THE TYRANNY OF PRIORITY DATES

by
Gary Endelman * and Cyrus D. Mehta **

And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to
conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as a leader in the introduction of changes. 1

The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice...2

I. INTRODUCTION

The Immigration Act of 1924 3 is rightly condemned for the invidious system of national-origin
quotas that discriminated against Jews and Catholics from Southern and Eastern Europe. 4 Likewise the

Copyright©2010, Gary Endelman and Cyrus D. Mehta. All rights reserved.

*
Gary Endelman obtained a B.A. in History from the University of Virginia, a Ph.D. in United States History from the
University of Delaware, and a J.D. from the University of Houston. From 1985 to 1995, he worked in the private practice of
Immigration and Nationality Law. From 1995 to present, he has worked as the in-house counsel for BP America Inc. and BP
handling all U.S. immigration matters. Dr. Endelman is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law. He is a
frequent speaker and writer on immigration related topics including a column on immigration law. He served as a senior
editor of the national conference handbook published by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) for a
decade. In July 2005, Dr. Endelman testified before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee on comprehensive
immigration reform. Dr. Endelman is the author of SOLIDARITY FOREVER: ROSE SCHNEIDERMAN AND THE WOMEN'S TRADE
UNION MOVEMENT published in 1978 by Arno Press. All opinions expressed herein are the personal views of Gary
Endelman and do not represent those of BP or BP America Inc. in any way.
**
Cyrus D. Mehta, a graduate of Cambridge University and Columbia Law School, is the Managing Member of Cyrus D.
Mehta & Associates, PLLC in New York City. Mr. Mehta is the Chair of the AILA’s National Pro Bono Committee and is
also the Co-Chair of the AILA-NY Chapter Pro Bono Committee. He is a former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the
American Immigration Law Foundation (2004-2006). He was also the Secretary and member of the Executive Committee
(2003-2007) and the Chair of the Committee on Immigration and Nationality Law (2000-2003) of the New York City Bar.
He is a frequent speaker and writer on various immigration-related issues, and is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of
Law at Brooklyn Law School, where he teaches a course entitled “Immigration and Work.” All opinions expressed herein
are the personal views of Cyrus D. Mehta and do not represent those of the organizations he has been part of in the past and
presently.
1
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, THE PRINCE 21 (Charles W. Eliot ed., N. H. Thomson trans., The Harvard Classics, P. F. Colier &
Son 1910) (1532).
2
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Aug. 16, 1967, http://www-
personal.umich.edu/~gmarkus/MLK_WhereDoWeGo.pdf.
3
43 Stat. 153 (1924).
4
See id. at § 11 for the numerical limitations of the Act. This section used the American population of 1890 as the basis for
visa limitations. This was before the mass migration of Jews and Catholics to the United States. The quota for immigrants
entering the country was set at two percent of the total of any given nation's residents in the United States as reported in the
1890 census. After July 1, 1927, the two percent rule gave way to an overall cap of 150,000 immigrants annually and quotas
determined by “national origins” as revealed in the 1920 census. According to the SELECT COMM’N ON IMMIGRATION AND
REFUGEE POLICY, Staff Report 161-216 (1981): “[T]he Immigration Act of 1924 clearly represented a rejection of one of
[the] longest-lived democratic traditions in the United States, represented by George Washington’s view that the United
States should ever be “an asylum to the oppressed and the needy of the earth.” See ALEINIKOFF, MARTIN, MOTOMURA &
FULLERTON, IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP – PROCESS AND POLICY (6th ed. Thomson/West). The Commissioner of
Immigration could report, one year after this legislation took effect, that virtually all immigrants now “looked” exactly like
Americans. Abraham Lincoln’s fear that when the “know-nothings” gained control of American policy they would rewrite

1
1965 Immigration Act, 5 which abolished this system, is justly celebrated as a civil rights measure that
opened up the United States to global migration for the first time. Recent developments with respect to
the priority date system, however, threaten to reverse this progress as a practical matter.

The whole idea of priority dates is not to prevent immigration but to regulate it. That is not what
is happening today. If you are from Mexico or the Philippines, the family-based quotas delay
permanent migration to the United States to such an extent that it is virtually blocked. 6 The categories
might just as well not exist for most people. If you are from China or India with an advanced degree,
the implosion of the employment-based second preference (EB-2) and third Preference (EB-3)
categories 7 does not regulate your coming permanently to the United States; it makes it functionally
impossible. While the bonds that unite family members can be expected to survive many years of
waiting, and even this is painfully excruciating, how many employers will wait a decade for an
engineer or geophysicist? Will the business need still exist by the time the priority date becomes
current? Will the business itself? In a labor certification case, what relevancy will a determination of

the Declaration of Independence seemed to be coming true. Abraham Lincoln’s fear is a warning that deserves to be quoted
in full:

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of
[N]egroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty
rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are
created equal, except [N]egroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal,
except [N]egroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country
where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and
without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN: AUGUST 24, 1855 LETTER TO JOSHUA SPEED (Roy
Basler ed., Rutgers Univ. Press 1955) (1855) (Emphasis in original). To keep in perspective why quotas matter and what
these quotas actually mean, had it not been for the national origin quotas, America may have been able to take in refugees
from Nazi Germany rather than allowing them to perish in the Holocaust.
5
Amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, Pub. L. No. 89-236, 79 Stat. 911 (1965). Our immigration laws tell
us much about the psyche of the nation itself. The 1952 Act, notable for its many ideological grounds of exclusion, reflected
the harsh suspicion and garrison mentality of the Cold War. See Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Pub. L. No. 82-
414, 66 Stat. 163 (1952). The 1965 Act, passed the same year as the Voting Rights Act and only one year after the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, was the confident expression of a prosperous nation. Now, America does not know what it wants and is
caught between the implacable realities of the global marketplace and the primordial urge to resist change by holding on to a
domestic world view that is fading fast. The authors pay homage to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) for
ushering the 1965 Act that eliminated the racist national origin quotas and changed the face of America. The “Lion of the
Senate” remained steadfastly committed to immigration reform and due process until the time of his death on August 25,
2009. As the floor manager for the 1965 Act in the Senate, he played a crucial role in its enactment.
6
For instance, the U.S. Department of State’s Visa Bulletin for April 2010, the latest that was available at the time of writing
this article, indicates that the cut-off dates for family-based third preference for Mexico and the Philippines are 10/15/1992
and 3/1/1992 respectively, while the cut-off date for the rest of the world is 5/22/01. See U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, 19 VISA
BULLETIN IX: APR. 2010, Mar. 09, 2010, http://www.travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_4747.html.
7
See INA § 203(b)(2) and § 203(b)(3) [8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(2) and § 1153(b)(3) (2006)]. Charles Oppenheim of the
Department of State Visa Office advised AILA in June 2009 that the EB-2 India preference for India, which had already
retrogressed to January 1, 2000, would likely become unavailable in August or September 2009. It is a measure of the times
that, when the EB-2 for India leapfrogged three years to January 2003 in the August Visa Bulletin, and then to January 8,
2005 in the September Visa Bulletin, such forward movement was greeted with an almost audible sigh of relief, even though
the holy grail of a current priority date remained a shimmering mirage. See AILA Infonet, Department of State Advises of
Dire State of Affairs on Visa Number Availability for Those Born in India or China!, Doc. No. 09061032, June 10, 2009,
http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=29231.

2
unavailability concerning qualified American workers retain after such a long wait?

It is a standard of civil rights law that measures not designed to discriminate may still be found
violative of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection if their impact disproportionately
disadvantages suspect classes such as race, gender or ethnicity. 8 While we realize that there is no
parallel claim that an immigrant might have against such quotas, is this not the same discriminatory
system we have now in immigration? Is it not the case that, far from regulating immigration, the all-
powerful priority date is, in effect, a national origins quota against China, India, Mexico and the
Philippines? Is it not the case that restrictions against the H-1B visa, so heavily used by Chinese and
Indian nationals, are politically acceptable in a way that restrictions against the E visa used by more
socially accepted groups from “less suspect” countries would not be? 9 Can the system of priority dates
therefore not be rightly condemned as an official, though unacknowledged, acceptance by the
government of institutionalized racism? 10
8
See Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971).
9
The writers can attest to the fact that even though the H-1B quota was not reached for Fiscal Year 2010 until December 21,
2010, the USCIS has been exercising heightened scrutiny on H-1B petitions that have been filed by Information Technology
companies which employ Indian nationals. See Patrick Thibodeau, H-1B demand may be retreating as feds increase
scrutiny, ComputerWorld, Jul. 22, 2009,
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9135779/H_1B_demand_may_be_retreating_as_feds_increase_scrutiny. Indeed,
the constant drumbeat of criticism against “Indian job shops” betrays more than a whiff of cultural parochialism that fails to
appreciate the very real value that the Indian business model has brought to American businesses that have betrayed no
hesitation in taking advantage of it. A memo issued by Donald Neufeld, Associate Director of USCIS, is directed against
Information Technology consulting and other staffing firms, pejoratively called “job shops,” whose business model relies on
H-1B workers being assigned to third party client sites. Donald Neufeld, Determining Employer-Employee Relationship for
Adjudication of H-1B Petitions, Including Third Party Site Placements, Jan. 08, 2010, Memo # USCIS HQ 70/6.2.8,
http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Laws/Memoranda/2010/H1B%20Employer-Employee%20Memo010810.pdf (Neufeld
Memo). While the Neufeld Memo insists that the H-1B petitioner be able to demonstrate an employer-employee
relationship with the H-1B worker, the criteria that it sets forth to determine such a relationship, give adjudicators broad
discretion to deny such H-1B petitions. Indeed, we have also been seeing heightened enforcement actions by Customs and
Border Patrol at Newark Liberty Airport since January 2010 resulting in Indian H-1B visa entrants working in the
Information Technology consulting industry being subjected to expedited removal orders once it is discovered upon a
cursory review that the H-1B worker is working at a client site. For further commentary on the memo and its adverse impact
on Indian H-1B workers, see Cyrus D. Mehta, More on H-1B Admissions at Newark Airport: Expedited Removal Should Be
Used Wisely, Feb. 02, 2010, http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-on-h-1b-admissions-at-newark.html. See also,
Eleanor Pelta, Why is the H-1B Such a Dirty Word?, Feb. 01, 2010, AILA Leadership Blog,
http://ailaleadership.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-is-h-1b-dirty-word.html; Cyrus D. Mehta, New USCIS Memo on Employer-
Employee Relationship for H-1B Petitions: Is It A Way To Keep Certain Workers Out?, Jan. 15, 2010,
http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-uscis-memo-on-employer-employee.html; and Cyrus D. Mehta, Halcyon
Days In H-1B Processing, Feb. 26, 2010, http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2010/02/halcyon-days-in-h-1b-visa-
processing.html. On March 19, 2010, AILA sent a memo to USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas and USCIS Chief
Counsel Roxanna Bacon demanding that the Neufeld Memo be withdrawn as it is contrary to the definition of
“employment” already incorporated in 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(4)(ii), which incorporates elements other than right to control
such as “hire, pay, fire, supervise, or otherwise control the work of such employee.” See AILA, Memo to USCIS:
Determining Employer-Employee Relationship in Third-party Placement Settings, posted on Mar. 19, 2010, AILA Infonet
Doc. No. 10031931, http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=31592, (Available only to subscribers). In addition,
AILA’s memo highlights the unintended consequences the Neufeld Memo would have on other industries such as health
care and projects involving government contracts as well as the hardships that it would cause to those caught in the EB
backlogs who have otherwise been able to routinely extend their H-1B status each year but now have to overcome the
objections of the Neufeld Memo when they next apply for the H-1B extension. Id.
10
How different is our modern system different from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, 22 Stat. 58 (1882), which provided
for the exclusion of persons from China? Is it consistent with a global economy to have a state of affairs where the United
States welcomes capital and technology from the rest of the world but not the people from the nations that send them? The
structural imbalance flowing from the tyranny of priority dates not only shuts out badly needed infusions of intellectual

3
 The numerical quotas introduced in 1921 were part of the nativist reaction against immigration
following World War I that would culminate in the adoption of infamous national origins quota in 1924.
Ending the tyranny of priority dates can be justified as an advance in human freedom just as the
abolition of the national origins quota in 1965 was very much part of a whole series of Great Society
initiatives on civil rights. It is no coincidence that the Immigration Act of 1965 came the same year as
the Voting Rights Act and only one year after the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Our article will suggest many reasons why the United States has to move away from the tyranny
of priority dates, and offer several proposals regarding how this could be done. Immigrants on the path
to permanent residence in our imperfect immigration system, notwithstanding their status, ought to be
viewed as Americans-in-waiting rather than being dispensed with through removal. 11

Is There An Alternative Path to Comprehensive Immigration Reform?

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” 12

This is why we write. Immigration is a big problem and, like most big problems, the American
people rightly expect Congress to solve it. This is as it should be. A national issue requires a uniform
approach, something only new law can provide. Yet, precisely because the dilemma is so complex,

capital but actually increases the centrifugal pressures on knowledge workers already here, whether on a temporary or
permanent basis, who are already feeling the urge to return home as part of a reverse brain drain that promises to grow in
scope and intensity as the perception grows that the “welcome mat” is no longer out in America. See Vivek Wadhwa, Why
Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the US, BusinessWeek, Mar. 02, 2009,
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc20090228_990934.htm. Mr. Wadhwa, who has researched
extensively on the positive impact of H-1B workers and immigrants in the American economy, has a number of noteworthy
academic publications to his credit and they can be accessed at the Social Science Research Network. SSRN Website, Vivek
Wadhwa’s profile, http://ssrn.com/author=738704. A recent blog post of Mr. Wadhwa quite vividly depicts the plight of H-
1B visa holders who are stuck in an immigration limbo, prevented from starting their own companies and are thus unable to
boost the American economy. See Vivek Wadhwa, Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy, TechCrunch, Aug. 30, 2009,
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/30/free-the-h-1bs-free-the-economy/. Just as the 20th century has been known as the
“American Century” largely because it was the time when this country became the dominant world power, so we may come
to see the 21st century as the “Asian Century” in recognition of the increased ascendancy of China and India. This does not
mean that the United States will exit the international stage, far from it. It does certainly mean that, as with the hostility
created between this country and Japan in the 1930's resulting from the Oriental Exclusion Acts, the barely-submerged anti-
Asian bias of the priority date system cannot fail to inflame mass opinion and government policy in this increasingly
important part of the global economy. Just as past immigration restrictions infuriated the Japanese militarists and provided
the emotional impetus for their failed yet disastrous attempts at creating an East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, see RONALD
STEEL, WALTER LIPPMANN AND THE AMERICAN CENTURY 391-92 (Atlantic Monthly Press 1980), current nativist sentiments
that dominate attacks on “job shops,” H-1Bs and visa retrogression will also intensify the Indian and Chinese desire for
commercial and economic dominance in a way that will inevitably inflate their strategic profile.
11
The authors have been inspired by Hiroshi Motomura’s story, which makes an eloquent argument for giving permanent
residents the same rights and protections as citizens. HIROSHI MOTOMURA, AMERICANS IN WAITING: THE LOST STORY OF
IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES (Oxford Univ. Press 2006). We wish to extend this concept to those
on the cusp of permanent residence too. An editorial in the New York Times sums up this premise, “A bedrock premise of
smart immigration reform is the sharp distinction it draws between criminal aliens and Americans-in-waiting.” Editorial,
Immigrants, Criminalized, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 26, 2009, at A38.
12
ROBERT FROST, MOUNTAIN INTERVAL, THE ROAD NOT TAKEN (Henry Holt & Co. 1920).

4
because immigration has become inextricably intertwined with virtually all aspects of the American
experience any attempt to come to terms with it requires contemplation and compromise. These take
time. While waiting for a comprehensive reform strategy to take shape, the question naturally arises: Is
there anything we can do now? We believe there is. It is this core conviction that animates what is to
follow, an abiding faith in the remedial potential of the Immigration and Nationality Act, even while
flawed in its present form, and the agency’s historic role in administratively dealing with crisis
situations. Walking sightless among miracles, our very preoccupation with root and branch reform,
valid though it is, has blinded us to the possibilities that are ready and waiting to be developed if the
will and vision to do so exists. The ideas we offer are designed to give form and shape to these
possibilities in the hope that they will benefit America and those from other lands who have made our
cause and our story their very own.

Given renewed political will, the Executive can take sweeping action on its own initiative.
Action no longer should take a back seat to the endless controversy over comprehensive immigration
reform (CIR). 13 Yet, our proposals need not be the only option, and they would play the role of junior
partner to CIR. If CIR is enacted, perhaps our proposal might lose relevance, or it may still be relevant
under the new law. If CIR does not pass, or until it passes, we hope that our proposals may be given
attention as an alternative path to CIR.

The family and employment quotas are woefully inadequate. Permanent migration to the United
States is regulated by quotas and categories, which was last set by the Immigration Act of 1990
(IMMACT90). 14 IMMACT90 established a “flexible” worldwide cap on family-based, employment-
based, and diversity immigrant visas. After a transition period, since fiscal year 1995 the worldwide
limit has been 675,000. Independent restrictions shape the size and scope for each of the major
immigrant categories: for family-sponsored visas, 480,000; for employment-based visas, 140,000; and
for diversity visas, 55,000. 15 While the parents, spouses and minor children of United States citizens

13
President Obama stated that he expects Congress to begin working on Immigration reform after finishing Health Care,
Financial and Energy reforms. See Ginger Thompson & Marc Lacey, Obama Says Immigration Changes Remain on His
Agenda, but for 2010 Enactment, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 11, 2009, at A6. Subsequently, Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano stated that the Obama administration would push for immigration reform in 2010, and would
argue for a “three-legged stool” that includes tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and employers who hire
them and a streamlined system for legal immigration, as well as a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.” See Julia
Preston, White House Plan on Immigration Includes Legal Status, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 14, 2009, at A10. On December 14,
2009, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) fired the first salvo by proposing the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s
Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR ASAP). See H.R. 4321, 111th Cong. (2009). However, with the loss of the 60th
Democratic seat in the Senate after Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) win, resulting in the stalling of the health care legislation, the
prospects for CIR appear to have diminished in 2010. Yet, in the State of the Union Address on January 27, 2010, President
Obama signaled his ongoing commitment to immigration reform noting, “we should continue the work of fixing our broken
immigration system - to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can
contribute to our economy and enrich our nation.” See American Immigration Council, President Declares Ongoing
Commitment to Immigration Reform, http://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/newsroom/release/president-declares-
ongoing-commitment-immigration-reform. Then, as recently as March 04, 2010, President Obama called on Senators
Schumer and Graham to come up with a blueprint for immigration reform. See Peter Nicholas, Obama looking to give new
life to immigration reform, L.A. TIMES, Mar. 04, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/04/nation/la-na-immigration5-
2010mar05.
14
Immigration Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-649, 104 Stat. 4978 (1990).
15
This is reduced by up to 5,000 based upon the grants of cancellation of removal under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and
Central American Relief Act (NACARA), Pub. L. No. 105-100, title II; 111 Stat. 2160, 2193-201 (1997); amended by Pub.
L. No. 105-139, 111 Stat. 2644 (1997).

5
come in quota-free, these “immediate relatives” are subtracted from the overall numbers available for
family sponsorship. However, there is a floor under family immigration: under no circumstances can
the number of numerically restricted family-sponsored visas drop below 226,000. Therefore, if the
number of immediate relatives of American citizens exceeds 254,000 (i.e., 480,000 - 226,000), the
flexible worldwide ceiling of 675,000 may give way.

In addition to expanding total admissions, IMMACT90 modified the formula to determine per-
country immigrants. Previously, the per-country quota was set at 20,000 visas per year. IMMACT90
takes a different approach, mandating that “green cards” for citizens of a single independent foreign
state may not exceed seven percent of the total “green cards” available.16 Once you do the math, the
per-country quota rose to 25,620. Big or small, Lichtenstein or China, each country gets the same. This
geographically neutral approach dates from the abolition of the infamous national origins quota in
1965. The allocation of immigrant visas is further subdivided into a system of sub-categories, or
preferences, determined by a variety of relevant criteria such as education, exceptional ability,
managerial status, shortage of United States workers, clergy and religious professionals, investment
potential, and levels of skill. 17 On the family side of the ledger, relationships to U.S. citizens and

16
See INA § 202(a)(2) [8 U.S.C. § 1152(a)(2) (2000)].
17
The Act sets forth five employment-based immigration preferences. They use up the 140,000 visas in the following
proportions: EB-1 provides 40,000 numbers for persons of extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers and professors and
multinational executives; EB-2 provides 40,000 numbers for persons with advanced degrees or with exceptional ability plus
any unused EB-1 numbers; EB-3 provides 40,000 numbers for professionals having baccalaureate degrees, skilled and
unskilled workers plus any unused EB-1 and EB-2 numbers; EB-4 provides 10,000 numbers to special immigrants, which
includes religious workers; and EB-5 provides 10,000 numbers for investors who create ten jobs and invest up to $1 million
(although the amount varies depending on whether it is a rural area or a low or high unemployment area). See INA § 203(b)
[8 U.S.C § 1153(b) (2006)]. As stated before, because no country may use more than seven percent of the worldwide
numbers in any of the above categories, nationals of a particular country are limited to no more than 9,800 EB numbers per
year. See supra n.17. Therefore, the greater demand for EB visas from countries with large populations like China and India
lead to immense backlog for EB applicants from these nations. Immigration attorney Carl Shusterman predicts that it will
take over ten years for a person born in India to file an adjustment application in the EB-2 and over twenty years in the EB-
3. Carl Shusterman, EB Immigrants: How long before I get my visa?, Nov. 25, 2009, http://shusterman.com/cgi/ex-
link.pl?shusterman.typepad.com/nation-of-immigrants/2009/11/eb-immigrants-how-long-before-i-get-my-green-card.html;
see also Carl Shusterman, Fix Our Broken Legal Immigration System, Feb. 07, 2010,
http://blogs.ilw.com/carlshusterman/2010/02/fix-our-broken-legal-immigration-system.html. According to a press release by
former D.H.S. Ombudsman Prakash Khatri, dated February 2, 2010, the situation, based on incomplete statistics released by
the USCIS and the State Department, is even direr than it appears and the wait for persons born in India may be 35 years.
See Prakash Khatri, National-Origin Quotas Unfairly Penalizing Visa Applicants from Most Populous Nations, Harming
U.S. Economy, Press Release, http://www.khatrilaw.us/leadership.html. In a more detailed position paper, The Employment
Based Green Card Process and the Dramatic Negative Impact of Country Based Quotas on persons of Indian and Chinese
Origin, Mr. Khatri offers the following revelation: During the first four months of FY 2010, Service Centers requested 4,200
employment-based immigrant visas but field (district) offices, whose statistics are not reflected in the monthly Visa Bulletin,
put in an order for double this amount (8,400)! Aside from the troubling lack of transparency, which makes intelligent
advance planning virtually impossible, neither the USCIS nor those affected by what it does are well served by such hidden
surprises. See Prakash Khatri, The Employment Based Green Card Process and the Dramatic Negative Impact of Country
Based Quotas on persons of Indian and Chinese Origin, Feb. 2010,
http://kpkgs.com/files/The_Employment_Based_Green_Card_Process_and_the_Dramatic_Negative_Impact_of_Country_B
ased_Quotas_on_persons_of_Indian_Origin_Feb_2010.pdf

For a further explanation of the long waits based on recently released statistics of pending applications issued by the
National Visa Center, which does not include pending adjustment of status applications, see Sherry Neal, NVC Inventory
Report: When It’s Not Good To Be #1, Immigration Daily, http://www.ilw.com/articles/2010,0222-neal.shtm. Finally, for a
tongue-in-cheek article on what can actually happen to someone who has waited 40 years for visa availability, see Cyrus D.
Mehta, Adjustment of Status Interview After Decades, Jun. 15, 2009,
http://www.cyrusmehta.com/News.aspx?SubIdx=ocyrus2009615234712&Month=&From=Menu&Page=1&Year=All.

