Amponsah v. Holder

BIA’s blanket rule against recognizing states’ nunc pro tunc adoption decrees was an unreasonable and impermissible construction of 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1101(b)(1), which defines "child," for the purposes of adjustment of status, as including an immigrant adopted before his or her 16th birthday. A reasonable construction of the statute requires case-by-case consideration of such adoption decrees. BIA’s determination that alien engaged in marriage fraud violated her due process rights where government neither raised the question of marriage fraud nor asserted it as a basis for pretermitting alien’s adjustment of status application; the immigration judge in that proceeding made no finding that her marriage was fraudulent; and BIA made the determination solely by taking administrative notice of a prior decision in which it denied I-130 spousal visa petition filed by her husband on her behalf, based on a finding that the marriage was a sham.
     Amponsah v. Holder - filed March 22, 2013
     Cite as 11-71311

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