Industrial Com'n of State v. Arteaga

• Decision Date: 06 April 1987
• Docket Number: Nos. 85SC127,85SC168 and 85SC210,s. 85SC127
• Citation: 735 P.2d 473
• Parties: INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF the STATE of Colorado (Ex-Officio Unemployment Compensation Commission of Colorado); and Division of Employment and Training, Colorado Department of Labor, Petitioners, v. Eudesimo ARTEAGA, Respondent. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF COLORADO (Ex-Officio Unemployment Compensation Commission of Colorado), and Division of Employment and Training, Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Petitioners, v. Bahman ZANJANI, Respondent. DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING, Petitioner, v. Manu YIADOM, and Industrial Commission of Colorado (Ex-Officio Unemployment Compensation Commission of Colorado), Respondents.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 473

735 P.2d 473

INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF the STATE of Colorado (Ex-Officio

Unemployment Compensation Commission of Colorado);

and Division of Employment and

Training, Colorado Department

of Labor, Petitioners, v. Eudesimo ARTEAGA, Respondent.

INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF COLORADO (Ex-Officio Unemployment

Compensation Commission of Colorado), and Division

of Employment and Training, Colorado

Department of Labor and Employment, Petitioners, v. Bahman ZANJANI, Respondent.

DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING, Petitioner, v. Manu YIADOM, and Industrial Commission of Colorado

(Ex-Officio Unemployment Compensation Commission

of Colorado), Respondents.

Nos. 85SC127, 85SC168 and 85SC210.

Supreme Court of Colorado,

En Banc.

April 6, 1987.

Rehearing Denied April 27, 1987.

Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., Charles B. Howe, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard H. Forman, Sol. Gen., Christa D. Taylor, Asst. Atty. Gen., Human Resources Section, Denver, for petitioners.

David F. Steinhoff, Brian Patrick Lawlor, Colorado Rural Legal Services, Denver, for respondents.

William M. Bass, Denver, for amicus curiae Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Richard K. Willard, Asst. Atty. Gen., Thomas W. Hussey, Asst. Director, Ellen Sue Shapiro, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civ. Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for amicus curiae U.S.

Marcia Egger, New York City, for amicus curiae The Nat. Employment Law Project.

DUBOFSKY, Justice.

We granted certiorari to review the judgments of the court of appeals in three cases involving the eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits of alien claimants who had married United States citizens and whose petitions for legal permanent residence in the United States were pending before the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Arteaga v. Industrial Comm'n of State, 703 P.2d 654 (Colo.App.1985); Zanjani v. Industrial Comm'n of Colorado, 703 P.2d 652 (Colo.App.1985); and Division of Employment and Training v. Industrial Commission and Manu Yiadom, No. 84-CA-799, unpublished (Colo.App. April 11, 1985). ¹ In all of the cases, the INS had authorized the claimants to seek employment at the time they earned the wage credits required for unemployment compensation eligibility and when they applied for benefits. The Division of Employment and Training (the division) denied the claimants' request for unemployment benefits. The Industrial Commission (the commission) affirmed the division's denial of benefits in Arteaga and Zanjani and reversed the division's denial in Yiadom. The court of appeals determined that all of the claimants were "permanently residing in the United States under color of law" during the base periods used to determine eligibility for unemployment compensation under section 8-73-107(7)(a), 3 C.R.S. (1984 Supp.) and that they therefore were entitled to benefits. ² We affirm the judgments of the court of appeals.

I.

Eudesimo Arteaga, a citizen of Mexico, entered the United States without a visa in March, 1981. On April 26, 1982, he married a United States citizen. He was arrested two days later at his place of employment on suspicion of being in the country illegally. The INS commenced proceedings to deport Arteaga. On May 5, 1982, Arteaga's wife filed a petition with the INS requesting that the agency classify Arteaga as an immediate relative eligible for an immigrant visa. The INS released Arteaga from detention, granted him employment authorization and stayed deportation proceedings pending adjudication of the immediate relative petition. Arteaga apparently returned to his place of employment. The immediate relative petition filed by Arteaga's wife was granted on June 23, 1982, and Arteaga became a legal permanent resident on April 16, 1983. On June 13, 1983, Arteaga's Colorado employer terminated his employment. Arteaga filed for unemployment compensation benefits, basing his wage credit on wages earned from January 1, 1982, through December 31, 1982. The division denied benefits for wage credit earned prior to June 23, 1982, the date the petition filed by Arteaga's spouse was granted by the INS. The commission affirmed the division's denial of benefits.

