dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Supreme Court Shuts Immigration Loophole on Sham Marriages

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/supreme-court-immigration-sham-marriages/2024/12/10/id/1191189/

The Supreme Court closed a major immigration loophole Tuesday by ruling that the Department of Homeland Security Secretary has discretion to revoke visa restrictions without judicial review.

In a 12-page unanimous decision written by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court ruled in Bouarfa v. Mayorkas that Congress granted under 8 U.S.C. §1154(b) the DHS Secretary "broad authority to revoke an approved visa petition at any time, for what he deems to be good and sufficient cause." Such a revocation, Jackson wrote, is thus "in the discretion of " the agency and Section 1252 of the Immigration and Nationality Act "bars judicial review of the Secretary's revocation."

The case involves Amina Bouarfa, a U.S. citizen with three children, who married Ala'a Hamayel, a Palestinian national, in 2011. According to court records, Bouarfa sought permission for her husband to remain in the U.S. permanently, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved her petition in 2015.

But two years later, the agency notified the couple it planned to revoke Hamayel's visa after uncovering evidence that he allegedly entered into a previous "sham" marriage to evade immigration laws. The agency said had it known of such information when it received Bouarfa's petition, it would have denied it. Sham marriages permanently bar individuals from remaining legally in the country.

A federal district court in Florida dismissed her appeal, concluding, like the Supreme Court did, that revoking a petition for a visa is purely discretionary by immigration officials, which Congress has stripped courts of the power to review, SCOTUSBlog reported.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed that decision, ruling that federal officials can revoke their approval of a petition at any time "for good and sufficient cause." Even if a petition should have originally been denied for a nondiscretionary reason, the 11th Circuit ruled, a decision to revoke it later is an exercise of discretion – one that federal courts cannot review.

Because the initial determination could be reviewed by courts, but the revocation couldn't, it didn't matter, Jackson wrote. Discretion "is a two-way street," she wrote, meaning that once DHS was made aware of the sham marriage after the pre-approval, it "can revoke that approval" or "let the error stand."

"Congress created 'room for mercy'" and courts can't second-guess that, Jackson wrote.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in October.

Supreme Court May Limit Environmental Reviews in Railway Fight

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/supreme-court-environmental-reviews/2024/12/10/id/1191158/

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared inclined on Tuesday to limit the extent to which federal agencies must review the environmental impact of projects they regulate in a dispute over a proposed railway in Utah meant to carry crude oil that was challenged by environmental groups and a Colorado county.

The court heard arguments in an appeal by a coalition of seven Utah counties and an infrastructure investment group of a lower court's decision that halted the project and faulted the environmental impact statement issued by a federal body called the Surface Transportation Board in approving the railway.

The counties are seeking to construct an 88-mile railway line in northeastern Utah to connect the sparsely populated Uinta Basin region to an existing freight rail network that would be used primarily to transport waxy crude oil.

Conservative and liberal justices asked questions that indicated the lower court might have overreached in concluding that the board failed to adequately investigate the railway's impacts on vegetation and wildlife in the basin and air quality in Gulf Coast communities where it would be refined.

The case tests the scope of environmental impact studies that federal agencies must conduct under a U.S. law called the National Environmental Policy Act, enacted in 1970 to prevent environmental harms that might result from major projects. The law mandates that agencies examine a project's "reasonably foreseeable" effects.

The board, which has regulatory authority over new railroad lines, issued an environmental impact statement and approved the coalition's proposal in 2021.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told William Jay, a lawyer for the challengers, that the board would not have the power to prevent oil from being transported on the railway since it regulates railroads, not cargo.

"If they can't say what gets carried, then what difference does it make that the refinery is putting out environmental effects, to their decision as to whether or not to approve this?" Jackson asked.

Jay said it matters because one of the things the law at issue requires agencies to do "is to look at the foreseeable consequences, even when they cannot be mitigated."

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed concern that judicial second-guessing has prompted agencies to carry out sprawling environmental reviews.

"By the courts taking an overly aggressive role it's, in turn, created an incentive for the agencies to do 3,000-page … environmental impact statements," Kavanaugh told Edwin Kneedler, a Justice Department lawyer, who agreed.

Democratic President Joe Biden's administration backed the railway coalition in the case, as did Utah.

Environmental reviews that are too vast can add years to the regulatory timeline, risking a project's viability and future infrastructure development, according to companies and business trade groups.

"Infrastructure requires investment, and for investors time is money. Project opponents, by contrast, know that time is on their side and a remand just for a little more process can kill a project," Paul Clement, a lawyer for the coalition, told the justices.

Some justices seemed concerned that the legal test proposed by Clement for determining the scope of environmental review could be too narrow, given that an action could have effects beyond the local confines of a project.

Clement urged the court to rule that an agency's review need only to account for potential impacts that might occur close in time and geography to a proposed project, and that do not fall under the regulatory authority of another agency.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Clement: "You want absolute rules that make no sense."

Jackson said the test "feels to me to be unmoored" from the purposes of the environmental review law.

The Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups sued over the board's decision to allow the project, as did Eagle County, Colorado, noting that the project would increase train traffic in its region and double traffic on an existing rail line along the Colorado River.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the challengers in 2023.

Fifteen other states supported the challengers. Colorado said its economy relies on outdoor recreation, and that the project raises the risk of leaks, spills or rail car accidents near the Colorado River's headwaters. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch recused himself from the case after some Democrat lawmakers urged his withdrawal because businessman Philip Anschutz, his former legal client, has a financial interest in its outcome.

A ruling in the case is expected by the end of June.