Jaen v. Sessions
Opinion
POOLER, Circuit Judge:
*184 On April 15, 2015, Levy Alberto Jaen was served with a Notice to Appear charging him with removability under Sections 237(a)(1)(B) and 237(a)(2)(B)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"). 1 During the immigration proceedings that followed, both before the Immigration Judge ("IJ") and the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"), Jaen repeatedly raised the issue of citizenship, claiming that he was a United States citizen and therefore unremovable. On April 13, 2018, this Court filed an order granting Jaen's petition for review, determining that he is a United States citizen and not subject to immigration detention or removal. The order effectuated his release from immigration detention, terminated all removal proceedings against him, and indicated an opinion would follow.
We hold today that Jaen acquired United States citizenship at birth through his United States citizen parent, Jorge Boreland, the husband of his mother and his legal parent under the relevant section of the INA.
BACKGROUND
Jaen was born on May 12, 1972 in Panama. At the time of Jaen's birth, his mother, Leticia Rogers Boreland, was married to a man named Jorge Boreland, who had been born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1927 and became a naturalized United States citizen in 1961. Jaen's Panamanian birth certificate, however, lists Liberato Jaen as his father, a man with whom Leticia had an extramarital relationship during her marriage to Jorge. Leticia and Jorge were married in 1952, had seven children together prior to the birth of Jaen (three of whom were born in Panama, four of whom were born in the United States), and *185 remained married for approximately 47 years until Jorge died in 1999.
Jaen lived in Panama with his grandparents until he entered the United States on a nonimmigrant visa on May 8, 1988 at the age of 15. He was raised as the youngest child of the Boreland family and has remained in the United States since his 1988 entry.
In 2008, Jaen was convicted of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fourth degree under New York state law. In 2014, he was convicted of a second controlled substance violation in New York. While he was serving his sentence for the second conviction, Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") served Jaen with a Notice to Appear, charging him with removability.
Jaen appeared pro se in his initial appearances before the IJ, but repeatedly raised the issue of his citizenship. The first IJ to hear Jaen's case determined that Jaen was not a citizen, but permitted him to pursue other relief in later proceedings. Jaen's case was then transferred to a different immigration court before a different IJ, where Jaen was represented by his present counsel. On October 18, 2016, Jaen's counsel filed a motion to terminate removal proceedings on the basis of Jaen's acquired United States citizenship. The IJ orally denied the motion during a hearing on November 23 and issued a written decision on December 8. The BIA affirmed that decision and order on May 2, 2017. Jaen remained in immigration detention for the entire duration of his immigration proceedings and subsequent appeals until our Court ordered his release on April 13, 2018.
DISCUSSION
For reasons explained below, the sole question presented in this appeal is whether Jorge Boreland was Jaen's "parent" for the purposes of having acquired United States citizenship at birth under former INA § 301(a)(7),
I. Standard of Review
We are tasked with statutory interpretation, which presents a question of law we review de novo.
See
INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca
,
II. Statutory Basis of Citizenship Claim
"There are two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization."
Miller v. Albright
,
"Citizenship of a person born abroad is determined by law in effect at the time of birth."
3
Hizam v. Kerry
,
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
[...]
(7) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided , That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States by such citizen parent may be included in computing the physical presence requirements of this paragraph.
Special App'x at 11. In order to establish a claim to citizenship, Jaen must demonstrate *187 that he meets these conditions prescribed by the law in effect at the time of his birth.
The IJ declined to decide whether Jaen fulfilled the "remaining requirements" (e.g., the physical presence requirement for Jaen's putative U.S. citizen parent), Special App'x at 7, but the government does not contest Jaen's claim that the other requirements are satisfied. Because the government does not argue that Jaen fails to meet the other requirements, the government abandoned its challenge to those portions of the citizenship criteria.
See
Zhang v. Gonzales
,
III. "Parent" in Former
Jorge Boreland is not the biological father of Jaen. The government argues that this fact disqualifies him from transmitting citizenship to Jaen via former Section 1401(a)(7) because "neither of [Jaen's] parents at the time of his birth was a United States citizen." Appellee's Br. at 9. Jaen disagrees with this characterization of the statute and argues that he was "born to a parent, Jorge Boreland, who was a United States citizen at the time of Mr. Jaen's birth." Appellant's Br. at 9. Jaen's claim to U.S. citizenship is thus dependent on the meaning of the word "parent" in former Section 1401(a)(7).
"When interpreting a statutory provision, we begin with the language of the statute." Nwozuzu , 726 F.3d at 327. The section of the statute under which Jaen hopes to acquire citizenship speaks only of "parents" and does not further define the term. The only other relevant section of the 1952 version of the INA (the operative version at the time of Jaen's birth) is the definition section, but that section only defines "parent" for purposes of the relevant Title as including "in the case of a posthumous child a deceased parent, father, and mother." INA § 101(c)(2). There is no further definition of the term "parent" in the INA. 4
But any apparent ambiguity is foreclosed by one of our most foundational principles of statutory construction. Though the statute itself does not explicitly define the term "parent" for purposes of this section, the term may carry with it a more fulsome definition, because
It is a well-established rule of construction that where Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled meaning under the common law, a court must *188 infer, unless the statute otherwise dictates, that Congress means to incorporate the established meaning of these terms.
Neder v. United States
,
Congress borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed.
Sekhar v. United States
,
Jaen argues that "parent" in Section 1401 incorporates the common law presumption of legitimacy-and hence, lawful parentage-when a child is born into a marital union. This presumption is articulated in Blackstone's Commentaries in the Latin phrase, "Pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant."
5
1 William Blackstone, Commentaries *434. More recently, the presumption was articulated in the Supreme Court's analysis of parentage and legitimacy in
Michael H. v. Gerald D.
,
Given the statute's use of a term with centuries-old, common law meaning and its failure to articulate any additional or alternative definition of "parent" specific to this Section of the INA, it is clear to us that Congress incorporated the common law meaning of "parent" into the INA. When it did so, it therefore incorporated the longstanding presumption of parentage based on marriage.
This interpretation is buttressed by our analysis of "the placement and purpose of [the term] in the statutory scheme," including an appreciation of "how sections relate to one another."
Cruz-Miguel v. Holder
,
"Where Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion."
Russello v. United States
,
Having ruled thus, we need not consider Jaen's alternative argument that Jorge Boreland was his "parent" under New York State law.
8
Yet were we to do so, the result would be the same, for New York state-like many states-incorporates the common law presumption of parentage into its domestic relations law.
9
New York state law expressly provides that a child "born of parents who prior or subsequent to the birth of such child shall have entered into a civil or religious marriage ... in the manner authorized by the law of the place where such marriage takes place, is the legitimate child of both birth parents." N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law 24(1) (McKinney 2008). New York courts have declared the presumption of legitimacy to be "one of the strongest and most persuasive
*190
known to the law,"
In re Findlay
,
Though this is a question of first impression in our Circuit, we are not alone in reaching the conclusion that a blood relationship is not required to establish parentage for purposes of acquired citizenship when the child is born into marriage.
See
Scales v. INS
,
CONCLUSION
We hold that Jorge Boreland, a U.S. citizen, was the parent of Levy Alberto Jaen, who acquired United States citizenship from his father at birth. The principle guiding this decision-that a child born into a legal marriage is presumed to be the child of the marriage-is a lasting one, with deep roots in the common law. In each iteration, this presumption has reflected the traditional "aversion to declaring children illegitimate," as well as an interest in promoting familial tranquillity through deference to the marital family.
Id
. at 124-25,
The petition for review is GRANTED and all removal proceedings against Jaen are TERMINATED.
POOLER, Circuit Judge:
I write separately to observe that though this decision rests upon perennial principles-in other words, no grand innovation of law undergirds our decision today-the government sought a summary affirmance of the IJ's erroneous decision below and chose to detain Jaen for the entirety of this appellate process. 1 I am *191 troubled by these choices, particularly given the legal question at issue-Is Jaen a U.S. citizen?-whose affirmative answer has resulted in the United States government holding a United States citizen in immigration detention for nearly two years. 2
Specifically, Jaen was charged with removability for overstaying his visitor visa,
Our cases have not always been so clear on the standard of review regarding citizenship claims in the context of removal proceedings. Though most of our decisions have embraced de novo review on the basis of the statute's explicit designation of courts of appeals as the forum for these nationality claims,
see, e.g.
,
Persaud v. Sessions
,
Given the difficulty in determining the exact statute in effect at any given moment in time and given any different combination of factual scenarios, USCIS has published charts to help petitioners identify the criteria for their particular claim to citizenship. See, e.g. , USCIS Policy Manual, Appendix: Children Born Outside the United States in Wedlock (Nationality Chart 1), https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Appendix-Nationality1.html.
The government urges us to rely on USCIS Policy Manuals and the Foreign Affairs Manual ("FAM") of the Department of State as alternative sources of definitions demonstrating that a biological relationship is required for acquired citizenship. These manuals are not entitled to
Chevron
deference from our Court.
Cruz-Miguel
,
The nuptials show who is the father.
Jaen observes that current
That distinction persisted in the present version of the law, until the Supreme Court held in
Sessions v. Morales-Santana
that the gender-based distinctions in residency requirements violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Court held that unwed citizen mothers and fathers must be held to the same residency requirements in order to transmit citizenship to their children. --- U.S. ----,
We have occasionally looked to state law for definitions of domestic relations terms in the INA.
See, e.g.
,
Nguyen v. Holder
,
On this question, our analysis is aided by a thorough amicus brief from family law professors with expertise in this area.
Though we need only hold on the common law interpretation for the matter to be settled, New York's incorporation of the common law understanding of parentage makes our analysis between the two areas relatively fluid.
The Certified Administrative Record ("CAR") reflects the attempt of Jaen's counsel to secure his release through a bond hearing premised on our now-abrogated decision in
Lora v. Shanahan
,
Unfortunately, Jaen's case does not seem to be entirely aberrational. See, e.g. , Paige St. John and Joel Rubin, ICE held an American man in custody for 1, 273 days. He's not the only one who had to prove his citizenship , L.A. Times, Apr. 27, 2018 (reporting that "[s]ince 2012, ICE has released from its custody more than 1,480 people after investigating their citizenship claims").
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Levy Alberto JAEN, Petitioner, v. Jefferson B. SESSIONS III, United States Attorney General, Respondent.
- Cited By
- 17 cases
- Status
- Published