Bahman Zanjani, a citizen of Iran, entered the United States in 1977, with a non-immigrant "F-1" student visa. On September 5, 1981, he married a United States citizen. On August 5, 1982, his wife filed a petition with the INS requesting that the agency classify Zanjani as an immediate relative. On that date the INS granted Zanjani employment authorization, and on October 25, 1982, the INS granted him immediate relative status. Zanjani was discharged from his job on July 13, 1983, and he filed a claim for unemployment compensation. The division denied benefits for wage credit earned by Zanjani before October 25, 1982, and the commission upheld the division's denial of benefits.

Manu Yiadom, a citizen of Ghana, arrived in the United States on March 18, 1977, as a visitor-for-pleasure with a "B-2" visa. He married a United States citizen on or about March 4, 1980, and on March 8, 1980, Yiadom's wife filed a petition with the INS requesting that the agency classify Yiadom as an immediate relative. The INS granted Yiadom employment authorization on that date. In August, 1983, Yiadom's then-estranged wife withdrew her petition, and the INS commenced deportation proceedings. Yiadom eventually was deported. From December, 1978, through October, 1982, Yiadom worked for a Colorado employer. His employment was terminated on October 31, 1982, and he filed for benefits in May, 1983. The division denied his claim, but the commission reversed the division's ruling and granted Yiadom wage credit beginning March 8, 1980, the date his wife filed her petition. ³

Eligibility for unemployment benefits requires that a person have received wage credit for services performed during a base period. ⁴ The division initially determined that the claimants had sufficient wage credits to be eligible for benefits. Later the division reversed itself because the credits were earned before the INS granted the petitions filed by the claimants' spouses. The issue in these cases is whether an alien claimant is entitled to credit for quarters of service earned while the claimant was married to a citizen of the United States, working for a Colorado company under authorization from the INS, and waiting for the INS to grant a petition for legal permanent resident status.

The court of appeals held that Arteaga was entitled to unemployment compensation under section 8-73-107(7)(a), 3 C.R.S. (1984 Supp.), because he met the statutory criterion of "permanently residing in the United States under color of law." The factors supporting its decision that Arteaga's residence was permanent were his marriage to a citizen of the United States, his employment with a domestic company under authorization from INS, and his pending application for legal permanent residence, notwithstanding the INS' continuing power to deport him. The court determined that Arteaga was "permanently residing in the United States under color of law" because the INS was aware of his technically illegal presence and yet consented to it by suspending efforts to deport him and by authorizing him to work. The court of appeals concluded that Arteaga was entitled to wage credit from the date he applied for legal permanent residence and obtained work authorization from the INS. The court of appeals applied the reasoning in Arteaga's case to Zanjani's and Yiadom's claims.

II.

The Colorado Employment Security Act (CESA), §§ 8-70-101 to 8-82-105, 3B C.R.S. (1986), is designed to lighten the burden of unemployment "which ... falls with crushing force upon the unemployed worker and his family." § 8-70-102, 3B C.R.S. (1986). See also California Human Resources Department v. Java, 402 U.S. 121, 131-132, 91 S.Ct. 1347, 1353-1354, 28 L.Ed.2d 666 (1971); Salida School District R-32-J v. Morrison, 732 P.2d 1160, 1164 (Colo.1987). The CESA establishes a mechanism by which funds are accumulated to provide compensation for a limited time to those who are involuntarily unemployed through no fault of their own. § 8-73-108(1)(a), 3B C.R.S. (1986); Salida School District R-32-J v. Morrison, at 1164; Industrial Commission v. Moffat County School District RE# 1, 732 P.2d 616, 620-621 (Colo.1987); Harding v. Industrial Commission, 183 Colo. 52, 515 P.2d 95 (1973); Andersen v. Industrial Commission, 167 Colo. 281, 447 P.2d 221 (1968). A claimant who receives unemployment compensation is entitled to a statutorily prescribed unemployment benefit that is less than his salary and lasts for a limited time. §§ 8-73-102 and 8-73-104, 3B C.R.S. (1986); Salida School District R-32-J, at 1164.

Unemployment compensation is a cooperative federal-state program. The federal government offers incentives to the states to encourage them to enact unemployment insurance programs that conform to federal statutory requirements. Thus, each state has a comprehensive statute like the CESA governing the program within that state, but federal statutes define the basic outlines of the unemployment insurance system. Included in the congressional incentives are certain tax credits for employers. The Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA), 26 U.S.C. §§ 3301-3311 (1976 & Supp.1986), imposes on employers in participating states a tax representing a percentage of total wages paid by the employers during the calendar year and representing the number of former employees collecting unemployment insurance, the employer's experience rating. See 26 U.S.C. § 3303(a)(1) (1976); §§ 8-76-102 to -104, 3B C.R.S. (1986). If the United States Secretary of Labor "certifies" a state to the Secretary of the Treasury, see 26 U.S.C. § 3304(a)-(c) (1976 & Supp.1986), employers in that state may obtain a credit of up to ninety percent against their basic FUTA tax liability for unemployment taxes paid to the state unemployment fund.

To be "certif...