Valpo Wins Big in Seventh Circuit
Professor Geoffry Heeren (Valparaiso) and law student Yolanda Ruiz earned a big win in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Margulis v. Holder. The Seventh Circuit, in an opinion by the famed Judge Richard Posner, chastised the Board of Immigration Appeals for ignoring precedent and critized the the U.S. government’s defense of the BIA:
“The Board can reexamine, and if it wants overrule, a precedent, but it didn’t do that in this case. It ignored it. This is not permissible. An agency must give reasons for abandoning a precedent. … The citation of the case by the Board is incomprehensible, and the government’s argument in its brief . . . is nonsense. The Board has not provided a rational basis for its decision. The petition for review is therefore granted and the case returned to the Board for further proceedings.”
Judge Posner frequently criticizings BIA rulings.
The case involved a waiver of inadmissibility to return to the United States.
KJ