Judulang v. Holder
565 U.S. 42, 2011 U.S. LEXIS 9018, 181 L. Ed. 2d 449 (2011)
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Rule of Law:
An administrative agency's policy is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act when it is not based on relevant factors tied to the purpose of the governing statute, but instead makes a determination of critical importance hinge on irrelevant, fortuitous, and capricious circumstances.
Facts:
- Joel Judulang, a native of the Philippines, entered the United States in 1974 at age eight and became a lawful permanent resident.
- In 1988, Judulang was involved in a fight where another person shot and killed someone.
- Judulang pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for his role as an accessory and received a suspended sentence with probation.
- Judulang has lived continuously in the United States since his arrival in 1974.
- In 2005, after Judulang pleaded guilty to a separate theft offense, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiated deportation proceedings against him based on his earlier manslaughter conviction.
Procedural Posture:
- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) commenced a deportation action against Judulang in a federal immigration court.
- The Immigration Judge ordered Judulang’s deportation.
- Judulang appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the administrative appellate body.
- The BIA affirmed the deportation order, holding that under its 'comparable-grounds' policy, Judulang was ineligible to apply for discretionary relief under § 212(c).
- Judulang, as petitioner, filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
- The Ninth Circuit, as the intermediate federal appellate court, denied Judulang's petition for review, upholding the BIA's policy.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted Judulang's petition for a writ of certiorari to resolve a circuit split on the policy's validity.
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Issue:
Is the Board of Immigration Appeals' 'comparable-grounds' policy, which determines a deportable alien's eligibility for discretionary relief based on whether the statutory ground for deportation has a 'substantially equivalent' statutory ground for exclusion, arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Kagan
Yes. The Board of Immigration Appeals' 'comparable-grounds' policy is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act because it hinges a deportable alien’s eligibility for discretionary relief on the chance correspondence between statutory categories, which is a matter irrelevant to the alien’s fitness to reside in the United States. The policy fails to provide a reasoned explanation for its action, as required by the APA. The Court reasoned that the policy makes eligibility for relief turn on an irrelevant comparison of statutory provisions rather than factors germane to the deportation decision. Whether a deportation ground's set of offenses lines up with an exclusion ground's set of offenses has no bearing on the alien's prior crime or personal circumstances, making the distinction arbitrary. The policy also creates further arbitrariness because an alien's eligibility can depend on the happenstance of which deportation ground an immigration official chooses to charge, leading to disparate outcomes for identically situated individuals.
Analysis:
This decision reaffirms the core principle of 'reasoned decision-making' required of administrative agencies under the APA's 'arbitrary and capricious' standard. It clarifies that even when an agency is operating in a complex or text-free statutory area, its policies must still be rationally connected to the purpose of the law. The ruling invalidates a specific, longstanding BIA policy and requires the agency to devise a new, rational method for determining eligibility for § 212(c) relief. This case serves as a strong precedent against agency policies that rely on fortuitous or random criteria, emphasizing that administrative efficiency cannot justify an irrational process, especially when fundamental rights are at stake.
