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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
Nos. 10–1542 and 10–1543
_________________
ERIC H. HOLDER, Jr., ATTORNEY GENERAL,
PETITIONER
10–1542
v.
CARLOS MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ
ERIC H. HOLDER, Jr., ATTORNEY GENERAL,
PETITIONER
10–1543
v.
DAMIEN ANTONIO SAWYERS
on writs of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit
[May 21, 2012]
Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the
Court.
An immigration statute, 8 U. S. C.
§1229b(a), authorizes the Attorney General to cancel the removal of
an alien from the United States so long as the alien satisfies
certain criteria. One of those criteria relates to the length of
time an alien has lawfully resided in the United States, and
another to the length of time he has held permanent resident status
here. We consider whether the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA or
Board) could reasonably conclude that an alien living in this
country as a child must meet those requirements on his own, without
counting a parent’s years of residence or immigration status. We
hold that the BIA’s approach is based on a permissible construction
of the statute.
I
A
The immigration laws have long given the
Attorney General discretion to permit certain otherwise-removable
aliens to remain in the United States. See
Judulang v.
Holder, 565 U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 2–4).
The Attorney General formerly exercised this authority by virtue of
§212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 66Stat. 187,
8 U. S. C. §1182(c) (1994 ed.), a provision with some
lingering relevance here, see
infra, at 7–9. But in 1996,
Congress replaced §212(c) with §1229b(a) (2006 ed.). That new
section, applicable to the cases before us, provides as
follows:
“
(a) Cancellation of removal for
certain permanent residents
“The Attorney General may cancel removal in the
case of an alien who is inadmissible or deportable from the United
States if the alien—
“(1) has been an alien lawfully admitted for
permanent residence for not less than 5 years,
“(2) has resided in the United States
continuously for 7 years after having been admitted in any status,
and
“(3) has not been convicted of any aggravated
felony.”
Ibid.
Section 1229b(a) thus specifies the criteria
that make an alien eligible to obtain relief from the Attorney
General. The first paragraph requires that the alien have held the
status of a lawful permanent resident (LPR) for at least five
years. And the second adds that the alien must have lived in the
United States for at least seven continuous years after a lawful
admission, whether as an LPR or in some other immigration
status.[
1] (The third paragraph
is not at issue in these cases.)
The question we consider here is whether, in
applying this statutory provision, the BIA should impute a parent’s
years of continuous residence or LPR status to his or her child.
That question arises because a child may enter the country
lawfully, or may gain LPR status,
after one of his parents
does. A parent may therefore satisfy the re- quirements of
§§1229b(a)(1) and (2), while his or her child, considered
independently, does not. In these circum- stances, is the child
eligible for cancellation of removal?
The Ninth Circuit, the first court of appeals to
confront this issue, held that such an alien could obtain relief.
See
Cuevas-Gaspar v.
Gonzales,
430 F.3d 1013 (2005). Enrique Cuevas-Gaspar and his parents
came to the United States illegally in 1985, when he was one year
old. Cuevas-Gaspar’s mother was lawfully admitted to the country in
1990, as an LPR. But Cuevas-Gaspar was lawfully admitted only in
1997, when he too received LPR status. That meant that when
Cuevas-Gaspar committed a removable offense in 2002, he could not
independently sat- isfy §1229b(a)(2)’s requirement of seven
consecutive years of residence after a lawful entry.[
2] (The parties agreed that he just met
§1229b(a)(1)’s 5-year status requirement.) The Board deemed
Cuevas-Gaspar ineligible for relief on that account, but the Ninth
Circuit found that position unreasonable. According to the Court of
Appeals, the Board should have “imputed” to Cuevas-Gaspar his
mother’s years of continuous residence during the time he lived
with her as an “unemancipated minor.”
Id., at 1029. That
approach, the Ninth Circuit reasoned, followed from both the INA’s
“priorit[ization]” of familial relations and the Board’s
“consistent willingness” to make imputations from a parent to a
child in many areas of immigration law.
Id., at 1026.
The Board responded by reiterating its
opposition to imputation under both relevant paragraphs of
§1229b(a). In
In re Escobar, 24 I. & N.
