CA9, En Banc, on "At The Time of Application for Admission" - Torres v. Barr

Torres v. Barr

"We must construe the meaning of the phrase “at the time of application for admission.” We conclude that the phrase refers to the particular point in time when a noncitizen submits an application to physically enter into the United States. ... [I]nadmissibility must be measured at the point in time that an immigrant actually submits an application for entry into the United States. ...  [W]e grant Torres’s petition for review to the extent the BIA determined that she was removable “as an intending immigrant without a . . . valid entry document” under § 1182(a)(7). ... Torres asks us to remand her case to the agency to determine whether United States Citizenship and Immigration Services should grant her application for parole-in-place ... We therefore grant in part and deny in part the petition for review, and remand to the agency for a determination in the first instance whether Torres was removable under the second ground originally charged in the Notice to Appear— removability as “[a]n alien present in the United States without being admitted or paroled” under § 1182(a)(6). The Notice to Appear issued on July 22, 2010, within the two-year period during which Congress provided that “no alien who is lawfully present in the Commonwealth pursuant to the immigrant laws of the Commonwealth [on the effective date]” shall be removed for a violation of § 1182(a)(6). The BIA should, on remand, address the question whether Torres was “lawfully present” in the CNMI under CNMI law, and thus not removable under § 1182(a)(6)."

[Hats off to Stephen Carl Woodruff (argued), Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands; Janet H. King, King Law Offices, Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands; Daniel S. Volchok, Alex Hemmer, and Rebecca M. Lee, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington, D.C.; for Petitioner, and Charles Roth, National Immigrant Justice Center, Chicago, Illinois, for Amici Curiae Organizations Assisting Survivors of Domestic Violence!]