6
permanent residents, modified by age and marital status, govern annual quota allocations. 18 Each
preference gets a fixed percentage of the overall total for both family-based and employment-based
visas as well as spillover of unused visas from other categories. Ours is a supply and demand system so
that the time it takes to get a “green card” depends upon your country of birth, not of current
citizenship, and your family-based or employment-based category as well as your place in line under
such preference. In immigration parlance, this is known as your “priority date.” If the demand in a
category for any country goes up, and the supply remains static, it will take longer for the priority date
to become current, now a condition precedent to even applying for the “green card,” much less actually
getting one.

We do not object to priority dates. Our argument is with their manifest insufficiency. If
Congress had the vision and the will to expand immigrant visa quotas in a humane and realistic manner
so that they could satisfy current demand and anticipate future appetite, the need for our modest
proposals would melt away. This is apparently unlikely to happen, perhaps even in the context of
comprehensive immigration reform. If the disappointments of the years since IMMACT 90 have taught
us anything - since the expanded quotas that this legislation created still resulted in backlogs - it is that
improvements in the legal immigration system are not necessarily the answer for the problems of the
undocumented. Despite IMMACT 90, the Child Status Protection Act 19 and the American
Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act (AC 21), 20 gifting us with H and adjustment portability,
notwithstanding premium processing and cap exemptions, the undocumented are still with us and their
numbers continue to grow, disproving any claim that America’s immigration woes have been solved.
Small band-aid tinkering in the legal immigration system is not necessarily the answer for the problems
of the undocumented. If we have a more rational system for legal immigration, there will be fewer
undocumented migrants. By contrast, if the legal means of migration are so miserly that their promise
becomes a cruel illusion, then the law itself will no longer retain its relevance. Bringing the
undocumented in from the shadows is necessary, but the promotion of broad expansions and
improvements in the legal migration system is imperative. We live in an anxious age of political
instability and economic insecurity on a global scale; indeed this is a time when the most we can
realistically hope for is to preserve past victories and not to win new ones. It is neither disrespect to
CIR nor any diminution of our support for it to acknowledge that this is so. We devoutly hope that we
are profoundly mistaken; nothing would please us more. Yet, in the absence of the solution we would
like to have, a decent respect for our clients and our country compels us to think anew of interim
measures knowing that the problems we face demand no less.

That is what this article seeks to propose. There are three simple but highly effective ways to
end the tyranny of priority dates. First, since there are too many people and too few visas, allow
adjustment of status applicants to be filed though not approved in the absence of an immediately
available immigrant visa number. Second, even if adjustment of status applications cannot be filed
without an immediately available visa number and a congressional amendment, there is ample room in

18
The Act sets forth four family-based immigration preferences. The F1 provides 23,400 numbers for unmarried adult sons
and daughters of American citizens; the F2 provides 114,200 numbers for spouses and unmarried children or sons and
daughters of permanent residents, and a higher percentage are allocated to spouses and minor children (category 2A) over
adult unmarried sons and daughters (category 2B); F3 provides 23,400 numbers for unmarried sons and daughters; and F4
provides 65,000 numbers each year for siblings of American citizens. See INA § 203(a) [8 U.S.C. § 1153(a) (2006)].
19
Pub. L. No. 107-208, 116 Stat. 927 (2002).
20
Pub. L. No. 106-313, 114 Stat. 1251 (2000).

7
existing law for the Executive to grant parole and employment authorization for people with approved
petitions. Third, the problem is not just the number of visas but how we count them. Exempt immediate
family members from being counted against the overall quotas and the specter of never-ending
backlogs will haunt our slumber no longer. It is no longer necessary, if it ever was, to place all our eggs
in one basket. It does not undermine the need for CIR to suggest that there is now enormous remedial
potential in the INA ready to be used if the Executive has the vision and the will to act. Starting here,
we are ready to begin.

II. FIRST PROPOSAL: FILING OF ADJUSTMENT OF STATUS APPLICATIONS IN THE

ABSENCE OF A VISA NUMBER

A. Dinesh Shenoy’s Innovative Proposal on Cut-off Dates

Dinesh Shenoy had it right when he wrote in 2005 that “cut-off dates are a function of the fact
that America does not have unlimited immigration.” 21 We know from § 245(a)(3) of Immigration and
Nationality Act (INA) that no one can apply for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident
unless an immigrant visa number is immediately available to them. Similar numerical constraints
regulate consular processing as determined by INA § 203. The place in line for a prized “green card”
number, also known as the priority date, is established through the filing of an immigrant petition or
labor certification. 22 As the waiting lines grow ever longer and frustrations rise, the question naturally
presents itself: Is there an alternative to priority dates?

It was Dinesh Shenoy’s great leap forward to suggest that Congress amend INA § 245(a)(3) to
allow for the submission, though not final approval, of employment-based adjustment of status cases
without respect to priority dates. Since insight is original, Mr. Shenoy deserves to be allowed to speak
for himself:

With this revised language, an I-140 [petition] beneficiary would be able to file his or her I-485
[application] once an I-140 [petition] is filed, even if they know it will be many years before
their priority date is reached. 23

In order for this to happen, of course, USCIS would have to remove the requirement for an
immediately available immigrant visa number from the operative regulations that govern adjustment of
status, namely 8 C.F.R. § 245.1(g)(1) and § 245.2(a)(2). Other changes would also be necessary. Under
the Child Status Protection Act, one needs an approved petition and a visa number to freeze the age of
the child. 24 If there is retrogression after such visa availability, the age remains frozen. However, if the

21
Dinesh Shenoy, The October 2005 Visa Bulletin Warrants An Amendment to INA 245(a)(3), ILW, Sept. 16, 2005,
http://www.ilw.com/articles/2005,0916-shenoy.shtm. This article is dedicated to Dinesh Shenoy whose wisdom and insight
made it possible.
22
For a family-based petition, the priority date is established on the date that the I-130 petition is properly filed. 8 C.F.R. §
204.1(c), 22 C.F.R. § 42.53(a), 9 FAM 42.53 n.1. For employment-based petitions, the priority date is established on the
date the labor certification is filed, or in cases that do not require the labor certification or where the labor certification
needs to be submitted with the petition (such as Schedule A cases), the date the preference petition is filed with the USCIS.
8 C.F.R. § 204.5(d).
23
Supra n. 21.
24
Supra n. 19.

8
precondition of a current priority date is removed or relaxed, then language will have to be inserted in
INA § 203(h)(1)(A) that will freeze the age of the child upon the filing of an I-485 adjustment
application even if an immigrant visa number is not available. It will do little good to allow the
parent(s) to apply for adjustment of status if their kids “age out” and have to leave. It would also be
prudent to modify the definition of “child” set forth in INA § 101(b)(1) so that it would then read “an
unmarried person under age twenty-one or who had applied for adjustment of status under 8 U.S.C. §
1255 before reaching the age of twenty-one.”

B. Expanding on Dinesh Shenoy’s Idea

It does not diminish the magnitude of Dinesh Shenoy’s conceptual breakthrough to note that it
raises but does not resolve several serious questions. 25 First, it is limited to applicants for adjustment
of status applicants who enjoy a significant advantage not shared by those applying for immigrant visas
at American consulates abroad. However, one wonders whether we can still speak of an even playing
field in the aftermath of INA § 204(j) that extends occupational mobility to adjustment applicants in a
way not open to equally long-suffering consular cases. 26 To the extent that one wants everyone to play
by the same rules, why not allow immigrant visa applicants to apply for immigrant visas, but not be
able to use them to gain entry into the United States unless and until an immigrant visa number became
immediately available to them? Instead, as will be explained later, to create an equal playing field such
beneficiaries of visa petitions based overseas may be able to get paroled into the United States. Such a
restriction could, in fact, be annotated on the face of the machine-readable immigrant visa itself to
prevent any attempt at premature exercise. Second, as originally expressed, it would only apply to
employment cases rather than those based on family ties. Our proposal would extend this innovation to
reward the beneficiaries of approved family-based I-130 petitions. This is the answer to the wholly
inadequate Family 2B category that divides families in defiance of compassion and logic. Now they
can stay in the United States while they wait for their priority dates to become current. Third, because
prior approval of the I-140 petition is not required, it assumes that the current practice of concurrent
filing of I-140 petitions and I-485 applications will continue, when we know that USCIS wants to end

25
The authors are reminded of the wisdom of the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (604 B.C.E. - 531 B.C.E.) who
reminds us that “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” See LAO TZU, TAO: THE WAY (Shawn Conners
ed., Lionel Giles trans. El Paso Norte Press 2009). Dinesh took that first step and we follow in his path.
26
The American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act (AC 21) of 2000 permits a labor certification or an employment-
based petition to remain valid when the adjustment of status application has been pending for 180 days or longer even if the
non-citizen changes jobs provided it is in the “same or similar occupational classification” as the job described in the labor
certification. INA § 204(j) [8 U.S.C. § 1154(j) (2009)]. Also, note that INA § 204(j) portability only benefits applicants
while their application is pending and not after permanent residency is granted upon the availability of the priority date. See
Cyrus D. Mehta, The Portability Paradox, Feb. 16, 2009,
http://www.cyrsumehta.com/Print_Prev.aspx?SubIdx=ocyrus20092161618.

Why did Congress enact AC 21? Because of lengthy INS adjudications! Is that not, for different reasons, the same situation
that we now seek to combat when we contend against the tyranny of priority dates? With AC 21, the INS was simply taking
too long. Now, the utter collapse of the priority date system prevents adjudication. While the reasons are different, the
ultimate impact on aliens waiting is still the same. In enacting AC 21, Congress took the lead; however, the USCIS also
moved forward by interpreting INA § 204(j) broadly to allow “porting” even to self-employment. See Michael Aytes,
Interim guidance for processing I-140 employment-based immigrant petitions and I-485 and H-1B petitions affected by the
American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000, Dec. 27, 2005, Memo # USCIS HQPRD 70/6.2.8-P,
http://www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/AC21Intrm122705.pdf (“Aytes Memo on Portability”). Now, we seek, while waiting
for CIR, to provide the intellectual foundation for the Executive to act based on discretionary authority it already enjoys in
the INA.

9
this practice and intends to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking. 27 Finally, it is highly instructive to
ask whether there is a new and better way to define what “immediately available” means in the context
of visa allocation. Is a current priority date the only way?

For the past twenty-five years, the Visa Office in the Department of State has employed a more
flexible mechanism to ensure a smooth and regular allocation of immigrant visas known as the
“qualifying date.” 28 What is that? Simply stated, the Visa Office anticipates what priority dates are
likely to come on the stream over the next six to twelve months, though this is subject to variance, and
it then allows the National Visa Center to kick off the consular processing for these cases by sending
out the Choice of Agent form. Once this response is received, the National Visa Center lets folks know
what further documentation is required and, as soon as all necessary paperwork has been provided, the
case can be reported to the Visa Control branch of the Visa Office in the Department of State as being
documentarily qualified. 29 That demand can then be compared against the amount of visas that are
available for use in a particular month during the determination of the monthly cut-off dates. Those cut-
off dates ultimately allow a case to be scheduled for a consular interview and hopefully receive their
prized immigrant visas just as soon as the Visa Bulletin says they have an eligible priority date.

Now, this has worked pretty well in the consular context to smooth out the flow of immigrant
visas so one wonders if the results would be no less stellar as a way to define immediate availability in
the adjustment context. Even under the traditional priority date scheme, there is nothing in the INA that
compels a particular definition or understanding of what “immediate availability” means. 30 To require a

27
This item has been on the USCIS semi-annual Unified Agenda since 2006 in compliance with the Regulatory Flexibility
Act, and it remains to be seen whether the abolition of the concurrent filing of I-140 petitions and I-485 applications will
ever be proposed or if it will remain on the wish list of some officials within the agency. See Department of Homeland
Security, Semiannual Regulatory Agenda – Spring 2008, May 06, 2008,
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=090000648054de52.
28
U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, 9 FOREIGN AFFAIRS MANUAL (FAM) 42.55 PROCEDURAL NOTES (PN) 1.1 (Sept. 05, 2008).
29
For an excellent summary of this process, see U.S. DEP'T OF STATE, VISA OFFICE, THE OPERATION OF THE IMMIGRATION
NUMERICAL CONTROL SYSTEM,
http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/Immigrant%20Visa%20Control%20System_operation%20of.pdf. Indeed, the next report
from the same Department of State source is even more revealing: MONTHLY DETERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT
PREFERENCE CUT OFF DATES confirms the hopeless situation for the EB-2 for China and India and the EB-3 for India. There
are 59,500 pending cases in the India EB-3 and an annual per country limit of 2,987. U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, VISA OFFICE,
MONTHLY DETERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT PREFERENCE CUT-OFF DATES,
http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/EmploymentDemandUsedForCutOffDates.pdf. If you do the math, it is consistent with Mr.
Khatri’s prognosis that the EB-3 for India may take more than 30 years to materialize. Then, when the April 2010 Visa
Bulletin was issued, the Department of State took pains to explain common misunderstandings about the priority date
system, “Applicants entitled to immigrant status become documentarily qualified at their own initiative and convenience.
By no means has every applicant with a priority date earlier than a prevailing cut-off date been processed for final visa
action. On the contrary, a significant amount of demand is received each month for applicants who have priority dates that
are significantly earlier than the applicable cut-off dates. In addition, fluctuations in demand can cause cut-off date
movement to slow, stop, or even retrogress. Retrogression is particularly possible near the end of the fiscal year as visa
issuance approaches the annual limitations.” U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, 19 VISA BULLETIN IX: APR. 2010, Mar. 9, 2010,
http://www.travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_4747.html.
30
The authors credit David Isaacson, an associate at Cyrus D. Mehta & Associates, PLLC and resident legal guru, for
finding something in the preamble to the regulation regarding concurrent filing of I-140 petition and I-485 application that
implies USCIS could allow filing of an I-485 application with respect to an I-140 petition lacking a current priority date,
without a change in the law.

Besides Eliminating the Delay for Filing Form I-485, How Else Will These Regulatory Amendments Benefit

10
current priority date as the only acceptable interpretation is to continue a practice that began before
migration flows to this country reached the massive levels of today. What worked efficiently before
may no longer work efficiently under today’s reality. If we are to preserve the utility of priority dates as
a control on permanent immigration, we have to understand and use them in a fundamentally new and
different way.

USCIS does not have to define “immediate availability” strictly on the cut-off dates listed in the
Visa Bulletin. Rather, both the Department of State and USCIS could post estimated “qualifying dates.”
But given the long waits, estimated qualifying dates must take into account how long it will take for the
quota to become current. The estimates must be announced sooner rather than later and look further
ahead. Precisely as it now happens in a consular case, USCIS would then allow filing of adjustment
applications so that applicants could begin to assemble the necessary documentation and send in their I-
485 packages so that USCIS could conduct necessary checks and get the case ready for final
adjudication when the priority date is reached. Only at that point would USCIS formally request an
immigrant visa number from the Department of State. 31 Not until then would the adjustment of status
be considered for approval. The beauty of this is that Congress need not lift a finger; all that need be
done is for USCIS to modify the definition of visa availability contained in 8 C.F.R. § 245.1(g)(1) and
§ 245.2(a)(2). 32

Aliens?

These amendments will allow the Service to issue Employment Authorization Documentation (EAD) and advance
parole authorization (which allows the alien to travel outside of the United States temporarily while his or her Form
I-485 is pending with the Service) to certain alien workers within substantially less time that at present. In being
able to apply for employment authorization and advance parole, the alien may avoid the adverse consequences of
accrual of unlawful presence. To achieve the desired efficiency improvement in the Service’s processing, only aliens
who have filed a Form I-140 for which a visa number is immediately available and Form I-485 will qualify for
these benefits. Therefore, as a result of this interim rule, an eligible beneficiary of a form I-140 visa petition for
whom a visa is immediately available will no longer need to wait for approval of the underlying Form I-140 before
eligible to apply for these benefits.

James Ziglar, Allowing in Certain Circumstances for the Filing of Form I-140 Visa Petition Concurrently With a Form I-485
Application, July 05, 2002, Request for Comments # INS No. 2104-00,
http://shusterman.com/concurrentimmigrationfilings.html. (Emphasis added).

The statement that visa number availability is only being required in order “[t]o achieve the desired efficiency improvement
in the Service’s processing” implies that this was a policy decision, made for pragmatic reasons, rather than a dividing line
required by law. That is, it implies that if the USCIS had found an alternative approach more efficient, it could just as easily
have offered EAD and advance parole to I-140 petition beneficiaries without an immediately available visa number.

Note also that pursuant to Ruiz-Diaz v. U.S., No. C07-1881RSL (W.D. Wash. 2009), which found the concurrent filing
regulation, 8 C.F.R. § 245.2(a)(2)(i)(B), ultra vires INA § 245 with respect to religious worker I-130 petitions, the USCIS
has now allowed religious workers who have filed I-360 petitions to concurrently file I-485 applications. See Neufeld,
Implementation of the District Court’s Order in Ruiz-Diaz v. U.S., No. C07-1881RSL (W.D. Wash. June 11, 2009), Memo #
HQDOMO AD09-, June 25, 2009, http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/Ruis-Diaz_Implementation_25jun09.pdf.
31
It is interesting to note that the Nebraska Service Center informed AILA on May 7, 2009 that “EB- 485 team is ‘Pre-
adjudicating’ cases to try and have them done ‘but for’ the priority date being current.” AILA InfoNet, Doc. No. 09052132
(posted May 21, 2009) (Available only to subscribers). More recently, Michael Aytes, Acting Deputy Director of USCIS,
stated that 180,000 I-485 applications have been pre-adjudicated waiting for visa availability. See VSC Stakeholder Meeting
Questions, Aug. 20, 2009, AILA InfoNet, Doc. No.09090265 (posted Sep. 2, 2009) (Available only to subscribers).
32
Our advocacy of informal agency action is well grounded in American history. Over 60 years ago, we read the following:
“informal procedures constitute the vast bulk of administrative adjudication and are truly the lifeblood of the administrative
process.” See U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE, ATTORNEY GENERAL’S REPORT ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE ACT, Jan. 22,

11
 The only regulation that defines visa availability is 8 C.F.R. § 245(g)(1), which provides:

An alien is ineligible for the benefits of section 245 of the Act unless an immigrant visa is
immediately available to him or her at the time the application is filed. If the applicant is a
preference alien, the current Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs Visa Bulletin will
be consulted to determine whether an immigrant visa is immediately available. An immigrant
visa is considered available for accepting and processing the application Form I-485 [if] the
preference category applicant has a priority date on the waiting list which is earlier than the date
shown in the Bulletin (or the Bulletin shows that numbers for visa applicants in his or her
category are current). An immigrant visa is also considered immediately available if the
applicant establishes eligibility for the benefits of Public Law 101-238. Information concerning
the immediate availability of an immigrant visa may be obtained at any Service office. 33

Under 8 C.F.R. § 245.1(g)(1), why must visa availability be based solely on whether one has a
priority date on the waiting list which is earlier shown in the Visa Bulletin? Why can “immediately
available” not be re-defined based on a qualifying or provisional date? We are all so accustomed to
paying obeisance to the holy grail of “priority date” that we understandably overlook the fact that this
all-important gatekeeper is nowhere defined. Given the collapse of the priority date system, all of us
must get used to thinking of it more as a journey than a concrete point in time. The adjustment
application would only be approved when the provisional date becomes current, but the new definition
of immediately available visa can encompass a continuum: a provisional date that leads to a final date,
which is only when the alien can be granted Legal Permanent Resident status but the provisional date
will still allow a filing as both provisional and final dates will fall under the new regulatory definition
of immediately available. During this period, the adjustment application is properly filed through the
new definition of immediately available through the qualifying or provisional date. 34 The authors

1941, http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/admin/1941report.html. The Committee chairman, future Secretary of State Dean G.