Dec. 231 (2007), the Board considered whether a child could rely on
a parent’s period of LPR status to satisfy §1229b(a)(1)’s 5-year
clock. The Board expressly “disagree[d] with the reasoning” of
Cuevas-Gaspar, rejecting the Ninth Circuit’s understanding
of both the statute and the Board’s prior policies. 24
I. & N. Dec., at 233–234, and n. 4. Accordingly,
the Board announced that it would “decline to extend”
Cuevas-Gaspar to any case involving §1229b(a)(1), and that
it would ignore the decision even as to §1229b(a)(2) outside the
Ninth Circuit. 24 I. & N. Dec., at 235. A year later,
in
Matter of Ramirez-Vargas, 24 I. & N. Dec.
599 (2008), the BIA took the final step: It rejected imputation
under §1229b(a)(2) in a case arising in the Ninth Circuit,
maintaining that the court should abandon
Cuevas-Gaspar and
defer to the Board’s intervening reasoned decision in
Escobar. See
Ramirez-Vargas, 24 I. & N.
Dec., at 600–601 (citing
National Cable & Telecommunications
Assn. v.
Brand X Internet Services,
545 U.S.
967 (2005)).
The BIA’s position on imputation touched off a
split in the courts of appeals. The Third and Fifth Circuits both
deferred to the BIA’s approach as a reasonable construction of
§1229b(a). See
Augustin v.
Attorney Gen., 520 F.3d
264 (CA3 2008);
Deus v.
Holder, 591 F.3d 807 (CA5
2009). But in
Mercado-Zazueta v.
Holder, 580 F.3d
1102 (2009), the Ninth Circuit doubled down on its contrary view,
declaring the BIA’s position unreasonable and requiring imputation
under both §§1229b(a)(1) and (a)(2)
. See
id., at 1103
(“[T]he rationale and holding of
Cuevas-Gaspar apply equally
to the five-year permanent residence and the seven-year continuance
residence requirements” of §1229b(a)).
B
Two cases are before us. In 1989, at the age
of five, respondent Carlos Martinez Gutierrez illegally entered the
United States with his family. Martinez Gutierrez’s father was
lawfully admitted to the country two years later as an LPR. But
Martinez Gutierrez himself was neither lawfully admitted nor given
LPR status until 2003. Two years after that, Martinez Gutierrez was
apprehended for smuggling undocumented aliens across the border. He
admitted the offense, and sought cancellation of removal. The
Immigration Judge concluded that Martinez Gutierrez qualified for
relief because of his father’s immigration history, even though
Martinez Gutierrez could not satisfy either §1229b(a)(1) or
§1229b(a)(2) on his own. See App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 10–1542,
pp. 20a–22a (citing
Cuevas-Gaspar, 430 F. 3d 1013). The
BIA reversed, and after entry of a removal order on remand,
reaffirmed its disposition in an order relying on
Escobar,
see App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 10–1542, at 5a–6a. The Ninth
Circuit then granted Martinez Gutierrez’s petition for review and
remanded the case to the Board for reconsideration in light of the
court’s contrary decisions. See 411 Fed. Appx. 121 (2011).
Respondent Damien Sawyers was lawfully admitted
as an LPR in October 1995, when he was 15 years old. At that time,
his mother had already resided in the country for six consecutive
years following a lawful entry. After Sawyers’s conviction of a
drug offense in August 2002, the Government initiated removal
proceedings. The Immigration Judge found Sawyers ineligible for
cancellation of removal because he was a few months shy of the
seven years of continuous residence required under §1229b(a)(2).
See App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 10–1543, p. 13a. (No one doubted
that Sawyers had by that time held LPR status for five years, as
required under §1229b(a)(1).) The Board affirmed, relying on its
reasoning in
Escobar. See
In re Sawyers, No. A44 852
478, 2007 WL 4711443 (Dec. 26, 2007). Sawyers petitioned the Ninth
Circuit for review, arguing that the Board should have counted his
mother’s years of residency while he was a minor toward
§1229b(a)(2)’s 7-year requirement. As in
Gutierrez, the
Court of Appeals granted the petition and remanded the case to the
BIA. See 399 Fed. Appx. 313 (2010).
We granted the Government’s petitions for
certiorari, 564 U. S. ___ (2011), consolidated the cases, and
now reverse the Ninth Circuit’s judgments.
