Kucana v. Holder

Kucana v. Holder, 558 U.S. 233 (2010), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the statute that makes certain discretionary determinations of the attorney general immune to judicial review does not allow the attorney general to declare determinations discretionary and immune to review via regulations.^[1][2]

Kucana v. Holder
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided January 20, 2010
Full case name	Kucana v. Holder
Citations	558 U.S. 233 (more)
Holding
The statute that makes certain discretionary determinations of the Attorney General immune to judicial review does not allow the Attorney General to declare determinations discretionary and immune to review via regulations.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor
Case opinions
Majority	Ginsberg, joined by Roberts, Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, Sotomayor
Concurrence	Alito
Laws applied
8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii)

Statute

The case involved the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 which amended the Immigration and Nationality Act. The changes made by IIRIRA restricted judicial review of the Attorney General's actions "the authority for which is specified under this subchapter to be in the discretion of the Attorney General".

Background

Kucana applied to reopen his removal case so he could present new evidence for his claim of asylum. He was denied by an Immigration Judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Decision

Then Solicitor General Elena Kagan argued the case for the United States government. She argued that the jurisdictional bar of IIRIRA applied for an agency regulation that delegated, to the Board of Immigration Appeals, the authority to deny a motion to reopen a removal proceeding. The Court disagreed, and ruled that the IIRIRA's statutory language barred judicial review only for decisions made discretionary by statute.

See also

• Statutory construction