Erika Mathews v. USCIS, Miami , 458 F. App'x 831 ( 2012 )

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-11126 FEBRUARY 21, 2012
Non-Argument Calendar JOHN LEY
________________________ CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 1:10-cv-20014-DLG
ERIKA MATHEWS,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
USCIS, MIAMI, DHS DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY,
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Defendants-Appellants,
U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE,
Respondent.
__________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
_________________________
(February 21, 2012)
Before CARNES, BARKETT and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Erika Mathews on
her Administrative Procedure Act claim against the U.S. Attorney General, the
Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services (collectively, “the government”). That claim followed the denial of a visa
petition Matthews’ adoptive father had filed on her behalf. The government
appeals, contending that the district court erred when it ordered the Board of
Immigration Appeals to honor a state court’s nunc pro tunc modification of an
adoption date because the district court did not give proper deference to the BIA’s
interpretation of the relevant immigration statute.
I.
Erika Mathews was born in Peru on January 28, 1987. She entered the
United States with her biological parents as a nonimmigrant visitor in 1993. In
1999 an immigration judge ordered Mathews and her biological parents deported
to Peru, and in 2002 the BIA affirmed that decision. Later in 2002, Mathews’
maternal aunt and her United States citizen husband, Jeffrey Rich, filed a petition
in Florida court to terminate the parental rights of Mathews’ biological parents
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pending adoption, which the Florida court granted on January 22, 2003. The
Florida court entered a final judgment of adoption on March 27, 2003.1
In 2005 Rich filed a Form I-130 Petition for Alien Relative on Mathews’
behalf. In 2008 USCIS denied that petition, finding that because the final
judgment of adoption occurred after Mathews’ sixteenth birthday, she did not
qualify as Rich’s child under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(b)(1)(E)(i). Rich filed a notice of
appeal to the BIA, noting that he was applying for a nunc pro tunc order so that
the final adoption date would be amended to a date before Mathews’ sixteenth
birthday. A Florida court granted that application, amending the date of the final
judgment of adoption to January 23, 2003, five days before Mathews’ sixteenth
birthday. Despite the nunc pro tunc date change, the BIA affirmed the USCIS’
finding that Mathews was not Rich’s child under § 1101(b)(1)(E)(i) because Rich
had not adopted Matthews before her sixteenth birthday. The BIA relied on two
of its prior published decisions in reaching that conclusion. See Matter of Drigo,
18 I. & N. Dec. 223 (BIA 1982); Matter of Cariaga, 15 I. & N. Dec. 716 (BIA
1976).
1
Under Florida law, adoption is complete upon entry of the final judgment of adoption.
See In re Amendments to the Fla. Supreme Court Approved Family Law Forms, 20 So. 3d 173,
302 (Fla. 2009) (“This Final Judgment of Adoption creates a relationship between the adoptee(s)
and Petitioner and all relatives of Petitioner that would have existed if the adoptee(s) was (were)
a blood descendant of the Petitioner, born within wedlock, entitled to all rights and privileges
thereof, and subject to all obligations of a child being born to Petitioner.”).
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Mathews then filed a complaint in federal district court requesting relief
under the APA. She alleged that the USCIS’ actions were “arbitrary, capricious,
an abuse of discretion, or otherwise unlawful” because the agency failed to honor
the Florida state court order that changed the adoption date. After cross-motions
for summary judgment, the district court agreed. It granted Mathews’ motion for
summary judgment, “reverse[d] the BIA’s decision,” and remanded the matter to
the BIA with instructions for the board to give deference to the nunc pro tunc
adoption date. This appeal followed.
II.
We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment.
Warshauer v. Solis, 577 F.3d 1330, 1335 (11th Cir. 2009). Summary judgment is
appropriate “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any
material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R.
Civ. P. 56(a). Under de novo review, we defer to the BIA’s interpretation of an
ambiguous or silent statute it administers unless that interpretation is
unreasonable. See Castillo-Arias v. U.S. Attorney Gen., 446 F.3d 1190, 1195
(11th Cir. 2006); see also Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc.,
467 U.S. 837, 844, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2782 (1984); Chen v. U.S. Attorney Gen., 565
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F.3d 805, 809 (11th Cir. 2009). “The degree of deference is especially great in the
field of immigration.” Chen, 565 F.3d at 809 (quotation marks omitted).
Under the APA, we review agency decisions to determine if they are
“arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with
law.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). That standard “provides the reviewing court with
very limited discretion to reverse an agency decision,” Warshauer, 577 F.3d at
1335 (quotation marks omitted), and is “exceedingly deferential,” Fund for
Animals, Inc. v. Rice, 85 F.3d 535, 541 (11th Cir. 1996).
III.
A United States citizen may file a petition seeking to confer immigration
status upon a “child,” as that term is defined under immigration law. 8 U.S.C.
§ 1154(a)(1)(A)(i). A “child” includes “a child adopted while under the age of
sixteen years if the child has been in the legal custody of, and has resided with, the
adopting parent or parents for at least two years.” Id. § 1101(b)(1)(E)(i). A U.S.
citizen may file a visa petition on behalf of an adopted son or daughter “if the
adoption took place before the beneficiary’s sixteenth birthday.” 8 C.F.R. §
204.2(d)(2)(vii). It is the petitioner’s burden to establish by a preponderance of
the evidence that the beneficiary is fully qualified for the visa. 8 U.S.C. § 1361.
5
The BIA has addressed the issues of retroactive adoption and nunc pro tunc
amendment of adoption dates. In Matter of Cariaga, 15 I. & N. Dec. 716, 717
(BIA 1976), the BIA gave a literal interpretation to the adoption age restriction in
8 C.F.R. § 204.2(d)(2)(vii) and required that the “act of adoption must occur”
before the child reached the statutory age. The BIA determined that Congress’
intent was to avoid fraudulent adoptions, which warranted a strict reading of the
age restriction. See id. at 716–17. Thus, despite a retroactive adoption decree, the
BIA held that an adoptive relationship was not created for purposes of
immigration law when the “beneficiary was adopted . . . at age nineteen.” Id. at
717. In Matter of Drigo, 18 I. & N. Dec. 223 (BIA 1982), the BIA applied Cariaga
and specifically rejected nunc pro tunc backdating of adoption decrees. Id. at
223–24.
Here, the BIA followed its own precedent and interpreted 8 U.S.C.
§ 1101(b)(1)(E)(i) to require Mathews’ actual adoption to have occurred before
her sixteenth birthday regardless of the nunc pro tunc amendment of her adoption
date. Because that interpretation is reasonable, the district court should have
deferred to it and concluded that the BIA’s decision to deny Mathews a visa was
not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance
with law.
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Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to
Mathews and remand with instructions for the district court to grant the
government’s motion for summary judgment.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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