Patel v. Garland

• Citation: 142 S.Ct. 1614
• Decision Date: 16 May 2022
• Docket Number: 20-979
• Parties: Pankajkumar S. PATEL, et al., Petitioners v. Merrick B. GARLAND, Attorney General
• Court: United States Supreme Court

142 S.Ct. 1614

Pankajkumar S. PATEL, et al., Petitioners

v.Merrick B. GARLAND, Attorney General

No. 20-979

Supreme Court of the United States.

Argued December 6, 2021

Decided May 16, 2022

Mark C. Fleming, Boston, MA, for petitioners.

Austin L. Raynor for respondent in support of petitioners.

Taylor A. R. Meehan, appointed by this Court as amicus curiae, in support of the judgment below.

Elizabeth B. Prelogar, Solicitor General, Counsel of Record, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for respondent in support of petitioners.

Mark C. Fleming, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Boston, MA, Justin M. Baxenberg, Joss A. Berteaud, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington DC, Margaret T. Artz, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Greenwich Street, New York, NY, Ira J. Kurzban, Counsel of Record, Helena Tetzeli, John P. Pratt, Edward F. Ramos, Kevin A. Gregg, Elizabeth Montano, Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt P.A., Coral Gables, FL, Thomas G. Sprankling, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Palo Alto, CA, for petitioners.

Justice BARRETT delivered the opinion of the Court.

Congress has comprehensively detailed the rules by which noncitizens may enter and live in the United States. When noncitizens violate those rules, Congress has provided procedures for their removal. At the same time, there is room for mercy: Congress has given the Attorney General power to grant relief from removal in certain circumstances.

Federal courts have a very limited role to play in this process. With an exception for legal and constitutional questions, Congress has barred judicial review of the Attorney General's decisions denying discretionary relief from removal. We must decide how far this bar extends—specifically, whether it precludes judicial review of factual findings that underlie a denial of relief. It does.

I

A

A noncitizen who enters the United States illegally or who otherwise violates its laws may be removed from the country. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182, 1227, 1229a. Removal proceedings are conducted by immigration judges in the United States Department of Justice who exercise the authority of the Attorney General. § 1229a(a)(1) ; 8 C.F.R. §§ 1240.1(a)(1), 1245.2(a)(1)(i) (2021). If an immigration judge decides that a noncitizen is removable, the judge is authorized to order the removal of the noncitizen from the United States. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(5).

Being found removable is not always the end of the story, though, because Congress has authorized relief from removal in certain contexts. For example, the Attorney General has discretion to adjust the status of an eligible noncitizen who entered the United States illegally to that of lawful permanent resident, forgiving the illegal entry and protecting the noncitizen from removal on that ground. See § 1255(i). (As with authority over removal generally, the Attorney General has delegated to immigration judges the ability to grant relief from removal. 8 C.F.R. § 1240.1(a)(1)(ii).) To be eligible for such relief, a noncitizen must show that he satisfies various threshold requirements established by Congress. Yet eligibility only gets a noncitizen so far. Because relief from removal is always " ‘a matter of grace,’ " even an eligible noncitizen must persuade the immigration judge that he merits a favorable exercise of discretion. INS v. St. Cyr , 533 U.S. 289, 308, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 150 L.Ed.2d 347 (2001). And if the judge decides that denial would be appropriate regardless of eligibility, the judge need not address eligibility at all. See INS v. Bagamasbad , 429 U.S. 24, 25–26, 97 S.Ct. 200, 50 L.Ed.2d 190 (1976) (per curiam ).

Congress has sharply circumscribed judicial review of the discretionary-relief process. Title 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B) provides:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), including section 2241 of title 28, or any other habeas corpus provision, and sections 1361 and 1651 of such title, and except as provided in subparagraph (D), and regardless of whether the judgment, decision, or action is made in removal proceedings, no court shall have jurisdiction to review—

"(i) any judgment regarding the granting of relief under section 1182(h), 1182(i), 1229b, 1229c, or 1255 of this title."

This bar has an important qualification: "Nothing in subparagraph (B) ... shall be construed as precluding review of constitutional claims or questions of law raised upon a petition for review filed with an appropriate court of appeals in accordance with this section." § 1252(a)(2)(D). Notably, this qualification does not preserve review of questions of fact.