II
The Board has required each alien seeking
cancellation of removal to satisfy §1229b(a)’s requirements on his
own, without counting a parent’s years of continuous residence or
LPR status. That position prevails if it is a reasonable
construction of the statute, whether or not it is the only possible
interpretation or even the one a court might think best. See
Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v.
Natural Resources
Defense Council, Inc.,
467 U.S.
837, 843–844, and n. 11 (1984); see also
INS v.
Aguirre-Aguirre,
526 U.S.
415, 424–425 (1999) (according
Chevron deference to the
Board’s interpretations of the INA). We think the BIA’s view on
imputation meets that standard, and so need not decide if the
statute permits any other construction.
The Board’s approach is consistent with the
statute’s text, as even respondents tacitly concede. Section
1229b(a) does not mention imputation, much less require it. The
provision calls for “the alien”—not, say, “the alien or one of his
parents”—to meet the three prerequisites for cancellation of
removal. Similarly, several of §1229b(a)’s other terms have
statutory definitions referring to only a single individual. See,
e.g., §1101(a)(13)(A) (“The terms ‘admission’ and ‘admitted’
mean, with respect to
an alien, the lawful entry of
the
alien into the United States” (emphasis added)); §1101(a)(33)
(“The term ‘residence’ means the place of general abode; the place
of general abode of a person means
his principal, actual
dwelling” (emphasis added)). Respondents contend that none of this
language “forecloses” imputation: They argue that if the Board
allowed imputation, “[t]he alien” seeking cancellation would “still
have to satisfy the provision’s durational requirements”—just
pursuant to a different computational rule. Brief for Respondent
Martinez Gutierrez in No. 10–1542, p. 16 (hereinafter Martinez
Gutierrez Brief); see Brief for Respondent Sawyers in No. 10–1543,
pp. 11, 15 (hereinafter Sawyers Brief). And they claim that the
Board’s history of permitting imputation under similarly “silent”
statutes supports this construction. Martinez Gutierrez Brief 16;
see Sawyers Brief 15–16;
infra, at 10–11. But even if
so—even if the Board
could adopt an imputation rule
consistent with the statute’s text—that would not avail
respondents. Taken alone, the language of §1229b(a) at least
permits the Board to go the other way—to say that “the alien” must
meet the statutory conditions independently, without relying on a
parent’s history.
For this reason, respondents focus on
§1229b(a)’s history and context—particularly, the provision’s
relationship to the INA’s former §212(c) and its associated
imputation rule. Section 212(c)—§1229b(a)’s predecessor—generally
allowed the Attorney General to prevent the removal of an alien
with LPR status who had maintained a “lawful unrelinquished
domicile of seven consecutive years” in this country. 8
U. S. C. §1182(c) (1994 ed.). Like §1229b(a), §212(c) was
silent on imputation. Yet the Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits
(the only appellate courts to consider the question) concluded
that, in determining eligibility for relief under §212(c), the
Board should impute a parent’s years of domicile to his or her
child. See
Rosario v.
INS, 962 F.2d 220 (CA2 1992);
Lepe-Guitron v.
INS,
16 F.3d 1021, 1024–1026 (CA9 1994);
Morel v.
INS,
90 F.3d 833, 840–842 (CA3 1996). Those courts reasoned that at
common law, a minor’s domicile was “the same as that of its
parents, since most children are presumed not legally capable of
forming the requisite intent to establish their own domicile.”
Rosario, 962 F. 2d, at 224; see
Mississippi Band of
Choctaw Indians v.
Holyfield,
490 U.S.
30, 48 (1989) (defining “domicile” as “physical presence in a
place in connection with a certain state of mind concerning one’s
intent to remain there”). So by the time Congress replaced §212(c)
with §1229b(a), the BIA often imputed a parent’s years of domicile
to a child in determining eligibility for cancellation of removal.
Sawyers argues that against this backdrop, Congress “would have
understood the language it chose [in §1229b(a)] to provide for
imputation.” Sawyers Brief 10.