Acheson, testified along these same lines before the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary: “It would be
an impossible problem to tackle if the committee undertook to set up machinery for dealing with all of the informal
procedures of all the organizations; it just cannot be done.” Administrative Procedure Act: Hearing on S.674, S.675 and
S.918 Before Subcom. of Comm. on the Judiciary, 77th Cong. 804-06 (1941). Furthermore, the logic of pre-adjudication is
particularly compelling in times like these of severe and prolonged visa retrogression so that the case can be prepared for
final action and approved as soon as there is a current priority date. Ironically, it is the very absence of an immediately
available immigrant visa number that makes pre-adjudication uniquely necessary. See also Citizens to Preserve Overton
Park v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402 (1971) (upholding building of a highway through a park in Memphis without any formal
findings by the Secretary of the Department of Transportation in support of the project, though case remanded for review of
administrative record).
33
8 C.F.R. § 245(g)(1) (2009).
34
Expanding the definition of visa availability eliminates the need to re-define the meaning of “filed” in INA § 245(a)(3).
Broadening the definition of visa availability would indeed allow such a filing under the statutory provision, after which all
the usual benefits of adjustment of status would automatically flow, including portability under INA § 204(j) and protecting
the age of the child under the CSPA. Notwithstanding it is also worth analyzing the meaning of a filing in the event that our
expanded definition of visa availability is rejected, and it is arguable that INA § 245(a)(3), which requires that the alien have
an available visa “at the time his application is filed,” cannot be read literally to preclude the initial filing of an adjustment
application when its conditions are not met, as opposed to merely precluding the approval of such application. Otherwise
ordinary concurrent filing even as it exists today would be impermissible, because, as immigration judges periodically point
out in the course of denying motions for continuance, someone who does not have an approved visa petition necessarily
does not have an available visa number. Like concurrent filing, what we are arguing for is a kind of “pre-filing” that comes
with ancillary benefits but is not filing in the strict statutory sense of the word. As David Isaacson has observed, there are
other contexts under existing law in which one cannot simply assume that the date of “application” or date of “filing”

12
propose the following amendments to 8 C.F.R. § 245(g)(1), shown here in italics, that would expand
the definition of visa availability:

An alien is ineligible for the benefits of section 245 of the Act unless an immigrant visa is
immediately available to him or her at the time the application is filed. If the applicant is a
preference alien, the current Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs Visa Bulletin will
be consulted to determine whether an immigrant visa is immediately available. An immigrant
visa is considered available for accepting and processing the application Form I-485 [if] the
preference category applicant has a priority date on the waiting list which is earlier than the date
shown in the Bulletin (or the Bulletin shows that numbers for visa applicants in his or her
category are current) (“current priority date”). An immigrant visa is also considered available
for provisional submission of the application Form I-485 based on a provisional priority date
without reference to current priority date. No provisional submission can be undertaken absent
prior approval of the visa petition and only if visas in the preference category have not been
exhausted in the fiscal year. Final adjudication only occurs when there is a current priority
date. An immigrant visa is also considered immediately available if the applicant establishes
eligibility for the benefits of Public Law 101-238. Information concerning the immediate
availability of an immigrant visa may be obtained at any Service office.

Once 8 C.F.R. § 245.1(g)(1) is amended to allow adjustment applications to be filed under INA
§ 245(a)(3), the authors propose similar amendments in the Department of State’s Foreign Affairs
Manual to even the playing field for beneficiaries of approved I-140 and I-130 petitions who are
outside the U.S. so as not to give those here who are eligible for adjustment of status an unfair
advantage. Since the visa will not be valid when issued in the absence of a current priority date, it will

referred to in statute or regulation means the date the application papers are filed in the ordinary sense of the word. Rather,
such terms sometimes mean something closer to the date of final adjudication. So in In re Ortega-Cabrera, the examination
of good moral character for the ten years “immediately preceding the date of the application” under INA § 240A(b)(1)(A)
was held to entail examination of good moral character during the ten years immediately preceding the final decision in the
case, not the ten years immediately preceding the date the application papers were initially filed as a physical matter. 23
I&N Dec. 793 (BIA 2005). Similarly, in In re Garcia, the Board of Immigration Appeals interpreted a regulation allowing
special-rule cancellation for an alien who “has been physically present in the United States for a continuous period of
[seven] years immediately preceding the date the application was filed,” 8 C.F.R. § 1240.66(b)(2), to be satisfied where “the
respondent accrued [seven] years of continuous physical presence prior to the issuance of a final administrative decision for
purposes of establishing eligibility for relief.” 24 I&N Dec. 179, 183 (BIA 2007).

One could thus analogize and alternatively argue that the requirement of INA § 245(a)(3) that the alien have an available
visa “at the time his application is filed” actually means that there must be an available visa at the time the application is
finally adjudicated. In effect, what we are ultimately saying in both cases is that the official time of “filing” for statutory
purposes does not have to correspond to the date when the application papers are physically submitted and ancillary benefits
are granted. Although Section 6 of the 1976 Act to Amend the INA, Pub. L. No. 94-571 § 6, 90 Stat. 2703 (1976),
substituted the word “filed” for the word “approved” in INA § 245(a)(3), it should not cripple our argument that the
statutory moment of “filing” is not necessarily the same thing as the moment the papers are submitted or the moment that
ancillary benefits are granted.

Ultimately, however, the authority to grant ancillary benefits is not dependent on how one defines the moment of “filing.”
As will be addressed further below, neither the power implied in INA § 274A(h)(3)(B) for the Attorney General (and now
Department of Homeland Security “D.H.S.”) to grant employment authorization, nor the power to parole under INA §
212(d)(5)(A), require that an adjustment application have been filed, pre-filed, or anything else. The decision to grant
advance parole to aliens with non-current approved I-130 and I-140 petitions is no more contrary to the statute than the
current policy to grant advance parole to aliens with pending adjustment applications because there is no specific reference
in the statute to the latter either.

13
be necessary for USCIS to parole such visa applicants in to the United States. Since parole is not
considered a legal admission, they will not be eligible for adjustment of status but will have to depart
the United States and use the now-valid visa as a travel document to return when visa availability
subsequently presents itself. The authors suggest the insertion of the following sentence, shown here in
italics and deletion of an other sentence, in 9 Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) 42.55 PN 1.1, as follows:

9 FAM 42.55 PN1.1 Qualifying Dates

“Qualifying dates” are established by the Department to ensure that applicants will not be
officially informed of requisite supporting documentation requirements prematurely, i.e., prior
to the time that the availability of a visa number within a reasonable period can be foreseen.
Therefore, post or National Visa Center (NVC) will not officially and proactively notify
applicants of additional processing requirements unless the qualifying date set by the
Department (CA/VO/F/I) encompasses the alien’s priority date. Otherwise, it is likely that some
documents would be out-of date by the time a visa number is available and delay in final action
would result. An immigrant visa is also considered available for provisional submission of
the immigrant visa application on Form DS 230 based on a provisional priority date without
reference to current priority date. No provisional submission can be undertaken absent prior
approval of the visa petition and only if visas in the preference category have not been
exhausted in the fiscal year. Issuance of the immigrant visa for the appropriate category only
occurs when there is a current priority date. Nevertheless, should an applicant or agent request
information concerning additional processing requirements, this information may be provided at
any time with a warning that some documents may expire if obtained too early in the process.

If Congress wanted to ratify what the USCIS had done, it could certainly do so after the fact.
Everything that we now consider to be the adjustment of status process could take place before the
priority date becomes current. Nothing could be simpler. The reason to seek Congressional
modification of INA § 245(a) is not because it is the only way forward but because, by enshrining such
a procedural benefit in the INA itself, it will be a much more secure right, one not subject to
administrative whim or unilateral repeal. This process would not only afford the Visa Office a more
accurate picture of adjustment demand but it holds out the potential of drastically slashing processing
times. Far from granting adjustment applicants any special or unfair advantage, the use of qualifying
dates as a way to define immediate visa availability would serve to harmonize the “green card” process
in and out of the United States. Clearly, close and constant coordination between the Visa Office and
USCIS would be required and integration of this procedural innovation with the Child Status Protection
Act would be necessary. Given the obvious and not insignificant benefits, any transitional angst is
surely worth the effort.

Dinesh Shenoy is not alone. It appears that Janet Napolitano, Secretary of D.H.S., is thinking of
permitting adjustment of status applications to be filed before the priority date becomes current. 35 Put
down your coffee cup for a moment and consider her January 30, 2009 Action Directive on
immigration and border security. In pertinent part, Secretary Napolitano spoke of “information sharing
with the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs on projected adjustment caseloads to be used
by that Bureau in setting each month’s cut-off dates on waiting lists for immigration categories that are
limited by a yearly quota” and went on to pose this very intriguing question: “What regulatory or

35
USCIS Office of the Press Secretary, Press Release: Secretary Napolitano Issues Immigration and Border Security Action
Directive, ILW.com, Jan. 30, 2009, http://www.ilw.com/immigrationdaily/news/2009,0203-immigration.shtm.

14
legislative changes (including a possible pre-application filing procedure for adjustment cases) are
recommended to facilitate caseload planning and make optimum use of [the United States] Citizenship
and Immigration Services’ adjudication capacity?”36 If Secretary Napolitano wanted some precedent
to support her curiosity, she need look no further than S. 2611 as passed by the United States Senate in
May 2006. 37 As part of this comprehensive immigration reform measure that died in the House of
Representatives, the Senate amended INA § 245(a) to allow for foreign-born students who had earned
an “advanced degree,” though not necessarily from an American university, in sciences, technology,
engineering or mathematics (the famous STEM gang!) to file for adjustment of status irrespective of
priority date currency on the basis of an I-140 petition, though no final approval could issue until an
immigrant visa number became available.38 Interestingly, the Senate did not extend this exception to
family-based adjustments nor to immigrant visa applicants outside the United States. 39 More recently,
on December 14, 2009, Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) introduced the Comprehensive
Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR ASAP). 40 Under § 321 of
this bill, nonimmigrant skilled workers whose employer has petitioned for an employment-based
“green card” on their behalf and their dependents will be permitted to file an application for adjustment
of status, regardless of whether a visa is immediately available. 41 An applicant under this section must
pay a supplemental $500 fee, to be used by D.H.S. for backlog reduction and clearing security
background check delays. 42 The Secretary of D.H.S. shall provide employment and travel authorization
in three-year increments while the application is pending. 43 Here too, this ameliorative measure is only
applicable to EB applicants and not FB applicants. 44 We propose that if CIR ASAP gains momentum,
this provision ought to also extend to FB immigrants. 45

After all, as the USCIS has already recognized in the Optional Practical Training context by
allowing a 17-month renewal as an antidote to the manifestly inadequate H-1B quota, announced
openly by USCIS as the prime rationale for their liberality, STEM students are uniquely important to

36
Id.
37
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, S. 2611, 109th Cong. (2006).
38
See id.
39
Id.
40
H.R. 4321, 111th Cong. (2009).
41
Id. at § 321.
42
Id.
43
Id.
44
See id.
45
There are other provisions in CIR ASAP that we should mention. Section 301 proposes that the EB quota be increased
from 140,000 to 290,000 and unused “green card” numbers roll over from one fiscal year to the next. Unused numbers from
1992 to 2009 will also be recaptured. H.R. 4321, 111th Cong. § 301 (2009). Section 302 makes the spouse and minor
children of lawful permanent residents into immediate relatives, and they will no longer be part of the FB second
preference. Id. at § 302. Section 303 increases country limits from seven percent to ten percent. Id. at § 303. Section 320
exempts those who have earned Master’s or higher degrees from American schools from the EB quotas, and this is not just
restricted to STEM disciplines. Id. at § 320.

15
the United States. 46 If we are willing to treat them differently for Optical Practical Training purposes,
why not do so for far more weighty adjustment of status purposes? If we are concerned over potential
abuse, launch it as a pilot project that is limited in time (perhaps two years as with other conditional
categories) and in number, say 65,000 to match the pitiable H-1B quota. In the ninety days before the
second anniversary of what the authors call the “grey card,” 47 applicants will have to file a petition to
lift the condition, thus giving the USCIS a second chance to determine if the “grey card” holder’s
continued presence in the United States was in the national interest. That ought to show good faith!
Throw in the requirement for the advanced degree to be earned in America, something that Mr. Shenoy
left out. At the same time, to allow for future expansion, add a provision authorizing USCIS, in its
discretion, to extend this same remedial practice to other professions or disciplines, perhaps those best
suited to health care or growing a green economy.

The “grey card” would arise after an adjustment application is filed through the establishment
of a “provisional priority date.” The notion of such a filing, while a radical proposal in immigration
law, is commonplace in other administrative contexts. An excellent example of this is the provisional
patent application. Since June 8, 1995, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has extended an
option to inventors to file a first-time, barebones patent application, the effect of which is to preserve a
priority date on a conditional basis so long as it is perfected by a subsequent application within a year. 48
There is no formal patent claim, oath or declaration, or an information disclosure statement. This
“provisional patent” promotes administrative efficiency by marking an official United States patent
application date for the invention and permits use of the term “patent pending” in connection with its
description. The inventor can make a simplified submission with a reduced initial investment and gets
twelve months to evaluate the invention’s commercial possibilities before jumping in with both feet and
incurring the additional expense of a full-blown patent application that is more complex and costly. At
the same time, the inventor benefits from the ability to market the invention without worrying that the
competition, whether foreign or domestic, might steal it for themselves. The Patent Office can keep
their workload under control and focus on the inventions that are ready for final review. 49 The notion of
a “provisional priority date,” symbolized by the “grey card” can extend the benefits to the USCIS and
the alien beneficiary, not to mention the employer who needs their services or the family member who
treasures their companionship. The potential for fraud or abuse will be distinctly minimized by the need
for an approved petition and an immediately available immigrant visa number as a precondition to
permanency.

Without Congress authorizing a single new immigrant visa, this one procedure will
revolutionize employment-based migration. When combined with adjustment of status portability
under INA § 204(j), this quasi-permanent category of “green card” applicants will be able to live as
permanent residents in all but name. The authors recognize that this is still not a substitute to the actual
“green card,” since a loss in job or a plan to change careers would jeopardize one’s ability to “port”

46
The usual limitation of 12 months of Optional Practical Training does not apply to STEM (science, technology,
engineering or mathematics) students who can extend their Optional Practical Training for an additional 17 months if the
employer is enrolled in the E-Verify program and agrees to various reporting requirements. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(10)(ii)(C).
47
The authors credit Sam Udani for coining this most apt term.
48
See 35 U.S.C § 111(a) and § 111(b) (2009)
49
See United States Patent and Trademark Office, Resources and Guidance, Provisional Application for Patent,
http://www.uspto.gov/patents/resources/types/provapp.jsp.

16
under INA §204(j). 50 In effect, a new era of vastly increased legal immigration would result from a
return to system preceding the 1920’s national origins quota system. By increasing the opportunity for
legal immigration without the need for congressional action, such an approach combines simplicity
with maximum opportunity. There is ample precedent for doing this beyond the Senate enactment of S.
2611. In 1997, the noted immigration scholar Julian Simon wrote a book in which, among other things,
he argued that special preference for permanent residence should be given to foreign students who
came to study in the United States. 51 Simply stated, retain the general notion of a current priority date
but waive it for select reasons of higher national interest. The logic of doing this is not terribly
dissimilar from the concept of the EB-2 national interest waiver where the national interest of reserving
jobs from Americans rightly gives way in carefully chosen instances to the retention of foreign
nationals whose recognized contributions justify such exception. In the same spirit, we propose to
allow adjustment of status applications to be filed, though not approved, without immediate availability
of an immigrant visa number. 52
50
On the other hand, if one leaves the sponsoring employer shortly after receiving permanent residency, this too could be
scrutinized when the individual applies for naturalization. Of course, if the individual who receives permanent residence
reports to the employer with good intentions and the employer shortly thereafter terminates the employment, the individual
is in a more defensible position. See, e.g., In re Cardoso, 13 I&N Dec. 228 (BIA 1969). Therefore, an individual whose job
is terminated after receiving permanent residence is not in so vulnerable a position as one who is porting under INA §204(j).
51
See JULIAN L. SIMON, THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF IMMIGRATION INTO THE UNITED STATES, Chapter 16, (Univ.
Mich. Press 1999); available at http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Immigration/CHAP16.txt.
52
David Isaacson argues that a blunter version of this approach could be pursued unilaterally by the Department of State
without the need for regulatory changes, although doing this would have its drawbacks. Readers will remember how, in the
July 2007 Visa Bulletin, the Department of State designated all employment-based categories other than “other worker” as
“current,” rendering visa numbers theoretically available for all priority dates in those categories and thus allowing the
filing of adjustment applications by all otherwise adjustment-eligible aliens in those categories who had I-140 petitions filed
on their behalf. See U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, 107 VISA BULLETIN VIII: JULY 2007, June 12, 2007,
http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_3258.html. The Department of State could similarly allow filing of
adjustment applications by applicants with priority dates for which no visa number was realistically available, at any time it
chose to do so, simply by declaring the relevant categories “current” in the Visa Bulletin as it did for July 2007. The most
efficient time to do this would be in September, at the end of each fiscal year, when the measure could also be justified as a
way to ensure that any remaining visa numbers for that fiscal year did not go unused. The Visa Bulletin cut-off dates for the
rest of the fiscal year could theoretically then proceed normally, with dates for each October following naturally from
whatever the dates had been in the August two months before.

This idea would substantially and explosively lengthen the priority date backlog significantly and cause chaos in the
application processing much greater than the one in the summer of 2007. This idea is less nuanced as it would be unable to
easily focus on particular categories of applicants deemed vital to our national interest. This approach would increase the
processing backlog at USCIS to a greater degree than an approach based on a regulatory or statutory change because it
would not distinguish between the pending applications that are likely to have a visa number available in the near future
from the other applications in the “pre-processing” queue that do not fall under the parameters of our proposal. Also, when
presented with this idea, Charles Oppenheim from the Department of State confirmed that given the way that Visa Bulletin
cut-off dates are actually calculated, the existence of many additional pending adjustment applications would lead to
substantial retrogression of cut-off dates in the non-current Visa Bulletins, because cut-off dates currently depend upon
pending adjustment applications and consular-post demand, without regard to approved I-130 and I-140 petitions that have
not reached the adjustment or consular-processing stage. See Interview of Charles Oppenheim by Gary Endelman, Aug. 25,
2009. (On file with authors). Further, by increasing the number of visa petitions and adjustment applications that are filed,
this proposal would make the ultimate waiting time before “green card” issuance even longer. That final drawback,
however, is shared at least to some degree by any proposal that allows filing of adjustment applications in the absence of a
realistically available visa number: some number of petitioners who would not have otherwise bothered to pursue the I-
140/I-485 process in backlogged categories will now decide to do so, resulting in more aliens waiting on line for the limited
supply of visa numbers, and even in the family-based categories, some may feel more incentivized to file I-130 petitions on
behalf of their qualifying relatives if it allowed them to apply for adjustment of status by September in any given fiscal year,
or to apply for parole and employment authorization.

17
 C. Remembering the Children and Backdating Grant of Permanent Residence

We conclude this section of the article with two ancillary ideas to our proposal of being able to
file an adjustment of status application before the priority date as defined by the Visa Bulletin. When
Congress enacted the Child Status Protection Act, it wanted above all else to soften the harsh blows of
long delays by the USCIS in the adjudication of “green card” cases. How? Congress did so by
extending this generous benefit to protect vulnerable children who would otherwise be cavalierly
abandoned to the tender mercies of an indifferent jurisprudence when their parents immigrated. The
Board of Immigration Appeals, in In re Avila-Perez, faithfully captured this humane spirit:

The CSPA was created to remedy the problem of minor children of United States citizens
losing their immediate relative status and being demoted to the family first-preference
category as a result of the INS's backlog in adjudicating visa petitions and applications for
adjustment of status…To prevent these individuals from “aging out” because of INS
processing delays, Congress decided that a child's age should be determined by the date his visa
petition was filed, not as of the date the INS reviewed his applications, as it would have been
under the old law. 53

There was no way that Congress could have possibly anticipated the implosion of the EB-3 or
EB-2 in the China and India categories. Of all the virtues our legislative worthies possessed, the gift of
prophecy was not among them. That is why the CSPA formula to freeze the age of a child in preference
cases requires visa availability. While the architects of the CSPA strived mightily to promote family
unity, the restrictive formula they came up with reflects their wholly understandable failure to account
for the possibility of visa retrogression greatly exceeding government processing delays. It is no
exaggeration to conclude or contend that this adverse effect on “aging out” children ran directly
contrary to what Congress thought it was doing. Given an EB-3 backlog of almost 7-8 years worldwide
and over 30 years for India, you would have to start a labor certification now for someone who has a
child turning 12 because that child's age will only be frozen when the immigrant visa is available, many
years later. For India, even if the labor certification is started around the time of the child’s birth, such
strategic foresight may not suffice! If you get a quick labor certification followed by prompt USCIS
approval of the I-140 petition, the child you think you are helping might not be so lucky down the road.
When you have visa retrogression like we have right now, the CSPA formula is useless to protect
children no matter how you interpret the CSPA formula. To the EB-3 preference child, especially if the

On the other hand, the authors proposal of allowing of pre-filing adjustment applications without linking such a filing to a
current priority date, and as discussed infra in the article, to be able to obtain work authorization and parole even without
filing an adjustment application will not immediately generate the explosive backlogs that followed the July 2007 Visa
Bulletin; therefore, the authors have decided not to include this interesting idea as a centerpiece of their proposals.
Regardless of the drawbacks of such a proposal actually being implemented, the threat of the Department of State
accomplishing many of the goals of our proposed reforms through this unilateral instrument serves as a spur to regulatory
change by USCIS, or to Congressional action. Just as the July 2007 Visa Bulletin provoked greater EB number usage by
USCIS, the threat of future similar Visa Bulletins could provoke a more efficient resolution of the overall priority date
problem. The Department of State’s ability to unilaterally make progress towards resolving a substantial portion of the
problem faced by EB-2 and EB-3 beneficiaries from India or China is particularly appropriate because of the adverse
foreign policy effects that the invidious discrimination inherent in our current system may have on our diplomatic relations
with those countries.
53
24 I&N Dec. 78 at 83-84 (BIA 2007).

