UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ITECH US, INC., Plaintiff, v. Case No. 19-cv-3352 (CRC) KENNETH T. CUCCINELLI, II, Acting Director, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION Vermont-based information technology company iTech U.S., Inc. filed a form I-140 “Immigration Petition for Alien Worker” with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) in the hopes of obtaining a visa for a prospective employee. USCIS initially approved the petition but later revoked it, citing purported discrepancies in the name of the school that granted the employee’s engineering degree. Decrying the seemingly picayune grounds for the agency’s about face, iTech now seeks judicial review of the revocation under the Administrative Procedure Act. In so doing, however, iTech swims against a tide of authority from no fewer than nine circuits and four fellow courts in this district holding that Congress placed visa revocation decisions like this one within the unreviewable discretion of the executive branch. Going with the (considerable) flow, the Court will grant the government’s motion to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction. * * * As the government argues in its motion, the Court lacks jurisdiction to consider iTech’s claim because two interlocking sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C. § 1101, et seq., preclude judicial review. The first, § 1252(a)(2), provides: (B) Denials of discretionary relief Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory) . . . 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, or (ii) any other decision or action of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority for which is specified under this subchapter to be in the discretion of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security . . . . The second, § 1155, states: The Secretary of Homeland Security may, at any time, for what he deems to be good and sufficient cause, revoke the approval of any petition approved by him under section 1154 of this title. It is undisputed that I-140 petitions are among the petitions that fall within the Secretary’s § 1155 revocation authority and that the Secretary has delegated that authority to USCIS. See 6 U.S.C. § 271(b)(1); 8 C.F.R. § 205.2(a). Under the plain text of the above provisions, the Secretary’s ability to revoke a I-140 petition “at any time” and for any reason he “deems to be good and sufficient cause” renders USCIS’s revocation decision “discretionary” under § 1155. Section 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), in turn, deprives the Court of jurisdiction to review the decision. The Court is far from alone in reaching this conclusion. Although one could say there is a “split” among the circuits as to whether these INA provisions deprive courts of jurisdiction to consider challenges to petition-revocation decisions, “the balance of authority is so heavily weighted to one side as to almost tip over the scale.” Karakenyan v. USCIS, No. CV 20-346 (JEB), 2020 WL ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals