INS and EOIR Issue Instructions Regarding Family Members of NACARA Applicants

IMMIGRATION LAW & POLICY

NACARA

INS AND EOIR ISSUE INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING FAMILY MEMBERS OF NACARA APPLICANTS
Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 12, No. 4, June 17, 1998

Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy and Immigration and Naturalization Service General Counsel Paul Virtue each have issued instructions about processing cases involving family members of persons who are eligible for suspension of deportation or special cancellation of removal under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997 (NACARA). Under the statute, spouses and minor children of individuals who are granted suspension or cancellation under the NACARA are eligible to apply for this relief. Adult sons and daughters are also eligible, provided they entered the U.S. on or before Oct. 1, 1990.

Both memos explain that the INS is in the process of developing procedures that will allow asylum officers to adjudicate NACARA suspension and cancellation cases for asylum applicants who are NACARA-eligible. Generally, NACARA-eligible individuals who currently have deportation or removal proceedings pending will have their NACARA applications adjudicated in those proceedings, while individuals with asylum applications pending before the INS will be permitted to submit NACARA applications to the asylum office. However, in cases where a NACARA dependent is in proceedings but the NACARA principal is eligible to apply to the INS, the dependents should also be able to apply to the INS. Since the procedure to allow individuals to apply for NACARA suspension or cancellation with the INS has not yet been established, the memos state that immigration judges should continue cases of NACARA dependents to master calendar hearings in April 1999.

The memos state that to have their cases continued dependents must prove their relationship to the NACARA-eligible principal alien. They also must establish that this person is NACARA-eligible and has an asylum case pending before the INS. Adult sons and daughters also must establish that they entered the U.S. on or before Oct. 1, 1990.

At the master calendar hearing in April 1999, cases of dependents would be administratively closed if the principal has by then filed a NACARA suspension or cancellation application.

[Memoranda of Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy and INS General Counsel Paul Virtue, reprinted at 75 Interpreter Releases 746–52 (May 22, 1998).]