18
parents are born in India, the promise of the CSPA has become a cruel joke.

What to do? This article is based on the belief that, until you get a new law, the best, perhaps the
only, thing to do is to take a new look at the law we have. Using our analogy that adjustment of status
applications can be provisionally submitted absent a current priority date, we could save the children by
redefining the concept of visa availability for the CSPA age formula pursuant to INA § 203(h). 54 Doing
so would freeze the child's age despite visa backlogs! While we acknowledge that such an approach is,
to say the least, openly unorthodox, we are warmed by the well-settled truth that a generous
interpretation of any statute should be adopted where its “remedial purposes are most evident.” 55
Moreover, USCIS has, in the past, expanded the meaning of visa availability. During the July 2007
Visa Bulletin period, when the dates for the EB-2 and EB-3 were made current, eligible applicants filed
concurrent I-140 petitions and I-485 applications. The I-140 petitions were not approved at the time of
visa availability, and after August 17, 2007, there was again retrogression. To the credit of the USCIS,
the child’s age was still frozen at the time of filing the unadjudicated I-140 petitions and I-485
applications, even if the I-140 petitions were approved after August 17, 2007 and when there was no
longer any visa availability. In this case, the government informally expanded the interpretation of visa
availability to a point of time when the visa was available by virtue of the July 2007 Visa Bulletin, but
the I-140 petition had not been approved even though the “Johnny William memo” 56 insisted that there
had to be an approved I-140 petition at the time of visa availability to freeze the age of the child, even
if the priority date subsequent to this event regresses.

There is, of course, a second part to the CSPA age formula, namely that the child must have
“sought to acquire” the status of a lawful permanent resident within one year of visa availability. Now,
as immigration guru Quynh Nguyen 57 so incisively reminds us, “seeking to acquire” is a singularly
novel term. The authors do not think it is used anywhere else in the INA. We do not seek to re-write the
CSPA age formula; just the opposite. We seek to interpret it in a broadly humane way to achieve what
Congress thought it was prescribing, a formula for the protection of children and the advancement of
family unit. Our suggestion is advanced in furtherance of this intent by allowing a provisional
submission to count as “seeking to acquire.” Remember, dear friends, the CSPA language speaks of
“seeking to acquire” a “green card” within the one year period after the Visa Bulletin indicates
availability. Ms. Nguyen correctly points out that nothing precludes the USCIS from interpreting this to
mean that the child could not seek to acquire before this one year period commences; she just has to
conclude the step of “seeking to acquire” within the one year period after an immigrant visa
is available. Our provisional filing approach would still require yet allow the child to “seek to acquire”
green card status with final ratification firmly conditioned upon availability of an immigrant visa. This
has been done before. That is precisely how the Department of State interpreted “seeking to acquire”

54
Under INA § 203(h)(1)(A) & § 203(h)(1)(B), the age of a child is frozen at the point that a visa becomes available, based
on the first day of the month of the relevant visa bulletin and the approval of the visa petition, provided the child sought to
acquire permanent residency within one year of visa availability. The child can also subtract from his or her age (if over 21
years at the time of visa availability) the time the visa petition of the parent took to get approved from the time of filing.
See Johnny Williams, Office of Field Operations of Legacy INS, The Child Status Protection Act, Memo # 2, Feb. 14, 2003,
AILA InfoNet Doc. No. 03031040 (“Johnny Williams Memo”).
55
Sedima v. Imrex Co., 473 U.S. 479, 491 n.10 (1985).
56
Supra n. 54.
57
Quynh Nguyen is a Houston-based immigration attorney in her own practice with particular emphasis on business
immigration issues, and is a frequent speaker and writer at regional and national immigration conferences.

19
when it allowed the I-824 consular notification form to be used in precisely this same way. As the BIA
reminded us in Avila-Perez, 58 the precise moment when an adjustment of status is filed should
command neither our rapt attention nor unquestioning obedience. It can be filed at any time; since the
CSPA neither demands nor instructs the child to “seek to acquire” in any particular way or time, why
not allow a provisional submission to suffice?

If freezing the age of the child based on a re-interpretation of visa availability is too shocking
for the faint of heart, we offer another, perhaps more soothing reason, why our provisional adjustment
filing honors the spirit to the CSPA in a way that the traditional understanding of the age formula
simply does not. We turn now to the automatic conversion mechanism under INA § 203(h)(3) that
allows for seamless transfer of a child to the appropriate preference if that child cannot claim CSPA
protection. 59 Allowing the child to provisionally file her adjustment of status with the parent(s) means
that the child still remains an adjustment applicant even after “aging out.” Then, when the parent gets
the “green card,” the child shifts over to the Family 2-B category which, mirable dictu, might then be
current. The parents need not file a new I-130 petition. Since the child's adjustment of status was
already filed under the provisional priority date, the “aged out” child will either get the “green card”
simultaneously with the parent if F-2B is ready and waiting or, if not, the child can wait it out a bit
longer, but still as an adjustment applicant under a provisional date under F-2B. The key is to allow the
child to file their adjustment of status with the parents while minors under a provisional date so that,
once they become adults, they will continue to be adjustable when they automatically convert to Family
2B after Mom and Dad are done.

Finally, quite apart from our CSPA proposal, once the priority date becomes current and USCIS
grants adjustment of status, why not backdate the grant of permanent residence to the point of time
when the application was filed under the “provisional priority date?” This would allow people who
waited for years for permanent residence to immediately file an application for naturalization. 60 If an
EB-3 beneficiary born in India waited over ten years for permanent residence, why should we require
him to wait another five years to apply for naturalization? Since citizenship is necessary for voting, and
voting is a fundamental right, then backdating “green card” approval enables people from China and
India to become citizens and exercise the franchise years earlier than is now the case. 61 On the other

58
Supra n. 53.
59
While we acknowledge that the BIA, in In re Wang, overturned its more generous interpretation in the unpublished
decision of In re Maria T. Garcia, In re Wang does not faithfully interpret INA § 203(h)(3), which rings loud and clear for
the automatic conversion of the child to an appropriate preference category, and provides the government with ample
running room to re-interpret the provision consistent with Garcia. See In re Wang, 25 I&N Dec. 28 (BIA 2009); In re Maria
T. Garcia, 2006 WL 2183654 (BIA June 16, 2006); see also, David A. Isaacson, BIA Rejects Matter of Maria T. Garcia in
Precedent Decision Interpreting the Child Status Protection Act, June 22, 2009,
http://www.cyrusmehta.com/News.aspx?SubIdx=ocyrus20096221176.
60
A permanent resident who is not married to a U.S. citizen has to wait five years before he or she may naturalize. See INA
§316(a) [8 U.S.C. § 1427(a) (2006)].
61
This is not as revolutionary as it may seem. Under the INA, a refugee who has adjusted her status receives a priority date
of the initial arrival to the United States. See INA §209(a)(2) [8 U.S.C 1159(a)(2) (2005)]. Similarly, an asylee who has
adjusted her status receives a priority date of one year before the approval of the I-485 application. INA § 209(b)(5) [8
U.S.C. § 1159(b)(5) (2005)]. Of course, benefits guaranteed by statutes, like the ones for refugees and asylees, do not fit
into our proposal of agency intervention. On the other hand, Lautenberg parolees are provided a one-year backdate not by
statute but by regulation. See 8 C.F.R. § 245.7(e). Therefore, the Lautenberg parolee regulation is a better example of how
the agency can also backdate a “green card” to someone who has waited over a decade under the EB-3 so that he or she can
immediately apply for naturalization.

20
hand, there might be a statutory roadblock since INA § 245(b) requires the recording of the alien’s
lawful admission for permanent residence “as of the date the order of the Attorney General approving
the application for the adjustment of status is made, and the Secretary of State shall reduce by one the
number of the preference visas authorized to be issued under sections 202 and 203 within the class to
which the alien is chargeable for the fiscal year then current.” 62 Under INA § 245(b), there are two
obstacles. The first is that the recording of the permanent residence must be made “as of the date of the
order of the Attorney General.” This might be overcome as there is nothing that explicitly prohibits
backdating the date of the order. The more burdensome obstacle is that the visa must be allocated from
the fiscal year then current. Quynh Nguyen has come up with a brilliant interpretation that may save the
day. Her point is that USCIS can backdate the validity of permanent residence status while still
honoring the statutory mandate to subtract immigrant visas from the current fiscal year because the I-
140 or I-130 petition was already counted at the time of initial submission when the provisional priority
date was established. Since it was counted then, it would be double counting to count a second time
when the priority date becomes current.

III. SECOND PROPOSAL: DE-LINK THE GRANT OF BENEFITS FROM THE FILING
OF AN ADJUSTMENT OF STATUS APPLICATION

A. Grant Of Employment Authorization And Parole Without Congressional

Action

Dinesh Shenoy made a huge first step but it was only a first step. Is action by Congress the
only, or even the best, way to break the priority date stranglehold on American immigration policy?
The authors do not think so. Amendment of INA § 245 is unlikely because action by Congress, even in
the best of times, is neither swift nor easy. We also assume that our expanded regulatory definition of
visa availability may be difficult to swallow. When Congress does rouse itself to act, legalization and
other priority items (like recapture of unused visas) will absorb it. Beyond this, is it necessary to relax
the rules on adjustment of status? What do potential immigrants really want for themselves and their
spouses? They want what we all want: the ability to work freely in the United States without constant
fear, and the ability to take their families on vacations or visit relatives for holidays. Can they only do
that as adjustment applicants? Is there another way? The authors think there is. While INA § 245
conditions adjustment of status on having a current priority date and meeting various conditions, 63
there is no prohibition anywhere that would bar USCIS from allowing the beneficiary of an approved I-
140 or I-130 petition to apply for an employment authorization document (EAD) and advance parole.
No action by Congress would be required; Executive fiat suffices. 64 Of course, for I-140 petition

62
INA § 245(b) [8 U.S.C. § 1255(b) (2009)].
63
Under the Act, unless the applicant is a Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) petitioner or an immediate relative, any
person who accepted unauthorized employment or was in unlawful immigration status is ineligible to adjust her status. See
INA § 245(c) [8 U.S.C. § 1255(c) (2009)]. Certain non-citizens, on the other hand, who accepted unauthorized employment
or failed to maintain status, may still be eligible for adjustment under the limited exceptions. See INA § 245(k) and § 245(i)
[8 U.S.C. § 1255(k) and § 1255(i) (2009)].
64
Further, President Obama has recently expressed his willingness to use Executive Orders to bypass the current gridlock in
Congress in enacting his economic policy ideas; in the same spirit, we hope that the President would set his sights on
immigration consistent with the theme of this article. See Peter Baker, Obama Making Plans to Use Executive Power, N.Y.
TIMES, Feb. 13, 2010, at A13. For another view from a leading commentator on how changes in the immigration system can
happen through executive action, see Angelo Paparelli, Immigration Reform with the Stroke of a Pen, Mar. 06, 2009,
http://www.nationofimmigrators.com/?p=228.

21
beneficiaries, being able to “port” under INA § 204(j) will not be possible without a pending
adjustment of status application. Beneficiaries of I-140 petitions would still need to harbor an intention
to work for the sponsoring employer even though the EAD would allow them to seek employment in
the open market until they filed an adjustment of status application upon the priority date becoming
current. But we do not see why the government cannot establish a similar ability to “port,” even
without an adjustment of status application, after an I-140 petition has been approved for more than
180 days and the priority date has not become current, similar to INA § 204(j) portability. 65 For those
who want some comfort in finding a statutory basis, the government could rely on its parole authority
under INA § 212(d)(5) to grant such interim benefits either for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or
“significant public benefit.” 66 There is nothing in 8 C.F.R. § 212.5 that would prohibit D.H.S. from
granting parole on the ground that the continued presence of the beneficiaries of I-140 or I-130
petitions provides a significant public benefit. Since such parole is not a legal admission, 67 there is no
separation of powers argument since the Executive is not trying to change existing grounds of

65
We know that the Department of Labor has always insisted that an approved labor certification is only good for one job in
one place, but we find nothing in the INA or in 20 C.F.R. § 656 that corroborates it, and there is nothing in the INA that
would prevent the Department of Labor from extending, by regulation, the same occupational mobility that INA § 204(j)
provided to adjustment applicants, something most EB-3 holders will not be for 10-15 years or longer. Here is how it would
work, the labor certification and the I-140 petition would belong to the beneficiary and not to the employer (1) after a labor
certification and I-140 petition have been filed, and (2) 180 days have passed since the I-140 petition was filed (INA §
204(j) standards). The economy would benefit from such circularity since the alien would not have to stay in the same job
for the same employer but would be free to develop her talents to the fullest and a qualified U.S. worker could be hired in
the vacancy that was created.

Moreover, even though CSPA triggers when there is visa availability, and even though our second proposal de-links the
grant of benefits, such as work authorization, from filing an adjustment application when the visa becomes available, the
authors again ask for a more faithful interpretation of INA § 203(h)(3) and reversal of In re Wang, supra n. 59, which results
in the automatic conversion of the child into the appropriate preference category when the parents obtain their “green
cards.” In the meantime, the “aged-out” child still receives work authorization and parole until this “child” can obtain the
“green card” under the F-2B preference using the priority date of the parent under the prior EB petition.
66
INA § 212(d)(5) [8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5) (2009)]; see also 8 C.F.R. § 212.5, which further spells out the various classes of
aliens who can be granted parole. Such parole must be less than 365 days to avoid subtraction of an immigrant visa number.
INA § 201(c)(4)(A) [8 U.S.C. § 1151(c)(4)(A) (2009)].
67
See, e.g., Leng May Ma v. Barber, 357 U.S. 185 (1958). The USCIS recently stated that “Parole is [a] discretionary
decision, under section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Act, to permit an inadmissible alien to leave the inspection facility free of
official custody, so that, although the alien is not admitted, the alien is permitted to be in the United States. By statutory
definition, parole is not admission.” Scialabba, Neufeld, & Chang, Section 212(a)(6) of the Immigration and Nationality
Act, Illegal Entrants and Immigration Violators, Mar. 3, 2009, Memo # USCIS HQ 70/21.1 AD07-18,
http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/section212_a_6_immi_natl_act_illegal_violators.pdf (“212(a)(6) Memo”). The
212(a)(6) Memo also states that a parolee under INA § 212(d)(5)(A) “[is] still in theory of law at the boundary line and
[has] gained no foothold in the United States.” Id.; Barber, 357 U.S. 185 (1985). The 212(a)(6) Memo goes on to state,
“Parole may be granted for ‘urgent humanitarian reasons’ (humanitarian parole) or for ‘significant public benefit.’ Deferred
inspection, 8 C.F.R. § 235.2, and advance parole, 8 C.F.R. § 212.5(f), are types of parole, as are individual port of entry
paroles and paroles authorized while the person is overseas.” Id. For an excellent treatment of parole, see Chris Gafner and
Stephen Yale-Loehr, Immigration Parole: Recent Developments, 15 Bender’s Immigration Bulletin 191 (2010). While
Gafner and Yale-Loehr contend that the 1996 amendments to INA § 212(d)(5)(A) allowed parole “only on a case by case
basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” and thus eliminated the use of parole for mass
immigration purposes, the authors forcefully argue that the USCIS still routinely grants advance parole to anyone who
applies for adjustment of status, and the 1996 limitations were intended to restrict the use of parole for refugees. Under our
proposal, we ask that USCIS grant parole to beneficiaries of approved I-130 and I-140 petitions outside adjustment of
status. These individuals, but for the lack of current visa availability, would have been able to apply for adjustment of status
and avail of parole or apply for immigrant visas if outside the United States.

22
admission or create any new ones. Moreover, Congress appears to have provided the government with
broad authority to provide work authorization to just about any non-citizen. 68

It is undeniably true that more EAD and Parole benefits will be of limited value to retrogressed
non-citizens from India and China who are already in the United States in the employment-based
second and third preferences. After all, most have an H-1B and can extend under § 106(a) or § 104(c)
of AC 21, 69 but as noted previously, some may still not be able to take advantage of AC 21. Moreover,
spouses on H-4 cannot work, and if they cannot file an adjustment application, due to the backlogs in
the priority dates, they will not be able to work for several years. The EAD would thus also come as a
relief for the H-4 spouse whose career may otherwise be derailed. 70 The EAD in itself for prospective

68
The authors further credit David Isaacson for pointing out that INA § 274(A)(h)(3) provides that “As used in this section,
the term ‘unauthorized alien’ means with respect to the employment of an alien at a particular time, that the alien is not at
that time either (A) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or (B) authorized to be so employed by this Act or
by the Attorney General.” (Emphasis added). Under these circumstances, an EAD could be issued to someone who has yet
to have an approved I-130 or I-140 petition, and could possibly be granted in deserving situations. One scenario is where a
bona fide labor certification, the first necessary step before an I-140 petition is filed under INA § 203(b)(2) and § 203(b)(3),
is not yet approved due to Department of Labor processing delays, or has not been on file for 365 days. The foreign
national’s H-1B six-year time limit is maxing out yet this person is unable to take advantage of an H-1B extension beyond
the six years under § 106(a) of AC21. Congress does not necessarily have to amend AC21 to solve this issue because the
INA authorizes the Executive to issue an EAD to any person for any purpose under any circumstances and for any validity.
INA § 274(A)(h)(3) [8 U.S.C. § 1324 (2005)]. Sub silentio, the USCIS has already relied on precisely this authority, perhaps
not even realizing it, when it decided to issue a two-year EAD to the eternally waiting adjustment applicants with approved
I-140 petitions but without a current priority date. USCIS Office of Communications, USCIS to Issue Two-Year Employment
Authorization Documents (EADs), June 12, 2008, http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/2yrEAD_FAQ_061208.pdf. The USCIS
acted in response to tidal wave of visa retrogression. This sends an essential message to all with ears to hear it: Regulations
do not exist in a vacuum. They are created in response to what the INA says or does not say, what the statute allows or
prohibits. There is an inescapable policy dimension to any exercise of federal regulatory authority so the suggestions we
advance here are but a new application of doing what already exists.
69
What about those not on the H-1B? The unavailability of an EAD outside the adjustment of status context forces people
into the H-1B category who might not otherwise need or even want to be there. Our proposal would ease the pressure on the
H-1B category and, by so doing, serve to diminish opposition to all employment-based immigration.
70
Many talented H-1B beneficiaries choose not to stay in the United States because their spouses on H-4 visas are unable to
work. See Matt Richtel, Tech Recruiting Clashes with Immigration Rules, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 12, 2009, at A1, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/business/12immig.html. This can be done by regulation. There is no statutory
prohibition on this. While L-2 and E-2 spouses were given EAD after Congress enacted INA § 214(c)(2)(E) [8 U.S.C. §
1184(c)(2)(E) (2009)] and § 214(e)(6) [8 U.S.C. § 1184(e)(6) (2009)] respectively, the authors believe that there is no need
for Congressional intervention. There is no need for an EAD in fact. We should simply include H-4 spouses as part of 8
C.F.R. § 274a.12(a) so that they can work incident to status. This is one way to ameliorate the extreme hardship suffered by
H-4 spouses who must wait for years to apply for legal permanent resident status without being able to work. Again, there is
nothing to prevent the Executive from granting work authorization to teenage children on H-4 visa status. This would be a
terrific way to help them. Finally, § 106(a) of AC 21 allows an H-1B visa holder on whose behalf a labor certification has
been filed 365 days prior to the maximum time limit to obtain an H-1B visa extension beyond the six years. AC 21 § 106(a)
should also allow the spouse of an H-1B who is also in H-1B status to be able to obtain extensions beyond the six years
without having her own labor certification. This used to be allowed, but in May 2005, the Associate Director for Operations
of the USCIS set forth a memorandum indicating that only dependant H-4 spouses will get the benefit of the extension. See
William Yates, Interim Guidance for Processing Form I-140 Employment-Based Immigrant Petitions and Form I-485 and
H-1B Petitions Affected by the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000, May 12, 2005, Memo #
USCIS HQPRD 70/6.2.8-P, http://www.mnllp.com/CISac21104ccyatmay05.pdf. Now, both spouses need to have labor
certifications filed on their behalf to obtain the benefit of AC 21 § 106(a), which is absurd. The statute itself has more
flexibility and speaks of “any application for labor certification …in a case in which certification is required or used by the
alien to obtain status under section 203(b) of such Act.” Under this interpretation, the H-1B husband who does not have his
own labor certification can still use his H-1B wife’s labor certification on a derivative basis to file for adjustment of
status. This interpretation is very much in the spirit of AC 21, which is to soften the hardship caused by lengthy

23
employment-based immigrants will not have a portability benefit. The principal foreign national
beneficiary will still need to intend to work for the sponsoring employer even if she is using the EAD
for open market employment unless a regulation, as suggested above, parallels the ability to “port”
under INA § 204(j). This reservation, valid as it undoubtedly is, focuses only on those already here. It
speaks solely to past migration flows not to future ones. For future flows, this will supplement the H-
1B by giving employers of foreign nationals another option. No longer will the constant controversy
over the H-1B quota discredit all employment-based immigration in the eyes of its critics and, most
importantly, in the court of public opinion. No longer will this one dispute suck all the oxygen out of
our national immigration debate. Beyond that, it is manifestly not true to argue that all of our
immigration needs can be solved with more H-1B numbers. This will not work for those who are not
H-1B material. It will not work for those with essential skills who find themselves in the “other
worker” backlog under INA § 203(b)(3)(iii) with no hope of getting the “green card” any time soon. It
will not eliminate the need for a massive guest worker program to legalize the undocumented, though
the scope and size of such a program might shrink. If anything, allowing non-citizens with approved I-
140 or I-130 petitions to receive EAD and Parole will serve to reduce the size of the permanently
undocumented in America, many of whom do not leave for fear that they will be unable to return. The
Executive would not be granting legal status to the undocumented, for that is what only Congress can
do. But, as is done in the context of adjustment of status itself, the Executive certainly can create a
period of stay that permits the undocumented to remain here.

