Wilkinson v. Garland, Att'y Gen. (22-666)
argument 22-666Wilkinson v. Garland, Att'y Gen.
Supreme Court of the United States
1h 30m
8 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 7 days ago
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Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the central legal issue in Wilkinson v. Garland regarding immigration relief?
We will hear argument next in case 22666, Wilkinson v. Garland. Ms. Santos?
Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, noncitizens who have lived here for 10 years, have good moral character and a clean record, can seek immigration relief if their removal will cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a U.S. family member. If the agency concludes that the facts don't satisfy that standard, the question here is whether courts have the power to review that decision. They do. The INA limits review of denials of discretionary relief, but it permits review of questions of law. And as this Court held in Guerrero-Lasprilla, the statutory term questions of law includes the application of legal standards to settled facts. Even the Board agrees that exceptional and extremely unusual hardship is a legal standard.
So under Guerrero-Lasprilla, the agency's application of that standard is reviewable. The government argues that Guerrero-Lasprilla's holding applies only to common law standards and offers a different test for statutory standards. And while jurisdictional tests are supposed to be simple, the government's fashioned an elaborate and amorphous framework that won't provide clear answers. First, courts should see whether the standard has a common law origin. If so, the government suggests it's probably reviewable, but doesn't commit either way. Next, courts should scour current and prior versions of the statute for any hint that Congress wanted the agency to have discretion, even if it later deleted the discretion-conferring language.
If that doesn't somehow answer the question, courts should ask whether the standard requires evaluation and fact weighing. They should then traipse through any version of the U.S. Code that has ever existed looking for similarly worded standards and and see if courts have ever labeled those discretionary. Taking these factors together, courts can then deem the standard a reviewable mixed question or an unreviewable discretionary one. It would be bad enough if the government were urging this test only for cancellation, but courts would have to apply it to dozens of INA standards. including whether a non-citizen has been rehabilitated, subjected to extreme cruelty, or violated the terms of a visa. I tried making a complete list last week and stopped count at 75.
In other words, the government's test promises a never-ending supply of judicial review cases for this Court's merits docket. I welcome the Court's questions.
We're allowed to certainly review questions of law. And, of course, the Court said it includes mixed questions of law. But in some of these cases, if we're looking at fact-finding, I think we agree that's not revealable. On the other hand, if we're looking at legal standards, that is revealable as they're applied to these facts. How does that work in your case? I didn't understand how it would work in some of the earlier cases. But if you could walk through how it would work here, how we would separate a review of a legal standard from a review of the facts in a case involving mixed questions of fact and law.
Happy to walk you through that, Your Honor. So here we don't think that the question of whether something is a challenge to a fact-finding would really come up because the immigration judge credited all of the testimony and evidence that Mr. Wilkinson provided. But in a typical case, what would happen is a court would open up the blue brief, see if there are any challenges to findings of fact made by the I.J., And if so, the court wouldn't review any of those. And if the only challenge is to the IJ's or the BIA's ultimate determination that the standard wasn't satisfied, that would be reviewable. So here, for example, Your Honor, our submission before the Third Circuit on remand would be that while the IJ credited all of the facts and evidence, and while the IJ recited the right legal standard in a boilerplate section of its decision—
it then, when applying the standard, disregarded all of the facts and factors that render this case exceptional and extremely unusual.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central legal issue in Wilkinson v. Garland regarding immigration relief?
0:00–11:57
2
How do the parties argue whether the agency’s “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” standard is reviewable?
11:57–24:31
3
What distinction do the Justices draw between mixed questions of law‑and‑fact and purely factual findings?
24:31–34:42
4
Which standard of review (de novo, clear‑error, or abuse of discretion) should apply to the hardship determination?
34:42–45:19
5
How does the Court interpret the limited‑review provision of §1252A‑B‑D in relation to discretionary judgments?
45:19–54:41
6
What role does statutory construction (text, history, precedent) play in deciding reviewability?
54:41–1:03:26
7
Why do the Justices worry that a broad reading of Guerrero‑Lasprilla could open the floodgates to litigation?
1:03:26–1:15:10
8
What are the parties’ final arguments and how might the Court’s decision affect future immigration cases?
1:15:10–1:30:21