Terrell v. INS

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
SEP 29 1998
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT
KERRY STUTHRIDGE TERRELL,
Petitioner,
v. No. 97-9525
IMMIGRATION &
NATURALIZATION SERVICE,
Respondent.
PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF
IMMIGRATION APPEALS
(BIA No. A36-185-664)
Timothy R. Bakken, Denver, Colorado, for Petitioner.
Laura Smith, Attorney (Stephen W. Funk, Senior Litigation Counsel, with her
on the brief), Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, Department of
Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
Before BALDOCK , KELLY , and HENRY , Circuit Judges.
BALDOCK , Circuit Judge.
I
Section 309 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C.
§ 1409, governs the acquisition of citizenship at birth by children born out of
wedlock and outside of the United States. See Miller v. Albright, 118 S. Ct.
1428, 1432 (1998). Aside from certain residency requirements, citizenship under
this statute through a citizen mother is established at birth. However, acquiring
INA § 309 citizenship through a citizen father requires further affirmative steps,
which must be taken before the child reaches eighteen years of age. See id.
at 1432, 1435 (quoting INA § 309(a)). Petitioner Kelly Stuthridge Terrell was
born in England on June 17, 1974; her mother is a British citizen and her father
an American citizen. She and her mother emigrated to the United States when
she was two years old and she has lived in this country continuously since that
time. At the age of eighteen, Ms. Terrell began efforts to locate her father.
Three years later she was successful. Since their initial contact in December of
1995, her father has willingly acknowledged paternity.
On July 10, 1996, deportation proceedings commenced against Ms. Terrell,
following her Nevada conviction for transporting cocaine. She sought, and was
granted, a change of venue to Colorado, based on the Colorado residency of her
husband, mother, and other relatives. See Certified Admin. R. at 154. Before the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Ms. Terrell asserted that she is
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a citizen or national of the United States pursuant to INA § 309, and that certain
provisions of that statute are unconstitutional. Alternatively, she sought a waiver
of deportation under section 212(c) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c). Following
a hearing, the immigration judge concluded that (1) Ms. Terrell did not satisfy
the requirements of INA § 309, (2) he lacked jurisdiction to determine her
constitutional challenge to that statute, and (3) she was ineligible for
discretionary relief under INA § 212(c) because of her drug conviction.
See Certified Admin. R. at 32-33. On review the Bureau of Immigration Appeals
(BIA) affirmed the immigration judge’s decision, noting that discretionary relief
under INA § 212(c) was foreclosed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act (AEDPA), which provides that such relief is unavailable to aliens
who are found deportable by reason of having committed certain enumerated
criminal offenses. See Certified Admin. R. at 2; Berehe v. INS, 114 F.3d 159,
161 (10th Cir. 1997) (citing AEDPA § 440(d)).
On May 21, 1997, Ms. Terrell filed a petition for review from the BIA’s
decision, together with a motion for stay of deportation. We granted Ms. Terrell
a stay of deportation until such time as we ruled on her petition for review, and
ordered briefing on the issues presented, including the impact of the
recently-enacted Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
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(IIRIRA) on her claims. 1 Her opening brief presented two issues: (1) the
constitutionality of INA § 309, and (2) the applicability of IIRIRA’s
jurisdictional bar to preclude review of final deportation orders and denials of
discretionary relief where aliens have committed certain enumerated criminal
offenses.
In September of 1997 we abated Ms. Terrell’s case pending decision by
the Supreme Court on certiorari to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in
Miller v. Christopher, 96 F.3d 1467 (D.C. Cir. 1996), cert. granted sub nom.
Miller v. Albright, 117 S. Ct. 1551 (1997). The Supreme Court’s decision was
filed on April 22, 1998. See Miller v. Albright, 118 S. Ct. 1428 (1998). This
court then ordered the parties to file additional briefs in light of the Supreme
Court’s decision, and the case was presented at oral argument on August 19,
1998.
1
AEDPA was subsequently amended by provisions of IIRIRA. See
Berehe , 114 F.3d at 161. Because Ms. Terrell’s deportation proceedings began
before the effective date of IIRIRA and were still pending in the agency thirty
days after that date, her case is governed by the so-called “transitional rules” of
IIRIRA. See id. The transitional rules essentially mirror the preclusive AEDPA
provision on which the BIA relied in denying Ms. Terrell’s request for
discretionary relief under INA § 212(c). See id. Additionally, IIRIRA carries
forward AEDPA’s prohibition on judicial review of any final deportation orders
against such aliens. See id. at 160-61.
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II
Ms. Terrell challenges the constitutionality of INA § 309. She contends
that the statute’s additional requirements for establishing citizenship through
a citizen father impose unequal treatment of illegitimate children on the basis
of gender and thereby violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. 2
This equal protection claim was presented to the Supreme Court in Miller v.