B. Legalizing the Undocumented

While those out of status or who entered without inspection should not simply receive
employment authorization on a retroactive basis, there is no reason in law or logic why the Executive
cannot grant parole on a nunc pro tunc basis. 71 One conceptual difficulty is whether parole can be
granted to an individual who is already admitted on a nonimmigrant visa but has overstayed. Since
parole is not considered admission, it can be granted more readily to one who entered without
inspection. On the other hand, it is possible for the Executive to rescind the grant of admission under
INA §212(d)(5), and instead, replace it with the grant parole. As an example, an individual who was
admitted in B-2 status and is the beneficiary of an I-130 petition but whose B-2 status has expired can
be required to report to D.H.S. who can retroactively rescind the grant of admission in B-2 status and
instead be granted parole retroactively.

Leaving aside the troubling question of whether such a policy change would not reward
conduct that violates the law, the retroactive EAD would only cure the unauthorized employment

adjudications and we certainly have that now with respect to China and India, as well as worldwide EB-3. The current
interpretation placed upon AC 21 § 106(a) is contrary to the intent of Congress. It is not enough to say that the H-1B spouse
for whom a labor certification has not been filed can change to non-working H-4 status. Given the backlogs facing India and
China, as well as worldwide EB-3, it is simply unrealistic and punitive to deprive highly educated professionals of the
ability to work for years at a time but force them to remain here to preserve their eligibility for adjustment of status.
71
The following observation by the Board of Immigration Appeals in In re Garcia-Linares is worth noting:

We note initially that there is no provision in the immigration laws that expressly authorizes [nunc pro tunc]
permission to reapply for admission to cure an alien’s failure to obtain such permission prior to reentry after
deportation. However, even prior to the enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952…there had been
an administrative practice of granting relief ‘in a few well defined instances.’ (citation omitted).

In re Garcia-Linares, 21 I&N Dec. 254 (BIA 1996); see also In re Roman, 19 I&N Dec. 855 (BIA 1988).

24
problem but not the overstay or unlawful presence problem. The three or ten year bar 72 is not triggered
by a violation of status resulting from unauthorized employment but by an overstay past the validity of
their I-94 forms. For this reason, a retroactive EAD would do nothing to ameliorate the crushing
harshness of the three or ten year bar, though it might restore eligibility in some situations to adjust by
avoiding the unauthorized employment preclusion of INA § 245(c). 73 What would cure the prior

72
A noncitizen who is unlawfully present in the United States for more than 180 days or one year can trigger the three year
or ten year bar respectively upon departing the United States. INA § 212(a)(9)(B)(i)(I) or § 212(a)(9)(B)(i)(II) [8 U.S.C. §
1182(a)(9)(B)(i)(I) or § 1182(a)(9)(B)(i)(II) (2009)]. As a result of the potential for triggering these bars, many potential
immigrants with approved I-130 and I-140 petitions who are unable to adjust status in the United States do not leave the
country to process their immigrant visas at a consulate overseas, which has contributed to the huge undocumented
immigrant population in the United States.
73
David Isaacson suggests that the retroactive grant of parole and EAD may render a family-based immigrant, or an
employment-based immigrant who entered on a nonimmigrant visa but overstayed (although not one who entered without
inspection), eligible to adjust status in the United States, on the theory that the grant of nunc pro tunc parole would render
the applicant to have maintained lawful status. The only place in INA § 245 where the applicant is required to have
maintained lawful nonimmigrant status is under § 245(c)(7), which is limited to employment-based immigrants and not
family-based immigrants, and which can be overcome by INA § 245(k)(2) for aliens who are present pursuant to a lawful
admission and have not accumulated more than 180 days of unauthorized employment or failure to maintain a lawful status.
“For purposes of section 245(c)(2) of the Act,” current regulations already define “lawful immigration status” to include
“the immigration status of an individual who is . . . [i]n parole status which has not expired, been revoked or terminated.” 8
C.F.R. § 245.1(d)(v). A similar interpretation could be applied to INA § 245(k)(2)(A).

Although the interpretation of “lawful status” expressed in 8 C.F.R. § 245.1(d)(v), and proposed here to be extended to INA
§ 245(k)(2)(A), may be surprising to some given the conventional wisdom that parole is not a status, see Barber, supra n.
73, David Isaacson correctly observes that the term “status” is not defined anywhere in the INA, and by ordinary English
usage, “parolee status” is a perfectly natural way of describing someone who has been paroled. Parole is a lawful status in
the sense that, by virtue of the parole, it is lawful for the parolee to remain in the United States, at least for the authorized
period of time. There are other instances in the INA where lawful status for a non-legal permanent resident does not
automatically equate with nonimmigrant status: for example, asylum status under INA § 208 and refugee status under INA §
207 are lawful statuses, even though strictly speaking neither an asylee nor a refugee is a type of nonimmigrant according to
the INA § 101(a)(15) definition of that term. See INA § 208 [8 U.S.C. § 1158 (2009)] and INA §207 [8 U.S.C. §1157
(2009)]. Parole is a status in the sense of being a classification given to aliens so that they can remain here under its
prescribed terms and conditions. If “lawful status” and “lawful nonimmigrant status” meant the same thing, then the word
“nonimmigrant” in INA § 245(c)(7) would be superfluous: the paragraph would have the same meaning if it just said that
employment-based adjustment applicants had to be in “a lawful status” at the time of application for adjustment, rather than
“a lawful nonimmigrant status.” There is a canon of interpretation instructing us that statutes should be interpreted when
possible to avoid rendering words superfluous, which the authors think given the wording of INA § 245(c)(7) supports the
view that “lawful status” need not equate to nonimmigrant status. See Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Serv., Inc.,
486 U.S. 825, 837 (1988) (holding that a statutory interpretation should not render another section of the statute
superfluous).

The Executive by regulation (or a court in an appropriate case) could easily declare parole under INA § 212(d)(5) to be a
status for INA § 245(k)(2) purposes because it has already declared parole a lawful status for INA § 245(c)(2) purposes
under 8 C.F.R. § 245.1(d)(v), asylum a lawful status under INA § 208, and refugee a lawful status under INA § 207. See 8
C.F.R. § 245.1(d)(iii)-(iv). In all three cases, Congress has authorized the Executive to allow people into the United States
in a capacity that is neither legal permanent residence nor, strictly speaking, nonimmigrant. True, INA § 101(13)(B) does
say that parolees are not “admitted,” but then again it is not clear that one who enters without inspection and is granted
asylum under INA § 208 has ever been “admitted” per the statutory definition of that term, and yet such a person still has a
lawful status. If Congress had wanted to import a lawful “admission” into INA § 245(c)(2), Congress would have used that
word; they did not. And while the overall title of INA § 245 refers to the adjustment of status of non-immigrants, there is a
canon of interpretation that the title of a statutory provision does not dictate over the actual language, and we know from the
mention of parole in INA § 245(a) and the exemption for immediate relatives in § 245(c)(2) that at least some aliens who
are not non-immigrants can adjust under INA § 245. See Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U.S. 241, 256
(2004) (holding that the title of statute aids in resolving ambiguities); but see Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman,
451 U.S. 1, 19 n.14 (1981) (holding that the title of a statute, while helpful, cannot enlarge or confer powers).

25
unlawful presence would be a retroactive granting of parole. If you look at the definition of “unlawful
presence,” you would see that it speaks of being “present in the United States after the expiration of the
period of stay authorized by the Attorney General or is present in the United States without being
admitted or paroled.” 74 So, if you are present in the United States on parole, you are not accumulating
any unlawful presence. You can grant retroactive parole without overriding the will of Congress. There
is no separation of powers problem. By its very nature, parole is discretionary and, as such, nun pro
tunc parole can be issued when there is good cause. A possible regulation may very well deem an
approved I-140 or I-130 petition to be good cause.

The Executive’s use of parole, sua sponte, in such an expansive and aggressive fashion is hardly
unique in post-World War II American history. The rescue of Hungarian refugees after the abortive
1956 uprising or the Vietnamese refugees at various points of that conflict comes readily to mind. 75
While these were dramatic examples of international crises, the immigration situation in America
today, though more mundane, is no less of a humanitarian emergency with human costs that are every
bit as high and damage to the national interest no less long lasting. Even those who are in removal
proceedings or have already been ordered removed, and are beneficiaries of approved petitions, will
need not wait an eternity for Congress to come to the rescue.

The government has always had the ability to institute Deferred Action, which is a discretionary
act not to prosecute or to deport a particular alien. 76 Like our proposal, Deferred Action is purely
discretionary. 77 They are both informal ways to allow continued presence in the United States. The INA
never mentions deferred action. Neither does deferred action depends upon regulation. Deferred action

INA § 245(k) requires the alien to be present pursuant to a lawful admission so employment-based immigrants who entered
without inspection would not be able to adjust status even under this aggressive theory. Adjustment of family-based
immigrants who entered without inspection, based on nunc pro tunc parole and employment authorization, would face the
obstacle that under USCIS’s current interpretation of INA § 212(a)(6)(A)(i), most such immigrants might be inadmissible as
“[a]n alien . . . who arrives in the United States at any time or place other than as designated by the Attorney General.” See
212(a)(6) Memo at supra n. 67. One could resolve that problem, however, either by liberalizing the interpretation of INA §
212(a)(6)(A)(i) or by taking the view that the Attorney General had retroactively authorized the time and place of the aliens’
arrival.
74
INA § 212(a)(9)(B)(ii) [8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(B)(ii) (2009)].
75
See Refugee Relief Act of 1953, Pub. L. No. 203, 66 Stat. 400 (1953). Only after its hand was forced did Congress
comprehensively rewrite the refugee provisions in the Refugee Act of 1980 to provide for a less arbitrary process for
refugee admissions. See Refugee Act of 1980, Pub. L. No. 96-212, 94 Stat. 102 (1980). Here too, the authors credit the late
Senator Kennedy for enacting this landmark legislation as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
76
Although former § 242.1(a)(22) of the Operations Instructions has been withdrawn, Deferred Action is still available. See
Doris Meissner, Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion, Nov. 17, 2000, Memo # USCIS HQOPP 50/4,
http://www.miracoalition.org/uploads/V_/hg/V_hgJbpG0Xs-0mZLNg7CDQ/Prosecutorial-Discretion1.pdf. Moreover, a
removal order can be reopened upon the agreement of the respondent and the government, especially when relief such as
adjustment of status under INA § 245 becomes available many years later. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(3)(iii) and §
1003.23(b)(4)(iv). At present, the government’s attorney has unfettered discretion and often resists joining in a motion to
reopen. The D.H.S. can institute a standard policy for all government attorneys to follow in the event that the D.H.S.
provides benefits to beneficiaries of approved petitions. There is no reason to treat a noncitizen in removal proceedings
differently just because she was unlucky to have been apprehended and placed in removal proceedings.
77
See In re Quintero, 18 I&N 348 (BIA 1982) (deferred action is a matter of the District Director's prosecutorial discretion
and, therefore, neither the immigration judge nor the Board may grant such status or review a decision of the District
Director to deny it).

26
is not mentioned in Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations (“8 C.F.R.”) but only in the old, and now
inapplicable, Operations Instructions. Both, our proposals and deferred action, are the products of
limitations. The exercise of prosecutorial discretion to grant deferred action status is an expression of
limited enforcement resources in the administration of the immigration law. Our advocacy of EAD and
Parole outside the adjustment context is an expression of limited EB quotas and the impact of visa
retrogression. Since both are inherently discretionary, they are not proper subjects for judicial review
since, in both cases, there is no law to apply.

Deferred Action has also been applied to battered spouse and children self-petitioners who had
approved I-360 petitions under the Violence Against Women Act, so that they could remain in the
United States and obtain work authorization. 78 In 2006, Congress, in recognition of this informal
practice, codified at INA § 204(a)(1)(k) the grant of employment authorization to VAWA self-
petitioners. 79 Deferred Action has also been granted to U visa applicants. 80

More recently, the Department of Homeland Security provided interim relief to surviving
spouses of deceased American citizens and their children who were married for less than two years at
the time of the citizen’s death. Mr. Neufeld’s memo, issued on June 15, 2009, 81 provides extraordinary
relief to spouses whose citizen spouses died regardless of whether the I-130 petitions were approved,
pending or even not filed. Such beneficiaries may request deferred action and obtain an EAD. Then, on
October 28, 2009, Congress amended the statute to allow, inter alia, a widow who was married less
than two years at the time of the citizen’s death to apply for permanent residence. 82 Even more recently,
on November 30, 2009, USCIS announced in a press release that certain affected persons in the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) would be granted parole under INA §
212(d)(5). 83 The Consolidated Natural Resource Act of 2008 (CNRA) extends most provisions of the
United States immigration law to the CNMI beginning on November 28, 2009. 84 As of this date,
foreign nationals in the CNMI will be considered present in the United States and subject to U.S. law.

78
Michael Cronin, Deferred Action Memo, Dec. 22, 1998, Memo # INS HQ 204-P; see also Michael Cronin, Deferred
Action Determinations For Self-Petitioning Battered Spouses and Children, Sept. 8, 2000, Memo # INS HQ/AND/70/6.1P.
79
INA § 204(a)(1)(k) [8 U.S.C. 1154(a)(1)(k) (2009)].
80
William Yates, Assessment of Deferred Action in Requests for Interim Relief from U Nonimmigrant Status Eligible Aliens
in Removal Proceeding, May 6, 2004, Memo # USCIS HQOPRD 70/6.2b,
http://www.nationalimmigrationproject.org/DVPage/U_Visas_in_Proceedings_5.6.04.pdf.
81
Donald Neufeld, Guidance Regarding Surviving Spouses of deceased US Citizens and their Children, July 15, 2009,
Memo # USCIS July 15, 2009, http://www.ssad.org/images/Surviving_Spouses_Deferred_Action_Guidance.pdf. The
USCIS also states, “Until there is a legislative solution to remedy the situation commonly referred to as the ‘widow penalty,’
USCIS is providing interim administrative relief in the form of deferred action to surviving spouses whose US citizen
spouses died before the second anniversary of their marriage.” USCIS Office of Communications, Q & A: USCIS Provides
Interim Deferred Action for Surviving Spouses, Aug. 31, 2009, Press Release,
http://www.ilw.com/immigrationdaily/news/2009,0901-spouse.pdf.
82
Pub. L. No. 111-83, 123 Stat. 2142 (2009).
83
See USCIS Public Release, USCIS Will Exercise Parole Authority for Certain Foreign Nationals in the Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands, Nov. 30, 2009,
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/template.PRINT/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=e2969c
f715555210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD.
84
See id.

27
In order to avoid their removal from the CNMI, the grant of parole will place individual members of
CNMI groups in lawful status under the United States immigration law and permit employment
authorization. Parole status will also allow for the issuance of advance parole when the individual seeks
to depart the CNMI for a foreign destination.

In another display of Executive legerdemain, in March of 2000, Mr. Cronin, in a Memo, 85

allowed nonimmigrants holding H-1B or L status to travel overseas while their adjustment of status
applications were pending and be admitted on advance parole and still be able to work as if they were
in H-1B or L status without first obtaining an EAD. The following Q&A extract in Mr. Cronin’s memo
is worth noting:

4. If an H-1 or L-1 nonimmigrant has traveled abroad and reentered the United States via
advance parole, the alien is accordingly in parole status. How does the interim rule affect
that alien’s employment authorization?

A Service memorandum dated August 5, 1997, stated that an ‘adjustment applicant’s otherwise
valid and unexpired nonimmigrant employment authorization…is not terminated by his or her
temporary departure from the United States, if prior to such departure the applicant obtained
advance parole in accordance with 8 CFR 245.2(a)(4)(ii).’ The Service intends to clarify this
issue in the final rule. Until then, if the alien’s H-1B or L-1 employment authorization would
not have expired, had the alien not left and returned under advance parole, the Service will not
consider a paroled adjustment applicant’s failure to obtain a separate employment authorization
document to mean that the paroled adjustment applicant engaged in unauthorized employment
by working for the H-1 or L-1 employer between the date of his or her parole and the date to be
specified in the final rule. 86

A close examination of this astonishingly creative policy reveals that the Executive presumably
allowed such an individual to continue working without any formal work document. Admitting an H-
1B on advance parole (and thus presumably as a parolee rather than as an H-1B nonimmigrant), and
allowing her to extend H-1B status subsequently, while permitting this individual to continue working
for the employer without an EAD, required creative thinking on the part of the government. These are a
few examples of how the Executive has creatively found ameliorative solutions within the four corners
of the INA. Our final observation is that, for the past decade, major changes in immigration law have
come about not through action by Congress or even formal Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking
by either the now defunct INS or the current USCIS. Rather, major changes have come sua sponte
either through administrative decisions given precedential impact or informal memoranda that are
followed by Service Center adjudicators. This shows that it is not necessary for Congress to act in order
for the law to change. Consider, for example, that INA § 212(a)(9)(B) only allows unlawful presence to
be tolled for 120 days as a result of timely extension while the Pearson Memorandum of March 2000 87

85
Michael Cronin, Office of Programs, AFM Update; Revision of March 14, 2000 Dual Intent Memo, Mar. 25, 2000, Memo
# INS HQADJ 70/2/8/6, 2.8.12, 10.18, http://www.boulettegolden.com/H_and_L_Travel_and_Advance_Parole.pdf.
86
Id. (Emphasis in original).
87
Michael Pearson, Period of stay authorized by the Attorney General after 120-day tolling period for purposes of section
212(a)(9)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act), Mar. 3, 2000, Memo # INS HQADN70/21.1.24-P,
http://www.immigrationlinks.com/news/news201.htm.

28
allowed tolling to last for the entire pendency of such extensions. 88

The appropriateness of our proposal can be seen with a simple example. Say you have two
Chinese or Indian geophysicists both of whom filed NIW I-140 petitions on July 18, 2007. 89 For
whatever reason, only the second geophysicist also filed a concurrent adjustment of status. What do
they have in common? They have the same priority date. They are both years away from having
immediate eligibility of an immigrant visa number. What is the difference? The difference is that only
the geophysicist who filed for adjustment is eligible for Parole and/or EAD. Why? Why waste precious
resources of different government agencies to keep alive pipeline adjustment cases that will languish
for years? What does the foreign national get out of that? EAD and parole, of course. But, if you
decouple these benefits from adjustment of status, as we argue, and grant them by virtue of an
approved I-140 petition, there would be no need to have a backlog at all. It could be wiped away,
eliminated, with more efficient use of government resources without any injury to the foreign national.
That is why our ideas make sense! Nothing in the INA compels the EAD and parole to be linked
indissolubly to the adjustment of status. That being the case, they can be decoupled by regulation, to
eliminate the backlog, and enable the government to focus only on those adjustment cases with current
priority dates, while eligible foreign nationals continue to stay here with permission to work and travel.
Voila! 90

88
See Naomi Schorr, Do Not Make A Fortress Out of the Dictionary: The USCIS Is Not An Outstanding Researcher, 15
Bender's Immigration Bulletin 79, 88 (2010).
89
On that day, the Department of State announced that visa numbers under the EB-2 and EB-3, which were backlogged,
would be current until August 17, 2007. See USCIS Office of Communications, USCIS Announces Revised Processing
Procedures for Adjustment of Status Applications, Press Release # July 17, 2007,
http://www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/VisaBulletinUpdate17Jul07.pdf. Prior to that, the Department of State had
announced that the EB-2 and EB-3 visa number would be current on July 1; however, on July 2, D.H.S. closed all filings on
grounds that there would no longer be any visa availability. Adjustment applicants who were affected by the flip-flop
protested in “Gandhi style” by sending flowers to the USCIS Director. See Moira Herbst, The Gandhi Protests,
BusinessWeek, July 13, 2007, http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jul2007/db20070713_687551.htm.
Upon being threatened with a lawsuit from the American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF), D.H.S. reversed itself and
again declared the EB-2 and EB-3 current effective from July 17, 2007 to August 17, 2007. See American Immigration Law
Foundation, Lawsuit on Visa Bulletin, Nov. 19, 2008, http://www.ailf.org/lac/lac_lit_visab.shtml. Indeed, this episode
demonstrates that there has been a practice of the government accepting and holding I-485 applications even after the
numbers have retrogressed. The AILF complaint also refers to an August 30, 1991 cable from the former Immigration and
Naturalization Service, IMMACT90 Wire #69, file CO204.8P, which states in relevant part:

The Department of State (DOS) has advised INS that as of August 2, 1991, all third preference visa numbers for
fiscal year 1991 have been allocated. Furthermore, DOS will not be issuing a visa bulletin for the month of
September 1991… This creates a problem for field offices which (under [then] 8 C.F.R. 245.(f)(1)) must continue
to accept concurrent filings of I-140s and I-485s if the alien’s priority date is before the date reflected on the
August bulletin. In response to an INS inquiry, DOS has advised that they could not issue an amended August visa
bulletin reflecting the unavailability of third preference numbers. Accordingly INS has no alternative but to
continue to accept such concurrent filings.

See generally Copy of Complaint brought by AILF on behalf of unnamed plaintiffs against Department of Homeland
Security, July 17, 2007, http://www.ailf.org/lac/chdocs/visab-complaint07.pdf. (Emphasis added).
90
The authors credit immigration expert Quynh Nguyen for this insight. As Ms. Nguyen has taught us, not only those
hoping for immigrant visa numbers but also those tasked with the responsibility for their dispensation benefit from a
rational system where law and logic join in a common purpose.

29
 C. Our Proposal Does Not Violate the Separation Of Powers Doctrine 91

There are those who argue that only Congress can make immigration policy in this fundamental
way; this reservation is both serious and worthy of deep respect. 92 The authors are also not oblivious to
the dangers that can ensue when Congress is unable to check the powers of the Executive. President
Nixon’s infamous remark, “When the President does it that means that it’s not illegal” 93 serves as a
useful reminder about the potential abuse of power if the Executive remains unchecked by Congress
and the Judiciary. However, to allow the Executive to grant parole and EAD outside the adjustment
context by virtue of positive regulation is not to displace Congress as the primary architect of federal
immigration policy; rather, it is to aid the legislative body and, as such, it is in harmony with
constitutional injunction to diversify authority.