But we cannot conclude that Congress ratified an
imputation requirement when it passed §1229b(a). As all parties
agree, Congress enacted §§1229b(a)(1) and (a)(2) to resolve an
unrelated question about §212(c)’s meaning. See
id., at 17;
Martinez Gutierrez Brief 28; Brief for Petitioner 25. Courts had
differed on whether an alien’s “seven consecutive years” of
domicile under §212(c) all had to post-date the alien’s obtaining
LPR status. See
Cuevas-Gaspar, 430 F. 3d, at 1027–1028
(canvassing split). Congress addressed that split by creating two
distinct durational conditions: the 5-year status requirement of
subsection (a)(1), which runs from the time an alien becomes an
LPR, and the 7-year continuous-residency requirement of subsection
(a)(2), which can include years preceding the acquisition of LPR
status. In doing so, Congress elimi- nated the very
term—“domicile”—on which the appeals courts had founded their
imputation decisions. See
supra, at 8. That alteration dooms
respondents’ position, because the doctrine of congressional
ratification applies only when Congress reenacts a statute without
relevant change. See
Jama v.
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement,
543 U.S.
335, 349 (2005).[
3] So the
statutory history here provides no basis for holding that the BIA
flouted a congressional command in adopting its no-imputation
policy.
Nor do the INA’s purposes demand imputation
here, as both respondents claim. According to Martinez Gutierrez,
the BIA’s approach contradicts that statute’s objectives of
“providing relief to aliens with strong ties to the United States”
and “promoting family unity.” Martinez Gutierrez Brief 40, 44; see
Sawyers Brief 37. We agree—indeed, we have stated—that the goals
respondents identify underlie or inform many provisions of
immigration law. See
Fiallo v.
Bell,
430 U.S.
787, 795, n. 6 (1977);
INS v.
Errico,
385 U.S.
214, 220 (1966). But they are not the INA’s only goals, and
Congress did not pursue them to the
nth degree. To take one
example, §1229b(a)’s third paragraph makes aliens convicted of
aggravated felonies ineligible for cancellation of removal,
regardless of the strength of their family ties. See §1229b(a)(3).
And more generally—as these very cases show—not every alien who
obtains LPR status can immediately get the same for her spouse or
minor children. See Brief for Petitioner 31–32, and n. 9
(providing program-specific examples). We cannot read a silent
statute as requiring (not merely allowing) imputation just because
that rule would be family-friendly.
Respondents’ stronger arguments take a different
tack—that we should refuse to defer to the Board’s decision even
assuming Congress placed the question of imputation in its hands.
Respondents offer two main reasons. First, they contend that the
Board’s approach to §1229b(a) cannot be squared with its acceptance
of imputation under other, similar statutory provisions. This
“wil[d]” and “ ‘[u]n- explained inconsistency,’ ” Sawyers
asserts, is the very “paradigm of arbitrary agency action.” Sawyers
Brief 13, 41 (emphasis deleted); see Martinez Gutierrez Brief
52–54. Second, they argue that the Board did not appreciate its own
discretion over whether to allow imputation. The Board, they say,
thought Congress had forbidden imputation, and so did not bring its
“ ‘experience and expertise to bear’ ” on the issue.
Id., at 31 (quoting
PDK Labs. Inc. v.
DEA,
362 F.3d 786, 797 (CADC 2004)); see Sawyers Brief 38–39. These
arguments are not insubstantial, but in the end neither persuades
us to deny the Board the usual deference we accord to agency
interpretations.
Start with the claim of inconsistency. The BIA
has indeed imputed parental attributes to children under other INA
provisions that do not mention the matter. Section 1182(k), for
example, enables the Attorney General to let certain inadmissible
aliens into the country if he finds “that inadmissibility was not
known to, and could not have been ascertained by the exercise of
reasonable diligence by, the immigrant before the time of
departure.” Like §1229b(a), that provision refers to a single
person (“the immigrant”) and says nothing about imputation. But the
BIA has consistently imputed a parent’s knowledge of
inadmissibility (or lack thereof) to a child. See,
e.g.,
Senica v.
INS,
16 F.3d 1013, 1015 (CA9 1994) (“Therefore, the BIA reasoned,
the children were not entitled to relief under [§1182(k)] because
[their mother’s] knowledge was imputed to them”);
In re
Mushtaq, No. A43 968 082, 2007 WL 4707539 (BIA, Dec. 10, 2007)
(
per curiam);
In re Ahmed, No. A41 982 631,
2006 WL 448156 (BIA, Jan. 17, 2006) (
per curiam).
