Harriott v. Ashcroft

• Decision Date: 01 July 2003
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A.01-CV-5823.,CIV.A.01-CV-5823.
• Citation: 277 F.Supp.2d 538
• Parties: Ryan HARRIOTT and Sariel Harriott v. John ASHCROFT, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

277 F.Supp.2d 538

Ryan HARRIOTT and Sariel Harriott v. John ASHCROFT, et al.

No. CIV.A.01-CV-5823.

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

July 1, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Joseph Hohenstein, Nationalities Service Center, Philadelphia, PA, for Ryan Harriott, Sariel Harriott.

Richard M. Bernstein, Seth Weber, Virginia A. Gibson, U.S. Attorney's Office, Philadelphia, PA, for John Ashcroft, Charles Zemski, Robert Wieman.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

KAUFFMAN, District Judge.

Petitioners Ryan Harriott ("Ryan") and Sariel Harriott¹ ("Ms. Harriott") initiated the above-captioned action against Respondents John Ashcroft, Attorney General of the United States, Charles Zemski, Acting District Director of the Philadelphia Office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS"), and Robert Wieman, Director of the Administrative Appeals Unit of the INS, by filing a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and a Petition for Writ of Mandamus. The Court subsequently granted Petitioners leave to amend the Complaint to include a claim for habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Now before the Court are Respondents' Motion to Dismiss and Petitioners' Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. The Court has given notice to the parties that, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12, these Motions will be treated as cross-motions for summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. (See Order dated May 13, 2003.)² For the following reasons, the Court will deny Respondents' Motion and grant Petitioners' Motion. Accordingly, the Court will order Respondents to approve the Application for Derivative Citizenship nunc pro tunc. The Court will also award Petitioners attorney's fees and costs pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act.

I. Background

The pertinent facts are not disputed. Ryan was born in Jamaica on May 18, 1980 and entered the United States on a valid non-immigrant visitor's visa on July 15, 1992, when he was twelve years old. Soon after, Ms. Harriott took him into her home because he had been abandoned by his natural parents. On May 10, 1996, Ms. Harriott legally adopted Ryan who was then fifteen years old. On March 20, 1997, Ms. Harriott became a naturalized citizen and two months later, on May 23, 1997, she applied for a Certificate of Naturalization for Ryan pursuant to the Immigration and Naturalization Act ("INA"), 8 U.S.C. § 1433(a) (the "Application" or the "Application for Derivative Citizenship").³

Ryan reached the age of eighteen on May 18, 1998, almost one year after the Application for Derivative Citizenship was filed. On October 4, 1999, almost two and a half years after the Application was filed, the INS denied the Application on the sole ground that Ryan was over the age of eighteen at the time of decision and therefore did not qualify for derivative citizenship pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1433(a) and the applicable regulation, 8 C.F.R. 322.2(a) (1999).⁴

Ms. Harriott filed an appeal to the INS's Administrative Appeals Unit ("AAU") on October 29, 1999, which was denied on February 24, 2000.⁵ On April 24, 2000, the INS issued a Notice to Appear, charging that Ryan had remained in the United States without authorization beyond July 15, 1993, the date his visitor's visa expired. On August 2, 2001, the Immigration Judge ruled that Ryan was deportable and granted his application for voluntary departure within sixty days.⁶ Ryan filed an appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") on September 5, 2001, which was dismissed as untimely on July 17, 2002.

Petitioners filed their Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Petition for Writ of Mandamus in this Court on November 28, 2001. On June 5, 2002, Respondents filed a Motion to Dismiss the Complaint and Petition for Writ of Mandamus. On June 21, 2002, Petitioners responded to Respondents' Motion and filed their own Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c). On September 11, 2002, Petitioners moved to amend their complaint to include a request for habeas corpus relief.⁷ On September 19, 2002, this Court granted Petitioners leave to file an Amended Complaint and granted Petitioners' unopposed Motion to Stay Removal pending resolution of this matter. On October 2, 2002, Petitioners filed an Amended Complaint and Petition which incorporated by reference the entirety of the original Complaint and Petition and the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings and added a claim for habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Respondents filed their Response to Petitioners' Motion and the claim for habeas corpus relief on March 27, 2003. On April 15, 2003, the Court heard oral argument on the pending Motions. Following the oral argument, the parties submitted supplemental memoranda, Petitioners filed a Petition for Attorney's Fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, and Respondents filed a Brief in Opposition to the Fee Petition.