Unlike Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 94 where the Supreme Court held that the
President could not seize a steel mill to resolve a labor dispute without Congressional authorization, the
Executive under our proposal is well acting within Congressional authorization. In his famous
concurring opinion, Justice Jackson reminded us that, however meritorious, separation of powers itself
was not without limit: “While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also
contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins
upon its branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity.” 95 Although President
Truman did not have authorization to seize the mill to prosecute the Korean War, Justice Jackson laid a
three-pronged test to determine whether the President violated the Separation of Powers clause. First,
where the President has express or implied authorization by Congress, his authority would be at its
maximum. Second, where the President acts in the absence of congressional authority or a denial of
authority, the President may still act constitutionally within a “twilight zone” in which he may have
concurrent authority with Congress, or in which its distribution is uncertain. Under the second prong,
Congressional inertia may enable, if not invite, measures of independent presidential authority. Finally,
under the third prong, where the President acts in a way that is incompatible with an express or implied
will of Congress, the President’s power is at its lowest and is vulnerable to being unconstitutional. 96
91
While this section and the next, Agency Discretion under Chevron and Brand X, fall under our second proposal, they also
apply equally to our first proposal with respect to filing an adjustment application based on an expanded definition of visa
availability, although our first proposal attempts to be more consistent with the statutory framework under INA § 245(a).
92
The United States Constitution states, “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United
States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” U.S. CONST. art. I, § 1.
93
See generally Author’s name unavailable, Third Nixon/Frost Interview, N.Y. TIMES, May 27, 1977, at A16.
94
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952).
95
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring).
96
See id. Despite the statement in Article I of the Constitution that “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in
a Congress of the United States,” it is far from novel to acknowledge that independent agencies do indeed exercise
legislative powers. As Justice White explained in his dissent in INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 947 (1983) (White, J.,
dissenting) after reviewing prior cases upholding broad delegations of legislative power:

[These] cases establish that by virtue of congressional delegation, legislative power can be exercised by
independent agencies and Executive departments without the passage of new legislation. For some time, the sheer
amount of law -- the substantive rules that regulate private conduct and direct the operation of government -- made
by the agencies has far outnumbered the lawmaking engaged in by Congress through the traditional process. There
is no question but that agency rulemaking is lawmaking in any functional or realistic sense of the term. The
Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 551(4), provides that a ‘rule’ is an agency statement ‘designed to

30
 Under our proposal, the President is likely acting under either prong one or two of Justice
Jackson’s tripartite test. 97 We have shown that INA § 212(d)(5), which Congress enacted, authorizes
the Executive to grant interim benefits for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public
benefits.” Moreover, INA § 274A(h)(3)(B) provides authority to the Executive to grant employment
authorization. Even if such authority is implied and not express, Congress has not overtly prohibited its
exertion but displayed a passive acquiescence that reinforces its constitutional legitimacy. 98 Operating

implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy.’ When agencies are authorized to prescribe law through
substantive rulemaking, the administrator's regulation is not only due deference, but is accorded ‘legislative effect.’
These regulations bind courts and officers of the Federal Government, may preempt state law and grant rights to
and impose obligations on the public. In sum, they have the force of law.

Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 985-986 (internal citations and footnote omitted). This is perhaps the most telling rejoinder to those
who attack our proposals as radical theories without balance or precedent. Truth be told, as Justice White aptly observed, the
creation of law by federal agencies has become the norm rather than the exception in our system of governance, if for no
other reason that the sheer multiplicity of issues, as well as their dense complexity, defy traditional compromise or
consensus which are the hallmarks of Congressional deliberation. They require timely and directed executive action that
builds upon a well settled legislative foundation not merely, or even primarily, as a means of solution but also, indeed
primarily, as a formula for keeping present problems from growing far worse.
97
Supra n. 95. In Medellin v. Texas, although the Supreme Court held that the President’s conduct of foreign policy did not
extend to his ability to direct Texas to comply with the consular notification requirement under the Vienna Convention, this
decision still provided interesting commentary on the power of the President to conduct foreign policy. Medellin, 552 U.S.
491 (2008). For example, the Court mentioned that the President has “the lead role… in foreign policy. Id., cf. Am. Ins.
Ass’n v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 414 (2003) (Article II of the Constitution places with the President the “vast share of
responsibility for the conduct of our foreign relations) (sub-internal citations omitted).

The following passage from Garamendi is also worth noting:

While Congress holds express authority to regulate public and private dealings with other nations in its war and
foreign commerce powers, in foreign affairs the President has a degree of independent authority to act. [See], e.g.,
[Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S.S. Corp.], 333 U.S. 103 (1948) (The President…possesses in
his own right certain powers conferred by the Constitution on him as Commander-in-Chief and as the Nation’s
organ in foreign affairs’) (parallel citations, internal citations, and internal references omitted); [Youngstown], 343
U.S. 579, 635-636. n. 2, (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring) (the President can ‘act in external affairs without
congressional authority’) (parallel citations, internal citations, and internal references omitted); [First Nat’l City
Bank v. Banco Nacional de Cuba], 406 U.S. 759,767 (1972) (the President has ‘the lead role…in foreign policy’)
(parallel citations and internal citations omitted); [Sale v. Haitian Ctrs. Council, Inc.], 509 U.S. 155, 188 (1993)
(the President has ‘unique responsibility: for the conduct of foreign and military affair’) (parallel citations omitted).

Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 414-15 (2003). Since immigration has historically been linked to foreign policy, and indeed this
is the core reason for the plenary federal power over immigration since it implicates foreign policy concerns, this is another
reason why the Executive enjoys wide, though not unchecked, discretion to effect changes in immigration procedure
through sua sponte regulations. For the classic exposition of immigration as a core component of foreign relations, consider
this:
The passage of laws which concern the admission of citizens and subjects of foreign nations to our shores belongs
to Congress, and not to the States. It has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations: the responsibility
for the character of those regulations, and for the manner of their execution, belongs solely to the national
government. If it be otherwise, a single State can, at her pleasure, embroil us in disastrous quarrels with other
nations.

Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U.S. 275, 280 (1876).

98
Candor, however, compels the admission that Justice Black, writing for the majority in Youngstown, was more cautious
than Justice Jackson in his concurrence: “In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are
faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking

31
in Justice Jackson’s “twilight zone,” such constructive ambiguity creates the opportunity for reform
through Executive initiative. From this, we must conclude that, had Congress not enacted INA §
212(d)(5), the President could not act by fiat to broaden or diversify its application beyond the
adjustment context. In terms of EAD issuance, Congress has rarely spoken on this except via INA §
274A(h)(3)(B), so that most instances of EAD issuance are purely an act of executive discretion
justified by that one statutory provision. 99 Furthermore, INA § 103(3) confers powers on the Secretary
of Homeland Security to “establish such regulations, prescribe such forms or bonds, reports, entries and
other papers; issue such instructions; and perform such other acts as he deems necessary for carrying
out his authority under the provisions of this Act.” 100

The President is not divorced from lawmaking; that is the very reason why the Framers
provided an executive veto power. If the President was totally divorced from the making of laws, why
give such a weapon to limit congressional prerogative? Once we accept the fact that the Executive is a
junior partner in lawmaking, then the use of executive initiative to promulgate implementing and
interpretative regulations, as we propose be done in the grant of parole and EAD benefits, becomes a
valid extension of this well settled constitutional precept.

To suggest that the President is powerless to act simply because only Congress can change the
INA is to isolate one co-equal branch of our national government from another beyond what the
Constitution suggests or requires.

Consider what the Supreme Court taught us in Buckley v. Valeo: 101

Yet it is also clear from the provisions of the Constitution itself, and from the Federalist Papers,
that the Constitution by no means contemplates total separation of each of these three essential
branches of Government. The President is a participant in the lawmaking process by virtue of
his authority to veto bills enacted by Congress. The Senate is a participant in the appointive
process by virtue of its authority to refuse to confirm persons nominated to office by the
President. The men who met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 were practical statesmen,
experienced in politics, who viewed the principle of separation of powers as a vital check
against tyranny. But they likewise saw that a hermetic sealing off of the three branches of
Government from one another would preclude the establishment of a Nation capable of

process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither
silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute.” Youngstown, 343 U.S. 579, 588 (1952).
99
Some exceptions are the rules regarding employment authorization of asylees and asylum applicants contained in INA §
208(c)(1)(B) and § 208(d)(2), the employment authorization for spouses of L-1 and E non-immigrants added to INA §
214(c)(2) and § 214(e) in 2002, the employment authorization for beneficiaries of approved VAWA self-petitions that was
added to INA § 204(a)(1) by the Violence Against Women Act of 2005, and the employment authorization for abused
spouses of certain non-immigrants provided at INA § 106 by that same act. Notably, however, some of the most common
categories of employment authorization, such as that for aliens with pending applications for adjustment of status, have no
specific statutory authorization.
100
It is hard to imagine a more all-encompassing grant of authority in INA § 103(a)(3), especially one sweeping enough for
our proposals. Should there be any doubt on this, we need only look to the ringing words of Chief Justice Marshall that
come down to us with undiminished relevance: “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution and
all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter
and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 321 (1819).
101
424 U.S. 1 (1976).

32
 governing itself effectively. 102

The doctrine of separation of powers is not a maxim that can “divide the branches into
watertight compartments,” nor “establish and divide fields of black and white.” 103 Major interpretations
by the Supreme Court on the meaning of this doctrine emphasize the primacy, if not the inevitability, of
subtle distinctions rather than bright line absolutes. 104 More on the same theme can be found in Loving
v. United States. 105 After acknowledging that only Congress can pass new laws, the Court went on to
offer a common sense qualification:

This principle does not mean, however, that only Congress can make a rule of prospective
force. To burden Congress with all federal rulemaking would divert that branch from more
pressing issues, and defeat the Framers’ design of a workable National Government. Thomas
Jefferson observed: ‘Nothing is so embarrassing nor so mischievous in a great assembly as the
details of execution.’ 106

James Madison in The Federalist No. 47 reminds us that the “high priest” of separation of
powers, Montesquieu, always took a ruthlessly pragmatic view of the subject. To Montesquieu,
Madison aptly explains, this doctrine “did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial
agency in, or no control over the acts of each other. His meaning, as his own words import… can
amount to no more than this, that where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same
hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free
constitution, are subverted.” 107

Similarly, Justice Story wrote:

[W]hen we speak of a separation of the three great departments of government, and maintain
that that separation is indispensable to public liberty, we are to understand this maxim in a
limited sense. It is not meant to affirm that they must be kept wholly and entirely separate and
distinct, and have no common link of connection or dependence, the one upon the other, in the
slightest degree. 108

The boundaries between each branch must be adjusted “according to common sense and the
inherent necessities of the governmental coordination.” 109 There are only two ways for a breach to
102
Id. at 121.
103
Springer v. Phil. Islands 277 U.S. 189 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting); see also Mistretta v. U.S., 488 U.S. 361 (1989)
(the doctrine does not create a “hermetic division among the Branches” but “a carefully crafted system of checked and
balanced power within each Branch”).
104
See, e. g., Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22 (1932); A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U.S., 295 U.S. 495 (1935)
(Cardozo, J., concurring).
105
517 U.S. 748, 758 (1996).
106
Id., cf. 5 WORKS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 319 (P. Ford ed. 1904) (Letter to E. Carrington, Aug. 4, 1787).
107
THE FEDERALIST NO. 47, at 325-26 (James Madison) (J. Cooke ed., 1961).
108
1 J. STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION § 525 (M. Bigelow, 5th ed. 1905).
109
J.W. Hampton & Co. v. U.S., 276 U.S.. 394, 406 (1928).

33
occur. One branch may interfere impermissibly with the other's proper discharge of its constitutionally
delegated responsibility. 110 Alternatively, violation exists when one branch brazenly appropriates a
function that is constitutionally entrusted to the other. 111

Our proposals do nothing to inhibit or prevent Congress from enacting amendments to the INA.
We neither argue nor suggest that the President should supplant Congress when it comes to the exercise
of a function over which it alone enjoys plenary power. We seek only that the President act in aid of
what Congress has done to make immigration policy more effective and more adaptable to the
exigencies of the moment so that both the nation and the immigrants can benefit in equal and balanced
measure. 112

In perhaps the most famous judicial exposition of the need for pragmatism between the
President and Congress, we turn to the still cogent observations of Chief Justice Marshall in our early
national period:

To have prescribed the means by which government should, in all future time, execute its
powers, would have been to change, entirely, the character of the instrument, and give it the
properties of a legal code. It would have been an unwise attempt to provide, by immutable
rules, for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly, and which can be best
provided for as they occur. 113

The job of the Congress is to articulate long-range policy while that of the Executive is to make
short-term tactical adjustments. 114 They are complementary in purpose but fundamentally different in
method and technique. To suggest that the President can broaden the scope of Parole and EAD through
regulation is neither radical nor remarkable but, rather, a sober recognition of the delicate but finely
tuned balance that makes each co-equal Branch a necessary partner to the other in the discharge of its
constitutionally delegated functions.

D. Agency Discretion Under Chevron and Brand X

110
See Nixon v. Adm’r of Gen. Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 433 (1977); U.S. v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974).
111
See Youngstown, 343 U.S.579, 587 (1952); Phil. Islands, 277 U.S. 189, 203 (1928).
112
“The power of an administrative agency to administer a congressionally created . . . program necessarily requires the
formulation of policy and the making of rules to fill any gap left, implicitly or explicitly, by Congress.” Morton v. Ruiz, 415
U.S. 199, 231 (1974). This dovetails with our separation of powers argument. Not only is it okay for the USCIS to formulate
immigration policy on highly minute technical issues of surpassing and sustaining importance, but the Constitution expects
that to happen; indeed, without this, who would do it? Far from crossing the line and infringing upon the authority of the
Congress, what we ask the USCIS to do augments Congressional prerogatives by providing a practical way for them to
function.
113
McCulloch, 17 U.S. 316 (1819).
114
Moreover, Congress acts of necessity through broad-brush strokes while the Executive creates additional policy through
administrative rulemaking that fills in the details. RLC Indus Co. v. Comm’r, 58 F.3d 413, 413-417 (9th Cir. 1995)
(“Rulemaking, the quasi-legislative power, is intended to add substance to the Acts of Congress, to complete absent but
necessary details… Adjudication, the quasi-judicial power, is intended to provide for the enforcement of agency…
regulations on a case-by-case basis.” Citing from 3 JACOB STEIN ET AL., ADMINISTRATIVE LAW § 14.01 at 14-2 (1994)).

34
 We proffer other legal theories to support our proposal. When the Service extended
Occupational Practical Training from twelve months to twenty-nine months for STEM students, 115 the
Programmers Guild sued D.H.S. in Programmers Guild v. Chertoff 116 challenging the regulation, and
initially seeking an injunction, on the ground that D.H.S. had invented its own guest worker program
without Congressional authorization. The court dismissed the suit for injunction on the ground that
D.H.S. was entitled to deference under Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council,
Inc. 117 Simply stated, under the oft quoted Chevron doctrine, courts will pay deference to the regulatory
interpretation of the agency charged with executing the laws of the United States when there is
ambiguity in the statute. 118 The courts will step in only when the agency’s interpretation is irrational or
in error. The Chevron doctrine has two parts: Step 1 requires an examination of whether Congress has
directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If Congress had clearly spoken, then that is the end of
the matter and the agency and the court must give effect to the unambiguous intent of the statute. Step 2
applies when Congress has not clearly spoken, then the agency’s interpretation is given deference if it
is based on a permissible construction of the statute, and the court will defer to this interpretation even
if it does not agree with it. 119 Similarly, the Supreme Court in Nat’l Cable & Telecomm. Ass’n v. Brand
X Internet Servs., 120 while affirming Chevron, held that if there is an ambiguous statute requiring
agency deference under Chevron Step 2, the agency’s interpretation will also trump a judicial decision
interpreting the same statute. 121 Brand X involved a judicial review of an FCC ruling exempting
broadband Internet carrier from mandatory regulation under a statute. The Supreme Court observed that
the Commission’s interpretation involved a “subject matter that is technical, complex, and dynamic;” 122
therefore, the Court concluded that the Commission is in a far better position to address these questions
than the Court because nothing in the Communications Act or the Administrative Procedure Act,
according to the Court, made unlawful the Commission’s use of its expert policy judgment to resolve
these difficult questions. 123

The District Court in dismissing the Programmers Guild lawsuit discussed the rulings in
Chevron and Brand X to uphold the D.H.S.’s ability to extend the student F-1 OPT regulation. 124

115
See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(10)(ii)(c).
116
Programmers Guild v. Chertoff, 08-cv-2666 (D.N.J. 2008), available at
http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=26215. (Available only to subscribers).
117
467 U.S. 837 (1984).
118
See id.
119
Id. In United States v. Mead Corp., the Supreme Court developed a Step 0 analysis. 533 U.S. 218, 226-27 (2001). Under
Step 0, agency interpretations will not receive Chevron deference unless the agency has been delegated the appropriate
authority to make rules and puts forth such rules with the requisite degree of formality. Id. The same rules of deference
apply to an agency’s own interpretation of its ambiguous regulation. Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452 (1997). There is no
question that the Secretary of D.H.S. has the delegated authority to make rules under INA § 103(a)(3).
120
545 U.S. 967 (2005).
121
Id.
122
Id. at 1002-03.
123
Id.
124
Programmers Guild v. Chertoff, 08-cv-2666 (D.N.J. 2008), available at
http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=26215. (Available only to subscribers).

35
Programmers Guild appealed and the Third Circuit also dismissed the lawsuit based on the fact that the
Plaintiffs did not have standing. 125 While the Third Circuit did not address Chevron or Brand X – there
was no need to – it interestingly cited Lorillard v. Pons, 126 which held that Congress is presumed to be
aware of an administrative interpretation of a statute and to adopt that interpretation when it reenacts its
statutes without change. Here, the F-1 practical training regulation was devoid of any reference to the
displacement of domestic labor, and Congress chose not to enact any such reference, which is why the
Programmers Guild lacked standing. 127

Brand X tells us that federal agencies and Congress have a commingled role to play in making
new law: “Chevron’s premise is that it is for agencies, not courts, to fill statutory gaps.” 128 Is there a
more effective constitutional answer to the charge that our argument violates separation of powers? If
the FCC can use its policy expertise to exempt broadband Internet carriers from mandatory regulation
under the Communications Act, why can USCIS not use its policy expertise to extend Parole and
broaden EAD issuance, especially since the latter is entirely a creature of regulation? The raison d’être
for the Chevron defense that federal agencies are owed deference when they seek to execute the law
through regulatory interpretation suggests, if not compels, the conclusion that, while only Congress can
enact laws, the executive agencies charged with their enforcement can say what these laws mean, this
in turn, determines how they are applied or enforced. Those who argue that we seek to violate the
separation of powers doctrine take an artificially cramped view of what lawmaking involves and ignore
the fact that, like the idea of judicial review itself, no law can live apart from interpretation that, by its
very nature, inevitably changes the law itself. 129

125
Programmers Guild, Inc. v. Chertoff, 338 Fed. Appx. 239 (3rd Cir. 2009), petition for cert. filed, (U.S. Nov. 13, 2009)
(No. 09-590).
126
434 U.S. 575, 580 (1878).
127
But see Int’l Union of Bricklayers v. Meese, 616 F.Supp. 1387 (N.D. Cal. 1985), which declared former Operations
Instructions § 214.2 (b)(5), allowing construction workers to enter on B-1 visas, invalid as being in contravention of the
congressional purpose of the B-1 visa under INA § 101(a)(15)(B), which prohibits skilled or unskilled worker, and the H-2B
visa under INA § 101(a)(H)(ii), which requires a labor certification for such labor. Meese may be distinguished from the
Programmers Guild case and the proposals that the authors advocate since it dealt with the government’s interpretation of a
specific statute, INA § 101(a)(15)(B), which made reference to skilled or unskilled labor. In Programmers Guild, neither the
statute nor the regulations pertinent to F visa students made any specific reference to the displacement of labor in the United
States. Moreover, our proposals do not advocate a broadening of any nonimmigrant visa categories that have been
specifically addressed by Congress, but rely on the broad authority of the government to grant parole under INA § 212(d)(5)
or EAD under INA § 274A(h)(3) to aliens who have already met the requirements of sponsorship, including the labor
certification requirement, under the immigrant visa categories pursuant to INA § 203(a) or § 203(b).
128
Brand X, 545 U.S. 967, 982 (2005).
129
The authors seek what Chief Justice Marshall sought in McCulloch when he described the Constitution as “intended to
endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.” McCulloch, 17 U.S. 316
(1819).

There is a larger point when we speak of the relationship between our advocacy of “audacious incrementalism” and CIR. It
is more than junior vs. general partners. In the American political tradition, reform movements have more commonly been
characterized by an 18th century belief in prudence as an operating principle rather than a 19th century romantic belief in
absolute solutions. Prudence was not a derogatory term for the Enlightenment Era; rather, it was a term of approval
indicating a sound belief in incremental progress and an approach that set a problem on the road to solution in the belief and
expectation that future progress would follow in a way that would minimize disruption and maximize acceptance. This
intellectual strain infused the American Revolutionary. That is an apt characterization of what we are trying to do when
compared to CIR. Yes, CIR would solve a wider array of problems in a more fundamental way but it is also true that

36
 Chevron and Brand X are more than just constitutional justifications of agency action but an
invitation to action where the Congress has stayed its hand. Until now, Brand X has been feared by the
immigration bar and immigration advocates for its negative potential as a legitimization of government
repression. Yet, it has a positive potential by enabling the Executive to expand individual rights and
grant benefits sua sponte. We do not need to live in fear of Brand X. We can make it our own. 130

If Congress wants to repeal what the Executive has done, it can do so. If it fails to do so, this
very lack of action suggests legislative acquiescence, if not agreement. “Congress is presumed to be
aware of an administrative or judicial interpretation of a statute and to adopt that interpretation when its
reenacts a statute without change.” 131 In United States v. Rutherford, the Supreme Court held, “Once
an agency's statutory construction has been ‘fully brought to the attention of the public and Congress,’
and the latter has not sought to alter that interpretation although it has amended the statute in other
respects, then presumably the legislative intent has been correctly discerned.” 132 The Framers
developed the separation of powers doctrine to defend against tyranny and not to prevent the extension
of benefits. Theirs was a negative concern to guard against arbitrary action not a positive one to prevent
new initiatives.