Albright. See 118 S. Ct. at 1433. In a plurality opinion, the Court ruled that
INA § 309 survived the petitioner’s constitutional challenge. Applying the
heightened scrutiny afforded gender bias claims under the Equal Protection
Clause, see United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 532-33 (1996), Justice
Stevens, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, concluded that the statute’s
additional requirements to establish citizenship through a citizen father are
justified by strong government interests and are well tailored to serve those
interests. See Miller, 118 S. Ct. at 1440. Justice O’Connor, joined by Justice
Kennedy in a concurring opinion, concluded that the discriminatory impact of the
2
In her opening brief, Ms. Terrell originally argued that INA § 309
violated her right to equal protection by discrimination on two separate grounds:
illegitimacy and gender. However, her arguments on the illegitimacy ground
focused on the difference between the treatment afforded illegitimate children of
citizen fathers and that afforded illegitimate children of citizen mothers. In other
words, her arguments on illegitimacy challenged only the gender-based
requirements of the statute. Neither her legal arguments nor the facts presented in
this case implicate an equal protection violation on the basis of illegitimacy alone.
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additional requirements fell on the petitioner’s father, not then a party to the
suit. 3 See id. at 1443. She opined that the petitioner could not raise her father’s
gender bias claim because she had not demonstrated a substantial hindrance to
her father’s ability to assert his own rights and, therefore, did not satisfy the
requirements of third-party standing. See id. Justice O’Connor assumed that the
petitioner had standing to challenge the constitutionality of the statute, but
concluded that her claim gave rise to review only for rational basis. See id. at
1445. She determined that the statute would survive review under the lower
standard. See id. Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, also concurred,
concluding that the petitioner’s complaint should be dismissed because the Court
had no ability to grant the relief requested: citizenship. See id. at 1449. Justices
Breyer and Ginsburg, joined by Justice Souter, authored two dissenting opinions.
Ms. Terrell asserts that, as a plurality decision, Miller provides no
guidance to this court in any event, and that the facts of her case are
distinguishable from those of the petitioner in Miller. However, we conclude
that Ms. Terrell’s case is similar to Miller in one important and dispositive
respect: Ms. Terrell’s father is not a party to this action. We agree with Justice
O’Connor that, without her father’s participation, Ms. Terrell’s gender bias claim
3
In Miller , the petitioner’s father was an original party to the action,
but was wrongly dismissed by the district court. See 118 S. Ct. at 1444.
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does not afford her the heightened scrutiny ordinarily applicable to such claims.
See id. at 1445. Ms. Terrell, relying primarily on Justice Breyer’s dissent, argues
that her claims should be afforded heightened scrutiny because the citizenship
rights at issue here are at least as important as other rights where third-party
standing has been permitted. She argues that the facts of her case satisfy the
concededly important governmental interests addressed by the statute. She also
asserts that her claim to citizenship is so closely intertwined with her father’s
gender-based claim that they are essentially the same.
Third-party standing requires not only an injury in fact and a close relation
to the third party, but also a hindrance or inability of the third party to pursue his
or her own claims. See id. at 1443 (O’Connor, J., concurring); see also S&S
Pawn Shop, Inc. v. City of Del City, 947 F.2d 432, 438 n.5 (10th Cir. 1991).
Ms. Terrell’s father has never been a party to this suit, and no hindrance to his
participation has been demonstrated. 4 Despite her arguments, Ms. Terrell does
not satisfy the requirements of third-party standing and therefore her claim does
not trigger heightened scrutiny. Further, under the rational basis standard
applicable in this case, the statute withstands Ms. Terrell’s challenge.
4
Justice Breyer’s dissent in Miller takes issue with Justice O’Connor’s
standing analysis in part because the petitioner’s father had originally been a
party but was wrongly dismissed. Justice Breyer considered the dismissal
a substantial hindrance to the father’s ability to assert his own rights. See
118 S. Ct. at 1457. No similar analysis is applicable in Ms. Terrell’s case.
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We conclude that its provisions bear a rational relation to the valid governmental
interests it seeks to promote. See Miller, 118 S. Ct. at 1445 (O’Connor, J.,
concurring). Having determined that INA § 309 survives Ms. Terrell’s
constitutional challenge, we need not comment on the INS’s conclusion that she
does not meet the requirements of the statute. Ms. Terrell does not contend
otherwise, and appears to concede the supporting facts in her briefs.
Finally, in light of Ms. Terrell’s drug conviction, we conclude that
AEDPA, as amended by IIRIRA, precludes this court from considering Ms.
Terrell’s petition for review from the BIA’s final deportation order and its
decision denying her discretionary relief under INA § 212(c). See Berehe, 114
F.3d at 161. Contrary to Ms. Terrell’s arguments, application of these statutes to
her case is not impermissibly retroactive. See Fernandez v. INS, 113 F.3d 1151,
1153 (10th Cir. 1997). Accordingly, the petition for review is DISMISSED and
the stay of deportation is VACATED.
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