In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 19-1642 JORGE BAEZ-SANCHEZ, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. ____________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals. No. A206 017 181. ____________________ ARGUED JANUARY 15, 2020 — DECIDED JANUARY 23, 2020 ____________________ Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. Jorge Baez-Sanchez, a citizen of Mexico, is removable as a criminal alien. His conviction for aggravated ba]ery of a police officer renders him inad- missible. 8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I). He applied to the De- partment of Homeland Security for a U visa, which would allow him to remain in the United States. The U visa is avail- able to some admissible aliens who have been victims of 2 No. 19-1642 crime in this country. Baez-Sanchez asked the immigration judge assigned to his case to grant him a waiver of inadmis- sibility, which would allow the Department of Homeland Security to rule favorably on his visa application. A statute, 8 U.S.C. §1182(d)(3)(A)(ii), permits the A]orney General to waive an alien’s inadmissibility. Exercising that authority, an immigration judge twice granted the request for waiver. Af- ter the initial grant, the Board of Immigration Appeals re- manded with instructions to consider an additional issue. The immigration judge did so and reaffirmed her decision. On appeal to the Board, the Department of Homeland Security contended that the immigration judge erred in find- ing that Baez-Sanchez had shown the extraordinary circum- stances needed to justify a waiver and had abused her dis- cretion in light of Baez-Sanchez’s criminal history and other negative equities. The Board did not address either conten- tion. Instead, relying on Ma6er of Khan, 26 I&N Dec. 797 (BIA 2016), the Board concluded that the power to waive inadmis- sibility belongs to the A]orney General alone and may not be exercised by immigration judges. On petition for review, we held that 8 C.F.R. §1003.10(a) permits immigration judges to exercise all of the A]orney General’s powers, except those expressly reserved by some other regulation. Baez-Sanchez v. Sessions, 872 F.3d 854 (7th Cir. 2017). No other regulation withdraws from immigration judges the power under §1182(d)(3)(A)(ii), which means that the BIA erred. See also L.D.G. v. Holder, 744 F.3d 1022 (7th Cir. 2014). Because the Board had not addressed any other question, principles of administrative law meant that we could not do so either. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 87–88 (1943). No. 19-1642 3 We remanded with instructions to consider two possibilities that the A]orney General had raised in defense of the Board’s decision: first, that some statute, regulation, or reor- ganization plan transferred to the Secretary the A]orney General’s power to waive inadmissibility; second, that the power to waive inadmissibility may be exercised only in fa- vor of aliens who apply from outside the United States. 872 F.3d at 856–57. We added that the Board also (or perhaps in- stead) could “decide whether to exercise in ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals