The Immigration and Nationality Act permits qualifying U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to petition for certain family members to obtain immigrant visas. A sponsored individual, known as the principal beneficiary, is placed into a “family preference” category based on his relationship with the petitioner. The principal beneficiary’s spouse and minor children in turn qualify as derivative beneficiaries, “entitled to the same status” and “order of consideration” as the principal. The beneficiaries, including derivative beneficiaries, become eligible to apply for visas in order of “priority date,” i.e., the date a petition was filed. Because the immigration process often takes years or decades to complete, a child seeking to immigrate may “age out”—reach adulthood and lose her immigration status as a derivative beneficiary—before she reaches the front of the visa queue. The Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) sets forth a remedy in that circumstance, providing that “[i]f the age of an alien is determined . . . to be 21 years of age or older . . . the alien’s petition shall automatically be converted to the appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original priority date issued upon receipt of the original petition.”
The Board of Immigration Appeals, which hears appeals regarding immigration determinations, interpreted automatic conversion under the CSPA as applying only to those petitions that can be seamlessly converted from one family preference category to another without the need for a new sponsor. The parents of several aged-out children challenged that interpretation, and the Ninth Circuit reversed the Board’s decision.
In Scialabba v. Cuellar de Ossorio, the Supreme Court reversed by a plurality decision. Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Kennedy and Ginsburg, concluded that the Board’s textually reasonable construction of the CSPA’s ambiguous language was entitled to deference under Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., which held that federal courts must defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. According to the Court, the CSPA is ambiguous because its two clauses are not easily reconciled: the first clause provides for a condition that encompasses every aged-out beneficiary, whereas the second clause prescribes a remedy that can apply to only a subset of the beneficiaries described in the first. According to the Court, the ambiguity created by the CSPA’s ill-fitting clauses left the Board to choose how to reconcile the statute’s different commands. Because the Board reasonably opted to abide by the inherent limits of the CSPA’s remedial clause, rather than go beyond those limits so as to match the sweep of the first clause’s condition, the Court deferred to its judgment as required under Chevron.
Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justice Scalia, concurred that the Board’s interpretation was reasonable, but not under Chevron. Rather, under Chief Justice Robert’s reading the clauses of the CSPA are not ambiguous at all: “Direct conflict is not ambiguity, and the resolution of such conflict is not statutory construction but legislative choice.” Here, the first clause defines the persons potentially affected, but does not grant anything to anyone. The particular benefit provided by the statute—automatic conversion and retention of priority date—is found exclusively in the second clause, which requires that an aged-out beneficiary have her own eligible sponsor who is committed to providing financial support for the beneficiary.
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Breyer and by Justice Thomas in part, as well as Justice Alito, dissented. According to Justice Sotomayor, the CSPA is not ambiguous at all: Aged-out children may retain their priority dates so long as they meet a single condition—they must be “determined . . . to be 21 years of age or older for purposes of” derivative beneficiary status. Absent ambiguity in the statute, Justice Sotomayor rejected the plurality’s contention that the Board is due any deference in its interpretation. And because the Board’s interpretation directly contradicts the statute’s guaranties, she would affirm the Ninth Circuit.
The Court’s decision may affect thousands of aged-out derivative beneficiaries, complicating and extending the already labyrinthine process of legal immigration and naturalization for many people and possibly separating family members.