II. Legal Standard

In deciding a motion for summary judgment pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56, "the test is whether there is a genuine issue of material fact and, if not, whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Medical Protective Co. v. Watkins, 198 F.3d 100, 103 (3d Cir.1999) (quoting Armbruster v. Unisys Corp., 32 F.3d 768, 777 (3d Cir.1994)). "Summary judgment will not lie if the dispute about a material fact is `genuine,' that is, if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). The standards by which a court decides a summary judgment motion do not change when the parties file cross-motions. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transp. Auth. v. Pennsylvania Pub. Utility Comm'n, 826 F.Supp. 1506, 1512 (E.D.Pa.1993), aff'd, 27 F.3d 558 (3d Cir.1994). The Court must consider the motions independently, Williams v. Philadelphia Hous. Auth., 834 F.Supp. 794, 797 (E.D.Pa.1993), aff'd, 27 F.3d 560 (3d Cir.1994), and examine the evidence in each motion in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).

III. Analysis

A. Equitable Estoppel

The gravamen of Petitioners' Amended Complaint and Petition is that Respondents' actions in denying the Application for Derivative Citizenship were contrary to the express provisions of 8 U.S.C. § 1433(a) requiring them to perform the ministerial duty of acknowledging Ryan's citizenship. Petitioners advance several arguments in support of this claim, the most persuasive of which is that Respondents should be estopped from denying Ryan's citizenship because it was their own unreasonable delay and failure to expedite the Application, in contravention of applicable administrative guidelines, that caused Ryan to reach the age of eighteen before naturalization was accomplished.

It is undisputed that the INS's internal guidelines expressly provide for eligibility determination in all cases in less than sixty days and the expedition of applications for children approaching their eighteenth birthday.⁸ Further, Respondents fail to dispute that their duty to approve applications for derivative citizenship under 8 U.S.C. § 1433(a) is ministerial rather than discretionary. See 8 U.S.C. § 1433(a) ("The Attorney General shall issue such a certificate of citizenship upon proof to the satisfaction of the Attorney General that the following conditions have been fulfilled ...") (emphasis added). Nevertheless, with no explanation for the inordinate delay, Respondents admit that they neglected to act upon Petitioners' Application in any way, including denial or a request for more information, until after nearly two and a half years had passed.⁹ The Court concludes that, in the interest of justice, Respondents' inexplicable neglect of their ministerial duties and disregard for their own internal guidelines demand application of the doctrine of equitable estoppel.

To sustain a claim of equitable estoppel against the Government, a petitioner must establish (1) the occurrence of affirmative government misconduct (2) which caused him to reasonably (though erroneously) believe that a certain state of affairs exists (3) upon which he relied to his detriment. Costa v. INS, 233 F.3d 31 (1st Cir.2000), citing OPM v. Richmond, 496 U.S. 414, 422, 110 S.Ct. 2465, 110 L.Ed.2d 387 (1990). In a factually similar case, In re Petition of Tubig, 559 F.Supp. 2 (N.D.Cal.1981), the court held that because the INS's failure to process a derivative citizenship application before the petitioner's son reached the age of eighteen was due to its disregard for its own regular procedures, the INS was estopped from denying the application on that basis:

[W]here application for naturalization under § 1433(a) is made a relatively short time before the child's eighteenth birthday, [the INS] regularly expedites the application so that it may be completed, and naturalization accomplished, before the child's eighteenth birthday. Due to an INS clerk's error, however, petitioner's application was not expedited, and when his son turned eighteen before the petition had been completely processed, the INS denied his application on that basis ... Thus, but for the INS' error in failing to expedite the application, as was its usual practice, petitioner's son would have been naturalized. Equitable principles do not require this Court to approve the denial of the naturalization of petitioner's son due to an error of the INS' own making; this Court, therefore, holds that the INS is estopped from denying the application.

Tubig, 559 F.Supp. at 3-4 (citing Villena v. INS, 622 F.2d 1352 (9th Cir.1980) (holding that unexplained and lengthy delay in processing an applicant's petition for naturalization amounts to "affirmative misconduct" which operated to estop INS from deporting petitioner due to a change in his status...