Finally, the following extract from the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Mead Corp.
is worth noting:

When Congress has ‘explicitly left a gap for an agency to fill, there is an express delegation of
authority to the agency to elucidate a specific provision of the statute by regulation,’ and any
ensuing regulation is binding in the courts unless procedurally defective, arbitrary or capricious
in substance, or manifestly contrary to the statute. But whether or not they enjoy any express
delegation of authority on a particular question, agencies charged with applying a statute
necessarily make all sorts of interpretive choices, and while not all of those choices bind judges
to follow them, they certainly may influence courts facing questions the agencies have already
answered. 133

attempting to get it and implement it after passage would involve significant social and economic dislocation. These are not
arguments against CIR but only an attempt to place it in a true and honest perspective. We seek less dramatic and less
immediate gains because they are the ones that can be achieved sooner and with greater predictability. Once the principle we
advocate is established, there can be little doubt that the scope of its future operation will grow to bring other and potentially
more significant gains. Our justifiable zeal for CIR must not blind us to the benefit of more moderate proposals; let us abide
by Voltaire’s famous caution and not let “The perfect [be] the enemy of the good.” See VOLTAIRE, LA BÉGUEULE, 1 CONTES
2, (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Elizabeth Knowles ed, 5th ed 1999) (1772). Let us hold fast to the distinction between
prudence and absolutism, between 18th Century incremental reform and 19th century upheaval. In the long run, the
American experience has been characterized more by the former than the latter and it has led to a stability that remains the
envy of the world.
130
One good example of the BIA taking a more forgiving line than the courts is In re F-P-R-, 24 I&N Dec. 681 (BIA 2008),
which largely rejected the Second Circuit’s decision in Joaquin-Porras v. Gonzales, 435 F.3d 172 (2d Cir. 2006). The
Second Circuit in Joaquin-Porras had held that a brief exit and re-entry pursuant to advance parole did not restart the one
year “clock” for a timely asylum application; the BIA interpreted 8 C.F.R. § 1208.4(a)(2)(ii) to provide one year from any
entry, except perhaps where the exit and reentry had been for the sole purpose of enabling an asylum application. Id.
131
Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 575, 580 (1978).
132
442 U.S. 544, 554 (1979).
133
533 U.S. 218 (2001) (internal citations omitted).

37
 Like Chevron and Brand X, the authors also rely on Mead as a force for good for the following
reasons:

Is there a gap for the USCIS to fill when it comes to granting of parole? Clearly, since the INA
leaves the granting of parole completely up to the discretion of the Attorney General. It is hard to
imagine a more open invitation to Executive rulemaking to provide when parole can be extended, as
there is absolutely nothing in the INA that would contradict a USCIS regulation allowing parole and/or
EAD outside the adjustment context or that would provide that the beneficiary of an approved I-140 or
I-130 petition should be allowed to stay without accumulating unlawful presence. 134

Is there a reason to have such regulations? Definitely. If they are clear, specific, and well
reasoned, they have significant potential to influence the courts if and when judicial challenges to such
executive initiative present themselves, as they doubtless will. The more detailed the regulations are,
the better. 135 The absence of deference increases the insecurity of any rights extended thus making it
less likely that they will be completely or properly exercised. We do not seek to promote deference as a
limit on the exercise of judicial authority, but to provide a stable legal framework within which our
proposals can function.

Moreover, it can be argued that the Attorney General, now the Secretary of D.H.S., certainly has
been delegated power by Congress to administer and enforce the INA under which all of the issues for
which we contend arise. 136 In our view, the USCIS regulations can be most correctly understood as

134
Nothing prohibits federal agencies from moving in an incremental manner. See Nat’l Cable & Telecomms. Ass’n v.
Brand X Internet Servs., 545 U.S. 967, 1002 (2005). In Brand X, the Supreme Court noted that the FCC did not attempt to
apply its new policies to all types of information service providers. Id. That was left for possible future action. So, we may
say in the immigration context, that the ability of the Executive to grant parole and EAD outside the adjustment context
does not necessarily mean that it can do other things absent statutory authorization or consent. That too can be left for
another day. The concept of audacious incrementalism not only is historically well positioned as a supplement to, not a
substitute for, CIR but it is also logically closely aligned to the spirit and scope of the Brand X decision itself.
135
Agency interpretations advanced in “opinion letters” do not justify Chevron style deference. Christensen v. Harris
County, 529 U.S. 576, 587 (2000) (contrasting interpretations in opinion letters with those “arrived at after… a formal
adjudication or notice-and-comment rulemaking”). Instead, “interpretations contained in less reliable formats such as
opinion letters are ‘entitled to respect’ under Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 140 (1944), but only if they have the
‘power to persuade.’” Christensen, 529 U.S. at 587; see also Catskill Devel. LLC v. Park Place Enter. Corp., 547 F.3d 115,
127 (2d Cir. 2008) (under Skidmore, agency viewpoint articulated in an opinion letter was “entitled to deference only to the
extent that it ha[d] the power to persuade” the court).

One is reminded, for example, that all of the AC 21 interpretations upon which lawyers and aliens routinely rely are not the
product of APA rulemaking but of agency memoranda or opinion letters. To the extent that these memoranda or opinion may
benefit us, we should keep in mind that they do not receive Chevron style deference and can be ignored or overturned by
subsequent court rulings without concern for Brand X. For instance, in a recent decision from the Ninth Circuit, Herrera v.
USCIS, No. 08-55493, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 14592 (2009), the Court held that the revocation of an I-140 petition under
INA § 205 trumped an alien’s ability to port under INA § 204(j). Unfortunately, the Ninth Circuit failed to acknowledge or
distinguish its facts from the “Aytes Memo on portability”, supra n. 27, which states that a withdrawal of an I-140 petition,
after 180 days, resulting in revocation, does not affect portability. See Cyrus D. Mehta, Ninth Circuit In Herrera v. USCIS
Rules That Revocation of I-140 Petition Trumps Portability, July 09, 2009,
http://www.cyrusmehta.com/Print_Prev.aspx?SubIdx=ocyrus200979113434. This suggests that our advocacy needs to be
enshrined in notice and comment rulemaking that complies with APA procedures if it is to provide sufficient reliability for
future strategy.
136
See INA § 103(a)(3) [8 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(3) (2008)].

38
being legislative in nature, but they can legitimately be characterized as interpretative as well. We
follow the logic articulated by Professor K. Davis as the test for categorizing a rule as legislative or
interpretive:

Rules are legislative when the agency is exercising delegated power to make law through rules,
and rules are interpretative when the agency is not exercising such delegated power in issuing
them. When an agency has no granted power to make law through rules, the rules it issues are
necessarily interpretative; when an agency has such granted power, the rules are interpretative
unless it intends to exercise the granted power. The statutory grant of power may be specific
and clear, or it may be broad, general, vague, and uncertain. 137

Moreover, Production Tool Corporation has held that an agency charged with a duty to enforce
or administer a statute has inherent authority to issue interpretive rules informing the public of the
procedures and standards it intends to apply in exercising its discretion. 138 Even if the rules on EAD
and Parole are considered “interpretative” rather than “legislative” the Secretary of D.H.S. has inherent
authority within the due and proper exercise of the agency’s discretion to issue them. 139

We do not augment agency deference beyond the just limits of law or logic by arguing that it
can be a force for good. We all know it can also be a force for ill. It is like fire. The answer is not to
forswear it and curse the darkness. Rather, the answer is to use it to bring light into the world and

137
See Production Tool Corporation v. ETA, 688 F.2d 1161 (7th Cir. 1982) (citing from K. DAVIS, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
TREATISE § 7:10 at 54 (2d ed. 1979)). More recently, in Durable Mfg. v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 578 F.3d 497 (7th Cir. 2009),
the Seventh Circuit upheld the ability of the Department of Labor to amend 20 C.F.R. § 656.30(b), which created a 180 day
validity period for a labor certification, based on the authority it has under INA § 212(a)(5). Plaintiffs unsuccessfully
challenged the Department of Labor’s authority to curtail the validity of the labor certification under this statute. The court’s
reasoning is worth noting here:

The Supreme Court instructs that “[a]lthough agency determinations within the scope of delegated authority are
entitled to deference, it is fundamental ‘that an agency may not bootstrap itself into an area in which it has no
jurisdiction.’” [Adams Fruit Co., Inc. v. Barrett], 494 U.S. 638, 650 (1990) (quoting [Fed. Mar. Comm’n v.Seatrain
Lines, Inc.], 411 U.S. 726, 745 (1973)). Accordingly, this Circuit reviews de novo an agency’s determination of the
scope of its own jurisdiction. [N. Illinois Steel Supply Co. v. Sec’y of Labor], 294 F.3d 844, 847 (7th Cir. 2002).
We examine the text and purpose of a statute to determine whether a regulation falls within the scope of the
authority the statute delegates. See [Am. Hosp. Ass’n v. Schweiker], 721 F.2d 170, 176-78 (7th Cir. 1983).

Durable Mfg., 578 F.3d 497 (7th Cir. 2009). In Durable Mfg., the Court reasoned that the Department of Labor had statutory
authority to restrict the validity period to 180 days under INA § 212(a)(5)’s overarching objective of protecting the domestic
workforce from foreign competition, and to ensure that labor certifications are not stale appraisals of the labor market when
the I-140 petition is filed. While the authors may not agree with the outcome of this case, Durable Mfg. demonstrates that
the Executive can have power to further a statutory objective even though it is not spelt out in the statute. Interestingly, as
noted in footnote #6 of Durable Mfg., the appellants did not contend that the entire corpus of labor certification regulations
set forth in 20 C.F.R. § 656 was ultra vires and in contravention of what Congress intended when it changed the labor
certification system in 1965. See Durable Mfg., 578 F.3d 497, 501, n. 6 (7th Cir. 2009). Consequently, the Court did not feel
obliged to determine whether these rules were legislative or interpretative. That being the case, the extent, if any, of a
Chevron style deference due and owing to these rules remained undecided. For a historical analysis of the way in which
litigants might launch such a direct assault, see Gary Endelman, The Lawyer's Guide to 212(a)(5)(A): Labor Certification
From 1952 To PERM, Nov. 02, 2004, http://www.ilw.com/articles/2004,1102-endelman.shtm.
138
Production Tool Corporation, 688 F.2d 1161 (7th Cir. 1982).
139
See General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125 (1976).

39
spread the warmth of a new and welcoming truth. 140

IV. THIRD PROPOSAL: A NEW WAY TO COUNT - MORE IMMIGRATION

WITHOUT MORE VISAS!

In addition to the other areas of potential executive action that we have proposed, there is a way
to create more visas, many more in fact. How? By not counting derivative family members against the
quotas. This single step, without more, would revolutionize United States immigration policy by
making all EB and FB categories current and, at long last, restoring equilibrium to our immigration
system.

The authors have failed to find any explicit authorization for derivative family members to be
counted under either the FB or EB quotas in the INA. Even INA § 203(d) does not explicitly provide
such authority. Let us examine what INA § 203(d) says:

d) Treatment of Family members

A spouse or child defined in subparagraphs (A), (B), (C), (D), or (E) of section 1101 (b)(1) of
140
There is doubtlessly concern that our argument, by strengthening the ability of the Executive to act independently of the
Congress, may ultimately lead to repressive action that violates established rights. Is there a check on this potential? Can
we, in other words, argue for our case without creating unanticipated horrors in the future? We think such a check exists in
the concept of constitutional avoidance. As the Tenth Circuit explained in Hernandez-Carrera v. Carlson, 547 F.3d 1237,
1243 (10th Cir 2008):

It is well established that the canon of constitutional avoidance does constrain an agency's discretion to interpret
statutory ambiguities, even when Chevron deference would otherwise be due. In Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Fla.
Gulf Coast Bldg. & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U.S. 568 (1988), the Supreme Court applied the canon of
constitutional avoidance to reject the National Labor Relations Board's interpretation of an ambiguous statute that
it was empowered to administer. [DeBartolo Corp.] at 574-77. Although the Court recognized that the NLRB's
interpretation “would normally be entitled to deference” under Chevron, it found that “the Board's construction of
the statute, as applied in [DeBartolo Corp.], pose[d] serious questions of the validity of [the statute] under the First
Amendment.” Id. at 575. As a result, the Court concluded that “[e]ven if [the NLRB's] construction of the Act were
thought to be a permissible one” under Chevron, id. at 577, the Court was required to inquire as to whether there
existed another permissible interpretation that did not raise substantial constitutional doubts. See id. at 575-77. The
doctrine of constitutional avoidance serves as a constitutionally imposed moderating force to restrain potential
executive action and channel it within acceptable boundaries.

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Hernandez-Carrera, went on to observe that “Where an administrative interpretation
of a statute invokes the outer limits of Congress' power, we expect a clear indication that Congress intended that result.”
Hernandez-Carrera, 547 F.3d at1243, quoting Solid Waste Agency of N. Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs, 531
U.S. 159 (2001). Further, “like Chevron, the canon of constitutional avoidance is ‘a means of giving effect to congressional
intent, not of subverting it.’” Hernandez-Carrera at 1243, quoting Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371 (2005). The canon
follows not only from courts’ prudential desire not to decide constitutional issues unnecessarily, but from the assumption
that Congress does not casually authorize administrative agencies to interpret a statute to push the limit of congressional
authority. Hernandez-Carrera at 1243, quoting Solid Waste at 172-73. Just as Chevron reflects a judgment that Congress
generally intends to empower an agency to resolve certain statutory ambiguities, the avoidance canon reflects a judgment
that Congress does not typically intend to authorize agencies to fill in statutory gaps in a manner raising substantial
constitutional doubts.

Putting all this together, if a future Executive attempted to subvert established liberties and arbitrarily withdraw previously
granted benefits extended under a well settled interpretation or practice by relying upon Chevron or Brand X deference, the
authors find ample reason to believe that a skeptical judiciary could and would invoke the doctrine of constitutional
avoidance to invalidate it as beyond the limits of agency authority.

40
 this title shall, if not otherwise entitled to an immigrant status and the immediate issuance of a
visa under subsection (a), (b), or (c) of this section, be entitled to the same status, and the same
order of consideration provided in the respective subsection, if accompanying or following to
join, the spouse or parent. 141

There is nothing in INA § 203(d) that explicitly provides authority for family members to be
counted under the preference quotas. While a derivative is “entitled to the same status, and the same
order of consideration” as the principal, nothing requires that family members also be given numbers.

Let us posit a situation where the family member is “entitled to the same status, and the same
order of consideration” as the principal. Suppose there is only one visa number left in Fiscal Year 2009
in the EB-2 category, and the last principal beneficiary, who is entitled to this remaining visa, has seven
derivative family members. What happens to his seven family members? Ought they not be accorded
“the same status and the same order of consideration?” Or should only the principal be awarded the
remaining visa for Fiscal Year 2009, and his seven family members be left out until they become
eligible for visa numbers in the new fiscal year? What if there is a great demand for EB-2 visas and the
Department of State moves the cut-off dates back? The seven family members will have to keep on
waiting as a result of becoming victims to arbitrary priority date retrogression. This does not make
sense. Is there not sufficient ambiguity in INA § 203(d) to argue that family members should not be
counted against the quotas? We are not arguing that they should be completely exempted from being
counted against the quotas, but, as stated in INA § 203(d), the family members should be given the
“same status, and the same order of consideration” as the principal.142 Hence, if there is no visa
number for the principal, the family members cannot get in. If, on the other hand, there is a single
remaining visa number for the principal, the family members, even if there are seven of them, ought to
be “entitled to the same status, and the same order of consideration as the principal.”

There is no regulation in 8 C.F.R. instructing what INA § 203(d) is supposed to be doing. Even
the Department of State’s regulation at 22 C.F.R. § 42.32 only parrots INA § 203(d) and states that
children and spouses are “entitled to the derivative status corresponding to the classification and
priority date of the principal.” 22 C.F.R. § 42.32 does not provide further amplification on the scope
and purpose of INA § 203(d). In the event that there is ever litigation on whether derivative family
members ought to be counted, the plaintiffs may rely on the Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v.
Oregon, 143 which held that a parroting regulation is not deserving of any deference. 144 As the majority
in Gonzales v. Oregon stated:

Simply put, the existence of a parroting regulation does not change the fact that the question
here is not the meaning of the regulation but the meaning of the statute. An agency does not
acquire special authority to interpret its own words when, instead of using its expertise and
experience to formulate a regulation, it has elected merely to paraphrase the statutory

141
INA § 203 [8 U.S.C. § 1153 (2008)].
142
Id.
143
Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006).
144
Otherwise, an administrative rule may receive substantial deference if it interprets the issuing agency’s own ambiguous
regulation. See Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452 (1997).

41
 language. 145

The authors acknowledge that there are weaknesses to this argument. We wish they were not
there but unfortunately they are. Each of these weaknesses will be addressed. 146 The main weakness to
the argument of exempting family members is INA § 201(b), which carves out aliens who are not
subject to the numerical limitation. They include, among others, special immigrants, those who will
adjust under INA § 245(A) and § 210 and those whose removal has been cancelled under INA §
240(A)(a). Of course, INA § 201(b) also provides a specific carve out for “immediate relatives” who
are also exempt from the numerical limits. But then, the title in INA §201(b) refers to “Aliens Not
Subject to Direct Numerical Limitations.” What does “Direct Numerical Limitations mean?” Each of
the listed exemptions in INA § 201(b) are outside the normal preference categories. That is why they
are not subject to direct counting. By contrast, the INA § 203(d) derivatives are wholly within the
preference system and bound by its limitations. They are not independent of numerical limits, only
from direct limitations. It is the principal alien through whom they derive their claim who is counted
and who has been counted. There is nothing inconsistent between saying in INA § 203(d) that
derivatives should not be independently counted against the EB or FB cap and that their omission from
INA § 201(b), which lists only non-preference category exemptions.

Furthermore, we do not claim that derivative beneficiaries are exempt from numerical limits.
They are subject to numerical limitations in the sense that the principal alien is subject by virtue of
being subsumed within the numerical limit that applies to this principal alien. Hence, if no EB or FB
numbers were available to the principal alien, the derivatives would not be able to immigrate either. If
they were exempt altogether, this would not matter. There is a difference between not being counted at
all, which we do not argue, and being counted as an integral family unit as opposed to individuals,
which we do assert. Therefore, INA § 201(b) does not apply to our argument. We seek not an exemption
from numerical limits but a different way of counting such limits.

Another weakness in our argument is that when Congress wished to carve out family members
from a quota, it knew how to do so. Take a look at how family members of special immigrant Iraqi
translators have been treated. 147 In § 1244(c) of the Defense Authorization Act of 2008, Congress
specifically stated that principal aliens are counted in the 5,000 visas allocated to Iraqi translators,
which means that derivatives are not. 148 Our argument would have surely been helped if INA § 203(d)
explicitly exempted spouses and children as did § 1244(c) the Defense Authorization Act of 2008. But
it does not count them out or count them in. There is only silence.

Here is our rebuttal. We contend that § 1244 of the Defense Authorization Act is not a guide
here. Why? It was emergency legislation designed to extract Iraqi translators from a dangerous

145
Supra n. 143 at 257.
146
The authors credit Theodore Ruthizer and Richard Steel for the “tough love” they showed us by taking the time to point
out the weaknesses in our argument, yet still encouraging us to explore it further. They are the very definition of collegiality.
The authors also thank our teacher Quynh Nguyen for coming to our rescue (we hope!) with insightful counter arguments to
each of the weaknesses we identified.
147
Defense Authorization Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-181, § 1244(c), 122 Stat. 3 (2008).
148
This is further confirmed in a Department of State Fact Sheet on Iraqi translators. See U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, FREQUENTLY
ASKED QUESTIONS FOR IRAQI SPECIAL IMMIGRANT VISA APPLICANTS, Feb. 18, 2010,
http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/info/info_4172.html.

42
situation. The United States felt a moral obligation to extract these people who had worked with us and
could not allow inadequate visa allotments to separate families and defeat the very purpose of the law
itself. So, § 1244 of the Defense Authorization Act is clearly sui generis. The INA is not an emergency
legislation. 149

Yet another argument that can be made in opposition to our proposal is that INA § 201(a)(1) and
§ 201(a)(2) indicate that “family-sponsored immigrants” and “employment-based immigrants” are
subject to the worldwide limits. Is it not clear that “family sponsored immigrants” and “employment-
based immigrants” include spouses and children? Look to the definition of “immigrant” in INA §
101(a)(15), which defines the term “immigrant” as “every alien except an alien who is within one of
the following classes of nonimmigrant aliens.” Then the rest of the section goes on to define the various
nonimmigrant visa classifications from A to V.

All is not lost! We can address this weakness too. While the term “immigrant” under INA §
101(a)(15) includes spouses and children, they were included because they too as immigrants planned
to stay permanently. No one ever contended they are nonimmigrants. We, on the other hand, argue that
derivative beneficiaries are neither “family-sponsored” nor “employment-based” immigrants. No one
has filed either an I-130 or I-140 petition on their behalf. Their claim to immigrant status is a creature
of statute, deriving entirely from INA § 203(d), which does not make them independently subject to
any quota. We have to interpret INA § 203(d) in concert with other provisions of the INA. Surely, if
Congress had meant to deduct derivative beneficiaries, it would have plainly said so somewhere in the
INA. Or in the 1952 Act, the 1924 Act, or the Immigration Act of 1990. At no point did it do so.

Previous to IMMACT 90, family members were counted against the cap, but there was no
explicit provision as in current INA § 203(d) granting them the same visa and “green card” status as the
principal alien family member. INA § 203(d) took effect under IMMACT 90. 150 What was the purpose
of inserting INA § 203(d)? Section 101(b)(3) of the House version of the bill amended INA § 201(b) to
provide that an alien “who is provided immigrant status under INA § 203(d) as the spouse or child of
an immigrant under INA § 203(b)” would be among the other classes not subject to numerical
limitation. 151

Then take a look at the Conference Report which accompanied S. 358, IMMACT 90. In the
Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference at page 121 under the title Employment-
Based Immigration, it reads: “The House amendment allocated 65,000 employment-based visas during
the Fiscal Years 1992-96 and 75,000 thereafter not including numerically exempt derivative spouses
and children…” 152 There is no explicit discussion of what became of INA § 203(d) in the Conference
Report.

149
The authors also concede that INA § 214(g)(2) carved out dependent H-4 applicants from the annual H-1B cap of 65,000
and the Master’s cap of 20,000. Here too, we argue, and thank Ms. Nguyen for aiding us, that H-4 derivatives cannot work.
There is therefore no point in counting them against the H status, which is for employment. Congress did not want any H
numbers wasted on beneficiaries who could not use the H anyway, so they made the exemption explicit. This is not the case
in the EB or FB permanent immigration context where being a Legal Permanent Resident does convey employment
authorization. Hence the same logical imperative to make the exemption explicit is absent.
150
Immigration Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-649, 104 Stat. 4978 (1990).
151
H.R.4300, 101st Cong. (1990); available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d101:HR04300:.
152
H.R. Rep. No. 101-955, pt. 2, § 121 (1990) (Emphasis added).

43
 We next look at House Report No. 101-723 (1990) that accompanied the House passage of H.R.
4300 on October 3, 1990. S. 358 passed in lieu of H.R. 4300 after its language was amended to contain
much of the text of the House bill. Under the proposed H.R. 4300, the 54,000 visas that were then
allocated under the employment-based preference would have been capped at 75,000 principals. Those
family members accompanying or following to join are not included in this cap. 153 The effect of this
change would be to increase the proportion of employment based immigration within our total
immigration system.

Alas, while it was clearly the House’s intent to exclude family members, we cannot say that not
counting derivatives represents the legislative intent behind IMMACT 90. It seems now that this was
the other way since the House exemption for derivatives was removed in conference. 154 Ultimately,
Congress enacted INA § 201(d), which set a numerical limit of 140,000 for EB immigrants, and it
appears that the intent of Congress in IMMACT 90 was to count family members under the EB quotas
in the final legislation. If the House had its way, the law would have had a lower numerical limit of
75,000 EB numbers, but since family members were not counted, the numerical limit would have been
higher than 140,000. 155 Also, the House’s intent to exclude family members only applied to the EB

153
H.R. Rep. No. 101-723(I), Title I, Subtitle A (1990) (Emphasis added).
154
Since INA § 203(d) is ambiguous, legislative history becomes even more relevant in unraveling its mystery. The
Supreme Court stated in Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 490 (1917): “Reports to Congress accompanying the
introduction of proposed laws may aid the courts in reaching the true meaning of the legislature in cases of doubtful
interpretation…But…when words are free from doubt, they must be taken as the final expression of the legislative
intent…in other words, the language being plain, and not leading to absurd or wholly impracticable consequences, it is the
sole evidence of the ultimate legislative intent.” Caminetti at 490. (Internal citations omitted). Many decades later Chief
Justice Rehnquist remarked that “we have repeatedly stated that the authoritative source for finding the Legislature’s intent
lies in the Committee Reports on the bill,” Garcia v. United States, 469 U.S. 70, 76 (1984), which the Supreme Court has
relied on as the “considered and collective understanding of those Congressmen involved in drafting and studying proposed
legislation.” Zuber v. Allen, 396 U.S. 168,186 (1969).

At the same time, we have to be mindful of the dicta in Exxon Mobil Corp., v. Allapattah Servs. Inc., where we read that:

The authoritative statement is the statutory text, not the legislative history or any other extrinsic material…First,
legislative history is itself often murky, ambiguous and contradictory…Second, judicial reliance on legislative
materials like committee reports…may give unrepresentative committee members - or worse yet, unelected staffers
and lobbyists - both the power and the incentive to attempt strategic manipulations of legislative history to secure
results that they were unable to achieve through the statutory text.

Allapattah Servs. Inc., 545 U.S. 546, 568 (2005). That said, the authors believe in the usefulness of legislative history for
the same reasons that Chief Justice Marshall did:

As for the propriety of using legislative history at all, common sense suggests that inquiry benefits from reviewing
additional information rather than ignoring it. As Chief Justice Marshall put it, “where the mind labours to discover
the mind of the legislature, it seizes every thing from which aid can be derived.” [United States v. Fisher], 6 U.S.
358 (1805). Legislative history materials are not generally so misleading that jurists should never employ them in a
good faith effort to discern legislative intent. Our precedents demonstrate that the Court’s practice of utilizing
legislative history reaches well into its past…We suspect that the practice will likewise reach well into the future.

Wisc. Public Intervenor et.al. v. Mortier, 501 U.S. 597, 610-11 (1991).
155
Former Congressman Bruce Morrison (D-N.Y.) on August 31, 2009, one of the architects of IMMACT90, told the
authors that there is no basis in IMMACT90 for arguing that dependents should be exempt. He does say that the House bill
H.R. 4300 would have exempted dependents but the EB level in the House bill would be much lower – 75,000 principal
multiplied by 1.5 to give EB total of 187,000; however, his proposal was rejected in Conference. The goal in Conference

44
quota and not to the FB quota.

Despite the legislative history cutting against us, it still remains a mystery as to why INA §
203(d) was enacted. There was no need to do so since family members were counted in the pre-
IMMACT90 quotas. Was INA § 203(d) introduced to ensure that family members would be counted
especially after the House sought to exempt them? Or was it the converse? Could INA § 203(d) have
been a vestige of the House’s intent that was never taken out - to make sure that, even though these
derivatives would not be counted against enlarged EB cap, they would not be left out in the cold but
still get the same “green card” benefits as the principal?

If the Executive wanted to reinterpret INA § 203(d), there is sufficient “constructive ambiguity”
here too for it do so without the need for Congress to sanction it. This, our final proposal, is consistent
with the broad theme of our thesis that there is enough flexibility in the INA for de-linking family
members from the worldwide and per country limits. If this happened, the EB and FB preferences
could instantly become “current.” The backlogs would disappear. The USCIS might even have to build
a new Service Center!

But we do not want to end on such optimism and throw all caution to the winds. The legislative
intent is contrary to our proposal. Thus, we propose a simple technical fix in Congress, which is to
exclude family members from the FB and EB quotas. We do not see why this cannot be accomplished
as there is already a pedigree for such a legislative fix. Not only did Congress try to remove family
members in IMMACT90, but also attempted to do so in S. 2611, which was passed by the Senate in
2006. Section 501(b) of S. 2611 would have modified INA § 201(d)(2)(A) to exempt family from being
counted in EB cases. 156 If Congress considers this technical fix, it will be politically palatable, the
authors believe, even during these hard economic times. We acknowledge that restrictionists might well
regard such a change as substantive rather than technical; the NumbersUSA 157 crowd would be all over
this! Congress while not directly expanding numbers is doing so indirectly by not counting family
members. Indeed, Congress contemplated categories directed toward the principal beneficiary of an FB
or EB petition. A labor certification would be filed, requiring the employer to test the United States
labor market, on behalf of the principal and not the family members. The EB and FB numbers ought
not to be held hostage to the number of family members each principal beneficiary brings with him or
her. Nor should family members be held hostage to the quotas. One principal beneficiary may have no
family members while another, as we saw in our earlier hypothetical, may have seven. Of course, if
Congress passes CIR, our proposal may not so relevant as Congress may boost total numbers to more
realistic levels that reflect the reality of immigration in the 21st century. But in the event that Congress
cannot politically increase numbers so expansively, a small technical fix, which already has some
history, will make it possible to reinterpret INA § 203(d) in the way we have proposed. This will also
go a long way in restoring balance and fairness to our immigration system. CIR ASAP also
incorporates our idea of excluding derivative family members, although this exclusion of family

was to set a total number. The House conferees wanted more, but former Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) wanted less and
did not like exemptions. Ultimately, the EB number was set at 140,000. See Informal Interview of Congressman Bruce
Morrison by Gary Endelman, Aug. 31, 2009. (on file with authors).
156
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, 106th Cong. § 501(b) (2006). This was really a free vote since the
Senate knew that Mr. Sensenbrenner, then House Judiciary Committee Chair, would not go to conference on this bill and
they did not.
157
NumbersUSA is an organization that advocates lower immigration levels. See NumbersUSA Website, Feb. 18, 2010,
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/.

45
members is actually more restrictive than what we support. It would not include family members under
the EB3 section, for example, nor would it include the family members of multinational managers. It
would not include family members of EB2 beneficiaries based on a labor certification grant. It would
not include family members of FB3 beneficiaries.

While CIR ASAP is a step in the right direction, we advocate excluding all derivative
immigrants from the quotas, which will go a long way in restoring balance and fairness to our
immigration system.

V. CONCLUSION

Do we as a society simply throw up our hands and do nothing, allowing a bad situation to
become worse, or do we use this challenge as an opportunity to create something better through
temporary and targeted executive action that Congress can either overturn or accept at a later date?
There are several examples of administrative action to create new immigration policy in the face of
congressional inaction in recent years. In the STEM OPT regulation, the USCIS openly admitted that
granting an additional seventeen months of employment authorization was a regulatory response to an
inadequate H-1B quota. When it limited the validity of a labor certification to 180 days, the U.S.
Department of Labor did so on its own without the fig leaf of legislative authorization. 158 Remember
when the Administrative Appeals Office handed down the decision in In re N.Y. Dep’t of Transp., 159
thus effectively repealing the national interest waiver statute for several years until the relaxation
came? 160 Finally, under the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1996, even if the Cuban national entered without
inspection, the former INS Commissioner Doris Meissner clarified that the Service could use its
authority under the humanitarian and significant public benefit criteria in INA § 212(d)(5) to parole
Cubans who had entered without inspection under the fiction that the individual would surrender to the
government, which in turn would release or parole him or her, and thus render him or her eligible for
adjustment of status under the CAA. 161 Did Congress tell the agency that it could do that? All of these

158
20 C.F.R. § 656.30(b)(1). This limitation was upheld in Durable Mfg. Co., which stated that the Department of Labor had
inherent authority to promulgate regulations under INA § 212(a)(5). See Durable Mfg. Co., 578 F.3d 497 (7th Cir. 2009).
159
22 I&N Dec. 215 (BIA 1998).
160
The national interest waiver, pursuant to INA § 203(b)(2)(B)(i), permits a waiver of the job offer and labor certification
requirement, if the applicant can demonstrate that it is in the national interest. An applicant applying for the National
Interest Waiver, at present, has a very difficult burden to overcome. Under the criteria set forth in In re N.Y. Dep’t of Transp.,
id., the applicant must satisfy a three-prong test. With respect to the first two, the applicant must show that he or she will be
employed “in an area of substantial intrinsic merit” and that the “proposed benefit will be national in scope.” It is the third
that is extremely opaque and difficult to overcome. The petitioner must demonstrate that “the national interest would be
adversely affected if a labor certification were required for the alien. The petitioner must demonstrate that it would be
contrary to the national interest to potentially deprive the prospective employer of the services of the alien by making
available to U.S. workers the position sought by the alien.” The Administrative Appeals Office went on to further illuminate
this criterion as follows: “Stated another way, the petitioner, whether the [United States] employer or the alien, must
establish that the alien will serve the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an available [United
States] worker having the same minimum qualifications.” Id. Overcoming the third criterion is difficult, and allows the
USCIS to shoot down the best of arguments made by a national interest waiver claimant. Indeed, the USCIS can always
resort to this subjective criterion to thwart even the most meritorious of claims, which is that the claimant does not
overcome the inherent interest of the government in making the job available to United States workers.
161
See Pub. L. No. 89-732, 80 Stat. 1161 (1996). See also Doris Meissner, Eligibility for Permanent Residence Under the
Cuban Adjustment Act Despite Having Arrived at a Place Other than a Designated Port of Entry, April 19, 1999, Memo #
USCIS HQCOU 120/17-P, http://www.uscis.gov/propub/ProPubVAP.jsp?dockey=b97d8b1a12b3aec464971c659ad3f28.
However, the recently issued 212(a)(6) Memo, supra n. 67, appears to have narrowed the fictional parole for a Cuban in

46
actions, and many others not singled out, had profound effect but depended solely upon the imaginative
exercise of executive authority yet consonant with a proper respect for separation of powers. So too
does our proposal.

The USCIS' website has a chart on national trends for processing of I-485 applications. 162 The
numbers have been declining as the chart shows but they are nowhere near to completing adjudication
of all of these cases. Even with this new pre-adjudication procedure that was implemented, it is less
than one-fourth of the cases received since 2008. Even if CIR passes, this long grey line of cases ripe
for decision would not disappear. Congressional action might help alleviate the quota but not
government backlog; if Congress increased the quota, there would probably be even more government
backlog. Increasing the quota is not the silver bullet; as IMMACT 90, which vastly expanded quotas
taught us, the “push” factors in those countries that send the most immigrants will intensify to create
the waiting periods similar or greater to those that now suffocate the system. The day after CIR, the
backlog will be with us still. While CIR will provide a more rational future, only the adoption of our
proposals can begin to correct the past. Indeed, the USCIS has already recognized the value of pre-
adjudication and the number of cases that have been completed in all but name waiting only for that
golden priority date far exceeds the number of completed cases in recent years as the USCIS chart
makes abundantly clear. The USCIS has embraced pre-adjudication for the same reason that they
should adopt our proposals: only through the sustained pursuit of such proactive steps can the backlog
be controlled and, hopefully, reduced. There is no law that allows them to pre-adjudicate I-485
applications but they do it because they have the administrative power to process these cases in the
most effective manner in furtherance of the law.

Those who do not think so ignore at their own peril and ours the fundamental distinction
between making policy, which only Congress can do, and implementing tactical adjustments, which the
Executive is uniquely suited to do. This is why only Congress can create a legal status while the
Attorney General can authorize a period of stay. This is why only Congress can enlarge the EB quota
but the Executive can allow adjustment applications without a quota expansion so long as final
approval is not forthcoming. This is why only Congress sets visa limits while the Executive can grant
parole. This is why only Congress sets employment visa law but the Executive can issue an EAD. To
suggest that Congress must act in both a long and short term context is to ignore the historic and
legitimate differences between the two branches of government. If Congress wants to overturn such
executive action, it can do so. Likewise, if it supports the President, it can stay its hand. Either way,
Congress is expressing its will, whether through positive action in the form of legislation or negative
action in the form of silent acquiescence. Both action and inaction are authentic manifestations of
congressional intent. Congress will be more than content to allow the President to take the lead and
solve what it has manifestly been powerless to solve - how to regulate both past and future migration
flows; how to solve the growing unskilled worker backlog; how to ameliorate the gratuitous cruelty of
the three or ten year bar; how to reduce the size of the undocumented population who may already
working here and contributing to the economy and how to satisfy the hungry manpower needs of
employers once the dark cloud of recession lifts without creating a single new immigrant visa.

Our proposals can be encapsulated, here, in our conclusion, as food for thought. Bon Appétit!:

order to render him or her eligible for adjustment under the Cuban Adjustment Act. The Cuban national must have been
actually been paroled after surrendering himself or herself. An imaginary release will not count as parole under the new
guidance, such as one who voluntarily comes to the CBP, ICE or USCIS and asks about his or her case, and then leaves
freely without being given any evidence of parole such as an I-94 form.
162
USCIS, NATIONAL VOLUMES AND TRENDS, http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=9&office=5&charttype=1.

47
1. A “provisional” filing date based on an expanded definition of visa availability would
allow the “green card” application to get rolling, along with making applicants eligible
for interim work and travel benefits so that lives are not held hostage to the tyranny of
priority dates; perfection of this provisional submission would still require immediate
availability of an immigrant visa number.

2. When you combine being able to file for adjustment of status without a current priority
date with adjustment of status portability, not to mention eligibility for spousal
employment through an EAD, you have the “green card” in all but name, so long as care
is taken to prevent children from “aging out.”

3. If EAD and parole were divorced from the adjustment of status, then there would be no
need for other nonimmigrant visa categories to shift over to the H-1B category merely to
remain in the United States since AC 21 extensions would then be irrelevant. They
would already enjoy permission to work and travel regardless of whether they remained
in nonimmigrant visa status. This takes away major pressure for ever-larger H quotas
and, as a result, there will be less opposition to other EB reforms that are hurt by the
antagonism to the H quota enlargements. Even though they could not adjust if not in
lawful nonimmigrant visa status and never actually admitted due to INA § 245(c)(7) and
§ 245(k)(1), nothing would prevent beneficiaries of I-140 approved petitions who had
parole and EAD from consular processing when their priority dates finally became
current.

4. The need for a guest worker program would continue only for those who were not the
beneficiaries of approved I-140 or I-130 petitions. This would make CIR smaller, more
manageable and more politically palatable. It would actually increase the chances for
passage of CIR. Those fortunate enough to have an approved petition would now have a
choice, something that should be preserved so that the tyranny of priority dates is not
replaced by the tender mercies of employer sponsorship.

5. This would cut down on the size of the undocumented population now trapped here for
fear of leaving. If they had parole and EAD, they could come and go as they wanted to.
No longer would those in the shadows have to remain hidden from view, cut off from
family and friends and all that makes life worthwhile.

6. There would be no three or ten year bar since, as we noted earlier, INA §212(a)(9)(B)(ii)
defines “unlawful presence” as someone who is here “without being admitted or
paroled.” Parole eliminates accrual of unlawful presence.

7. Not only principal aliens but also their spouses would have work authorization with or
without an EAD.

8. There would be need for any “green card” backlogs. Since the ability to work and travel
can now be exercised outside the adjustment of status context, USCIS and the
Department of State can now focus on those cases that have made it to the head of the
line. They can devote precious resources to deciding cases, not keeping them on life
support through heroic measures.

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 9. No longer subtract family members from EB or FB quotas. Count only the principal
beneficiaries of I-140 or I-130 petitions. Amend INA § 203(d) to restore the exemption
that the House of Representatives approved in 1990.

10. Adopt the suggestion of former USCIS Ombudsman Prakash Khatri for a one-time
recapture of 219,000 unused immigrant visas gathering dust from INS/USCIS inaction
during the 1994-2006 period. 163

11. Allow extension of H-1B status for both spouses beyond the six-year limit when either
spouse is the beneficiary of an immigrant petition or labor certification.

12. Allow alien beneficiary to exercise ownership over labor certification and move to a
same or similar job with current or third party employer without a current priority date
180 days after the filing of an approved immigrant visa petition.

When has so much come from so little? We do not say that CIR can be cast aside for there are
many people who will never be the beneficiary of an I-140 or I-130 petition. Ours is a far more modest
proposal. We seek only to broaden the debate and widen the national conversation. Now is the time for
what Franklin Roosevelt rightly called “persistent, bold experimentation.” 164 We must not wait for
Congress to act. However important CIR remains, it is not the only way. Even if we get CIR, our ideas
retain their relevance. Let us not forget that, in the long run, CIR will result in more, not less, pressure
on family-based immigrant quotas, unless Congress relaxes current limits. Indeed, this is precisely what
happened with IRCA. 165 So long as the needs of the larger economy exceed the capacity of the quotas
to respond, a way must be found to bridge the gap. Future administrations will still need the flexibility
we seek to give them, either to facilitate the acceptance of adjustment applications or to extend parole
and EAD to persons who may be left out under a future priority date system. CIR is a short-term fix for
an immediate problem; our ideas provide the mechanism for a more fundamental realignment. This
cannot happen without what F. Scott Fitzgerald rightly called “a willingness of the heart.” 166 To make
possible this good work, those who administer the system and those who use it must come to see our
national immigration framework in an altogether new and different way, not as a problem to be
controlled but as an asset to be developed, a potential to be realized, a promise that is ours to keep. This
is a challenge not just for Congress but for all of us. Many times, both today and in the not too distant
past, change has come not through a modification of the INA but as a result of agency regulation,
adjudication and interpretation. In this time, at this place, the ability and willingness of relevant federal
agencies to shape the immigration law in accord with the challenges of today and tomorrow is a
necessary and proper manifestation of our societal complexity. Such initiative should not be undertaken
nor understood as a replacement for legislative action but, rather, as a tactical blueprint to outline
policies and procedures that can elicit judicial deference and allow for subsequent congressional
ratification. As one people, one nation, we must embrace a sustained commitment designed to honor
our historic ideals and maximize our competitiveness in the global marketplace. For those who think

163
See supra n. 17.
164
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, 1 THE PUBLIC PAPERS AND ADDRESSES OF FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: ADDRESS AT OGLETHORPE
UNIVERSITY 639 (Random House 1938).
165
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99-603, 100 Stat. 3359 (1986).
166
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, THE CRACK-UP (Edmund Wilson ed., New Directions 2009) (1945).

49
that the time for true reform has come and gone, we offer the hope of which Alfred, Lord Tennyson
wrote in Ulysses: “Come my friends, ‘tis not too late to seek a newer world.” 167

March 25, 2010 168

167
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, POETICAL WORKS: TENNYSON: ULYSSES lines 56-57 (Wordsworth 1998) (1842).
168
The authors wish to extend special thanks to Charles Oppenheim, Chief, Immigrant Control and Reporting Division, Visa
Services Office, United States Department of State for patiently answering questions regarding the operation of the
numerical control process, to David Isaacson for showing how much flexibility there is within the existing INA and always
being willing to be around to bounce off ideas at any time of the day or night, and to Quynh Nguyen for her refreshingly
original insights that teach us how to plan for the future. Along with Ted Ruthizer and Richard Steel, these are the real
experts; the mistakes are ours. Finally, we offer our heartfelt thanks to Marcello Martinez Zambonino, a law student at New
York Law School and extern at Cyrus D. Mehta & Associates, PLLC during Spring 2010 (as well as a Blue Book wizard!),
for his tireless efforts in editing this article.

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