B

Pankajkumar Patel and his wife Jyotsnaben entered the United States illegally in the 1990s. In 2007, Patel applied to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) (a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)) for adjustment of status under § 1255(i). See 8 C.F.R. § 245.2(a)(1) (giving USCIS authority over applications for adjustment of status made outside of removal proceedings). If granted, this adjustment would have excused Patel's illegal entry and made him a lawful permanent resident. (Patel's wife, the other petitioner in this case, applied for derivative adjustment of status based on Patel's application.) While his request to USCIS was pending, Patel also applied for a Georgia driver's license. On that application, he checked a box falsely stating that he was a United States citizen.

USCIS denied Patel's application for adjustment of status because of that misrepresentation. One of the eligibility requirements for adjustment is that the noncitizen be statutorily admissible for permanent residence. 8 U.S.C. § 1255(i)(2)(A). USCIS decided that Patel failed to satisfy this requirement. Section 1182(a)(6)(C)(ii)(I) renders inadmissible an "alien who falsely represents, or has falsely represented, himself or herself to be a citizen of the United States for any purpose or benefit under" state or federal law. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has interpreted this provision to apply when a noncitizen (1) makes a false representation of citizenship (2) that is material to a purpose or benefit under the law (3) with the subjective intent of obtaining the purpose or benefit. Matter of Richmond , 26 I. & N. Dec. 779, 786–787 (2016). Applying this test, USCIS concluded that Patel had violated § 1182(a)(6)(C)(ii)(I) and was therefore ineligible for status adjustment.

Several years later, DHS initiated removal proceedings against the Patels because they were present in the United States without having been admitted—the same illegal entry that Patel had sought to remedy in his initial application for adjustment of status. See § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). Patel conceded that he was removable on that ground but sought relief from removal by repeating his request for discretionary adjustment to lawful permanent resident status.

Now before an Immigration Judge, Patel's request for relief raised the same question that had been at issue in his application before USCIS: whether the misrepresentation of citizenship on his driver's license application rendered him ineligible for discretionary adjustment. He conceded that he had checked the "citizen" box on that application. But he argued that he had done so by accident—and therefore without the subjective intent that the BIA has interpreted § 1182(a)(6)(C)(ii)(I) to require.

The Immigration Judge concluded otherwise. The judge explained that Patel was evasive when asked exactly how he had made a mistake. And though Patel testified that he had provided his alien registration number on his application, which would have identified him as a noncitizen, the actual application showed that he had not. The judge also noted that Patel had falsely represented his manner of entry into the United States on an application for asylum. Based on this evidence, the judge found that Patel's testimony was not credible and that he had intentionally represented that he was a citizen. The judge accordingly denied Patel's application for adjustment of status and ordered that he and his wife be removed from the United States. Patel appealed the decision to the BIA, which determined that the judge's factual findings were not clearly erroneous and dismissed the appeal.

Patel petitioned the Eleventh Circuit for review, arguing that any reasonable judge would have been "compelled to conclude" that his testimony was credible and that he had made an honest mistake on the form. See § 1252(b)(4)(B) ("[A]dministrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary"). A panel of that court held that it lacked jurisdiction to consider Patel's claim because federal law prohibits judicial review of "any judgment regarding the granting of relief " under § 1255, the adjustment-of-status provision. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i). And the factual determinations of which Patel sought review—whether he had testified credibly and whether he had subjectively intended to misrepresent himself as a citizen—each qualified, in the panel's view, as a "judgment regarding the granting of relief." See Patel v. United States Atty. Gen. , 917 F.3d 1319, 1327 (2019).

On rehearing en banc, both Patel and the Government argued that the panel had erred. Patel contended that the bar on judicial review applied only to the ultimate decision to grant or deny adjustment of status—not to any subsidiary decisions regarding an applicant's eligibility to be considered for relief. The Government argued that the bar applied not only to the ultimate decision to grant or deny relief but also to any discretionary determinations made at the eligibility stage. And in the Government's view, the Immigration Judge's factual findings were "nondiscretionary" determinations to which the bar did not apply.

A majority of the full Eleventh Circuit agreed with the panel decision and held that all factual determinations made as part of considering a request for...