FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit PUBLISH November 24, 2020 Christopher M. Wolpert UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Clerk of Court TENTH CIRCUIT LT. COL. PATRICK SCHREIBER, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. No. 18-3215 KENNETH T. CUCCINELLI, Acting Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; DAVID DOUGLAS, District Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; CHAD F. WOLF, Acting Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; WILLIAM BARR, Attorney General, the U.S. Department of Justice, * Defendants - Appellees, _______________________________ CHILDREN AND FAMILY LAW CENTER; ADOPTEE RIGHTS CAMPAIGN, Amici Curiae. * Plaintiff commenced his lawsuit against certain specified federal- agency defendants in their official capacities. The listed Defendant-Appellees reflect the automatic substitution of officials pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c)(2). Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Kansas (D.C. No. 2:17-CV-02371-DDC-JPO) Robert D. Friedman, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (Rekha Sharma-Crawford, Sharma-Crawford, Attorneys at Law, LLC; Joshua A. Geltzer, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, with him on the briefs), Washington, D.C., for Plaintiff-Appellant. T. Monique Peoples, Senior Litigation Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Immigration Litigation (Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice; William C. Peachey, Director, Office of Immigration Litigation; Elianis N. Perez, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, with her on the brief), Washington, D.C., for Defendants-Appellees. Before TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge, BALDOCK, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges. HOLMES, Circuit Judge. This case presents the issue of whether a father’s adopted child can qualify as his “legitimated” child for purposes of § 101(b)(1)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“Act”), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(b)(1)(C), when the child is not his biological child. The Act provides, in relevant part, that “an unmarried person under twenty-one years of age” qualifies as a “legitimated” child if she is “legitimated under the law of [her] residence or domicile, or under the law of [her] father’s residence or domicile,” and if “[her] legitimation takes place before 2 [she] reaches the age of eighteen years.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(b)(1)(C). The parties agree that the Act looks to state law to determine how a parent may legitimate an eligible child (that is to say, for the legal procedures through which legitimation may be effected). But they disagree over whether the Act also looks to state law to define whom (i.e., which children) a parent may legitimate. Accordingly, we must now decide whether the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”)—that is, the federal agency charged with ultimately interpreting the Act—erred in ruling that, because it is implicit in the concept of legitimation that a parent may legitimate only his biological children, the Act need not and does not look to state law to see whether parents may legitimate someone other than their biological children. Like the district court, we determine that the BIA correctly interpreted the Act’s plain meaning and, thus, did not err in ruling that a parent’s non-biological child may not be his “legitimated” child within the meaning of the Act. We also hold that the district ...
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