F.2d 1342, 1346 (5th Cir.1985), for example, we held that OI's are "only internal guidelines for INS personnel, and neither confer upon petitioner substantive rights nor provide procedures upon which he may rely." Accordingly, we held that an apparent INS violation of an OI requiring investigation of an alien's eligibility for statutory relief from deportation did not prevent the INS from later deporting the individual. See also Dong Sik Kwon v. INS, 646 F.2d 909, 918-19 (5th Cir.1981) (en banc); Soon Bok Yoon v. INS, 538 F.2d 1211, 1213 (5th Cir.1976).

Fano argues that these cases should not be read to determine the status of the present OI. Instead, he argues that the present OI should be given binding effect because it speaks in mandatory terms and implicates important substantive rights. Fano misreads our cases. If mandatory terms and an impact on substantive rights were sufficient to give an agency rule binding effect, then Schweiker and each of our prior cases discussed above were incorrectly decided. We have held OI's to be nonbinding not because they do not affect the individuals dealing with the INS but because they are not an exercise of delegated legislative power and do not purport to be anything other than internal house-keeping measures. See Kwon, 646 F.2d at 918-19 ("[OI's] furnish only general guidance for service employees."). In this regard, the OI in the present case is indistinguishable from those considered in our prior cases. We hold, in accord with our prior decisions, that the INS' alleged violation of its OI does not, standing alone, afford Fano a remedy. ¹

III

Fano also argues that summary judgment was improper because of factual issues surrounding the reasons for the INS' delay in processing his application. His apparent position is that because of its failure to follow its OI and its unexplained delay, the INS should be estopped to rely on the fact that he is no longer a minor. We agree with Fano that the government has failed to meet its burden, as the moving party for summary judgment, to show the absence of genuine issues of material fact.

The Supreme Court has indicated, without deciding, that equitable relief may be available to a private party aggrieved by certain conduct of government officials. See Heckler v. Community Health Services, 467 U.S. 51, 104 S.Ct. 2218, 2224, 81 L.Ed.2d 42 (1984); INS v. Miranda, 459 U.S. 14, 19, 103 S.Ct. 281, 284, 74 L.Ed.2d 12 (1982); INS v. Hibi, 414 U.S. 5, 8-9, 94 S.Ct. 19, 21-22, 38 L.Ed.2d 7 (1973); Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308, 314-15, 81 S.Ct. 1336, 1340-41, 6 L.Ed.2d 313 (1961). At the same time, the Court has stated that "it is well-settled that the Government may not be estopped on the same terms as any other litigant." Heckler, 104 S.Ct. at 2224; see also id. at 2228 (Rehnquist, J., concurring) ("[O]ur cases have left open the possibility of estoppel against the Government only in a rather narrow possible range of circumstances."). The Court has not elaborated on the type of conduct that would give rise to an estoppel. It has, however, suggested that estoppel might be appropriate when the "public interest in ensuring that the Government can enforce the law free from estoppel [is] outweighed by the countervailing interest of citizens in some minimum standard of decency, honor, and reliability in their dealings with their Government." Heckler, 104 S.Ct. at 2224.

Although the Court has declined to give more specific guidance than this, we can glean from the facts of its cases some idea of the appropriate standards for determining when the government may be estopped. Those cases indicate that a party seeking to estop the government bears a quite heavy burden. In Schweiker v. Hansen, supra, for example, the Court refused to estop the government from denying social security benefits to a person who was erroneously told by a government official she was not eligible for such benefits and who therefore did not file the required written application. The Court felt that the erroneous information, even when coupled with the official's failure to...