Latest Case: Huashan Zhang v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (Immigration Law)

Options for Biden’s Supreme Court Reform Commission

MICHAEL C. DORF

Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf explores several options that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden should consider if he wins the election and fulfills his proposal of convening a bipartisan commission of constitutional scholars to study and recommend court reforms. Dorf discusses the benefits and limitations of each option and describes how Congress and a President Biden could implement meaningful court reform that could withstand review by the Supreme Court itself.

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Huashan Zhang v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

Docket: 19-5021

Opinion Date: October 27, 2020

Judge: Katsas

Areas of Law: Immigration Law

The district court correctly concluded that loan proceeds qualify as cash, not indebtedness, under the EB-5 visa program. The DC Circuit held that the text, structure, and regulatory context show that the term "cash," as used in 8 C.F.R. 204.6(e), unambiguously includes the proceeds of third-party loans. Because the loan proceeds qualify as cash, the court affirmed the district court's decision affording relief to a class of foreign investors denied visas under a contrary interpretation adopted and announced by the government in 2015. The court need not consider whether USCIS's interpretation of its own regulations in an April 2015 conference call amounted to an improperly promulgated legislative rule or something less binding. Furthermore, the court need not consider whether those statements amounted to an interpretive rule or to non-final agency action. Regardless of how the comments are characterized, the court affirmed the district court's conclusion that they are inconsistent with the regulation and thus can have no legal effect. Finally, the court held that the district court did not improperly sweep into the class investors whose challenges to their visa denials are time-barred.