On July 16, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled to reject the Department of Justice’s claim that “the government has the right to review the status of any green card holder at any time”, and clearly determined that this position violated the constitutional due process principle and constituted administrative overreach.
The party in the case is Mohammed al-Qatanani, a Palestinian imam in New Jersey. He was involved in an immigration status dispute for nearly two decades because he was accused of having links with Hamas.
The immigration judge ruled in favor of his application twice in 2008 and 2020, finding that there was no evidence that he was involved in a terrorist organization and approving his green card application.
However, nearly a year after the second ruling in 2020, the Immigration Appeals Board (BIA) under the Department of Justice cited the “self-certification” procedure to revoke the previous ruling and take back his green card.
After al-Qatanani appealed, the Department of Justice not only defended the BIA’s revocation decision, but also further claimed that all green card identities, as long as they are not “self-certified” by the BIA, are not final decisions, so the government has the right to review or even revoke green cards “at any time”. During the court debate, the Justice Department also hinted that this power could even extend to naturalized U.S. citizens.
The Justice Department also cited an internal agency rule to try to bypass the 30-day appeal deadline set by Congress, claiming that the BIA has “unlimited time” to initiate revocation proceedings.
Judge Arianna Freeman pointed out in her opinion: “The impact of this claim is extraordinary. It is equivalent to allowing the BIA to turn the final green card status into a temporary status that can be revoked at any time without paying attention to the procedural guarantees granted by Congress.” She criticized the government’s logic for “fundamentally violating the basic concept of separation of powers.”
The court ruled: Because the Justice Department did not appeal within the statutory 30 days, the immigration judge’s order granting Catanani a green card in April 2020 has become a legal final decision and cannot be revoked.