Similarly, the Board imputes a parent’s
abandonment (or non-abandonment) of LPR status to her child when
determining whether that child can reenter the country as a
“returning resident immigran[t]” under §1181(b). See
Matter of
Zamora, 17 I. & N. Dec. 395, 396 (1980) (hold-
ing that a “voluntary and intended abandonment by the mother is
imputed” to an unemancipated minor child for purposes of applying
§1181(b));
Matter of Huang, 19 I. & N. Dec. 749,
755–756 (1988) (concluding that a mother and her children abandoned
their LPR status based solely on the mother’s intent);
In re Ali, No. A44 143 723, 2006 WL 3088820 (BIA, Sept.
11, 2006) (holding that a child could not have abandoned his LPR
status if his mother had not abandoned hers). And once again, that
is so even though neither §1181(b) nor any other statutory
provision says that the BIA should look to the parent in assessing
the child’s eligibility for reentry.
But
Escobar provided a reasoned
explanation for these divergent results: The Board imputes matters
involving an alien’s state of mind, while declining to impute
objective conditions or characteristics. See 24
I. & N. Dec., at 233–234, and n. 4. On one side
of the line, knowledge of inadmissibility is all and only about a
mental state. See,
e.g., Senica, 16 F. 3d, at 1015;
In re Ahmed, 2006 WL 448156. Likewise, abandonment of
status turns on an alien’s “intention of . . . returning to the
United States” to live as a permanent resident,
Zamora, 17
I. & N. Dec., at 396; the Board thus explained that
imputing abandonment is “consistent with the . . . longstanding
policy that a child cannot form the intent necessary to establish
his or her own domicile,”
Escobar, 24 I. & N.
Dec., at 234, n. 4. And as that analogy recalls, the 7-year
domicile requirement of the former §212(c) also involved intent and
so lent itself to imputation. See
Rosario, 962 F. 2d,
at 224;
supra, at 8. But the 5- and 7-year clocks of
§1229b(a) fall on the other side of the line, because they hinge
not on any state of mind but on the objective facts of immigration
status and place of residence. See
Escobar, 24
I. & N. Dec., at 233 (“[W]e find that residence is
different from domicile because it ‘contains no element of
subjective intent’ ” (quoting
Cuevas-Gaspar, 430
F. 3d, at 1031 (Fernandez, J., dissenting))). The BIA’s varied
rulings on imputation thus largely follow from one straightforward
distinction.[
4]
Similarly,
Escobar belies respondents’
claim that the BIA adopted its no-imputation rule only because it
thought Congress had left it no other choice. The Board, to be
sure, did not highlight the statute’s gaps or ambiguity; rather, it
read §1229b(a)’s text to support its conclusion that each alien
must personally meet that section’s durational requirements. See 24
I. & N. Dec., at 235. But the Board also explained
that “there [was] no precedent” in its decisions for imputing
status or residence, and distinguished those statutory terms, on
the ground just explained, from domicile or abandonment of LPR
status.
Id., at 234; see
id., at 233–234, and
n. 4. And the Board argued that allowing imputation under
§1229b(a) would create anomalies in administration of the statutory
scheme by permitting even those who had not obtained LPR status—or
could not do so because of a criminal history—to become eligible
for cancellation of removal. See
id., at 234–235, and
n. 5. The Board therefore saw neither a “logical” nor a
“legal” basis for adopting a policy of imputation.
Id., at
233. We see nothing in this decision to suggest that the Board
thought its hands tied, or that it might have reached a different
result if assured it could do so. To the contrary, the decision
expressed the BIA’s view, based on its experience implementing the
INA, that statutory text, administrative practice, and regulatory
policy all pointed in one direction: toward disallowing imputation.
In making that case, the decision reads like a multitude of agency
interpretations—not the best example, but far from the worst—to
which we and other courts have routinely deferred. We see no reason
not to do so here.
Because the Board’s rejection of imputation
under §1229b(a) is “based on a permissible construction of the
statute,”
Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843, we reverse the
Ninth Circuit’s judgments and remand the cases for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
