Doris Amponsah v. Eric Holder, Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Doris Amponsah Apori petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) decision upholding the immigration judge’s (IJ) pretermission of her adjustment of status application. We grant the petition for review and remand to the BIA.

1. In her petition for review, Apori argued the BIA’s blanket rule against recognizing state courts’ nunc pro tunc adoption decrees, see Matter of Cariaga, 15 I. & N. Dec. 716 (BIA 1976), constituted an impermissible construction of 8 U.S.C. § 1101 (b)(1)(E) under Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 843 , 104 S.Ct. 2778 , 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). In a published opinion, we agreed with that argument. See Amponsah v. Holder, 709 F.3d 1318 (9th Cir.2013). After we issued our opinion, however, the government filed a petition for panel rehearing, advising us the BIA was considering whether to modify or overrule Matter of Cariaga in two pending cases. In light of that information, we issued an order withdrawing our opinion, and withdrawing submission pending the BIA’s resolution of those pending cases. See Amponsah v. Holder, 736 F.3d 1172 (9th Cir.2013). In July 2015, the BIA decided one of…