Ayla Erler v. Yashar Erler


FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION MAR 17 2020 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT AYLA ERLER, No. 18-16703 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 3:12-cv-02793-CRB v. MEMORANDUM* YASHAR ERLER, Defendant-Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Charles R. Breyer, District Judge, Presiding Submitted February 4, 2020** San Francisco, California Before: PAEZ and BEA, Circuit Judges, and JACK,*** District Judge. Ayla Erler, a citizen of Turkey, appeals the district court’s decision to reduce the amount of the support payment her former husband, Yashar Erler, must pay her * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Janis Graham Jack, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas, sitting by designation. pursuant to the I-864 Affidavit of Support, which he signed to sponsor her admission into the United States as part of her immigration process. The district court determined Yashar Erler must provide support necessary to maintain Ayla Erler at an income of at least 125 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines for her one-person household. See 8 U.S.C. § 1183a(a)(1); 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(4)(C)(ii); 8 C.F.R. § 213a.2. The district court decided that both the value of Ayla Erler’s Turkish pension and the value of the food stamps she received from the State of California, after the couple separated, qualify as income to her and reduce the amount Yashar Erler must pay to maintain her income of at least 125 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines for the years with which the district court dealt. We review a district court’s ruling on summary judgment de novo. San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Auth. v. Jewell, 747 F.3d 581, 601 (9th Cir. 2014). Ayla Erler argues her Turkish pension does not qualify as income because (1) it is non-taxable for the purposes of federal income tax reporting, pursuant to a treaty between the United States and Turkey, (2) the pension payments are deposited into a bank account in Turkey and remain in Turkey, and (3) the couple did not list this asset on Form I-864, Part 7, in 2009 to show that Yashar Erler’s household income would be sufficient to sponsor her. 2 First, Ayla Erler cites to 8 C.F.R. § 213a.2(c) to support her argument that income not subject to federal taxation cannot be included in calculating her income post-separation from Yashar Erler. Section § 213a.2(c), however, applies only to determine whether a sponsor’s household income is sufficient to sponsor an immigrant, not to calculate the sponsored immigrant’s income post-separation. Second, income paid into, or held in, an account outside the United States is not necessarily excluded from the sponsored immigrant’s income, and Ayla Erler does not cite binding or persuasive authority to support her argument. The value of her Turkish pension ...

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