Facts of the Case

Provided by Oyez

In 2014, Amina Bouarfa, a U.S. citizen, submitted Form I-130 to petition for her husband, Ala’a Hamayel, to be classified as her immediate relative under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Secretary approved the petition in 2015 but later notified Bouarfa of an intent to revoke the approval, stating that Hamayel had entered into a previous marriage solely to evade immigration laws. Despite Bouarfa’s response, the Secretary revoked the approval, and Bouarfa’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals was unsuccessful.

Bouarfa sued in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, challenging the officials’ actions as arbitrary and capricious. The Secretary and Director moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the revocation decision was unreviewable because it was a discretionary action. The district court granted the motion, concluding that while the action was based on nondiscretionary criteria, the action itself was discretionary and thus that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to review the decision. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.

Questions

  1. May a visa petitioner obtain judicial review when an approved petition is revoked on the basis of nondiscretionary criteria?

Conclusions

  1. Revocation of an approved visa petition under 8 U.S.C. §1155 based on a sham-marriage determination by the Secretary of Homeland Security is the kind of discretionary decision that falls within the purview of §1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), which strips federal courts of jurisdiction to review certain actions “in the discretion of” the agency. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored the unanimous opinion of the Court.

    The text of 8 U.S.C. §1155 grants discretion to the Secretary by using the word “may” and allowing revocation “at any time” for whatever the Secretary “deems to be good and sufficient cause.” This broad grant of authority is similar to other statutes the Court has found to commit decisions to agency discretion. The statutory context reinforces this interpretation, as neighboring provisions that are undoubtedly discretionary actually impose more constraints on the agency's discretion than §1155 does.

    This discretionary authority means the Secretary can choose whether to revoke an approval even after discovering it was erroneously granted, including in cases involving sham marriages. Nothing in the statute’s text or context requires automatic revocation in such situations. The fact that the agency consistently chooses to revoke approvals after finding sham marriages does not transform this discretionary power into a mandatory duty. Congress explicitly made judicial review dependent on whether legislation makes the decision discretionary, not on agency practice. While denied visa petitions based on sham marriage determinations can be reviewed in court, Congress intentionally provided different procedural protections for discretionary relief like revocations.